Marketing Newscast

(Edited 31 January 2025)

Some three million people have yet to file their online self-assessment tax return, despite today being the deadline to do so. Failure to file by midnight means risking a £100 fine which will increase by £10 a day after three months, up to a maximum of £900, with further penalties after six months and a year, including added interest. Around 8.6m people have declared their tax for 2023-24,. HMRC says.

The number of mortgages approved by UK lenders rose unexpectedly in December, according to new data from The Bank of England. 66,500 mortgages were approved last month, up from 66,100 approvals in November, in a rise that has been attributed to aa rush before property Stamp Duty hikes come into force from 1^st April. Then, the tax rate for a primary residence bought for between £125,001 and £250,00 increases from 0% to 2%. First-time buyers will also have to start paying stamp duty on purchases above £300,000, down from the current £425,000 threshold. Those who buy an additional property also face a tax hike, as a new 7% levy will apply to homes costing between £125,001 to £250,000.

Business confidence dropped again in January, according to Lloyds’ Business Barometer, marking the fourth fall in five months. Overall business confidence dipped two points to 37%, with just over half of businesses positive about their own trading prospects and just under a quarter positive about the wider economy. Businesses’ optimism about the economy meanwhile, fell seven points to 24%. However, three fifths of companies were more optimistic about their output over the next 12 months, with only 9% less positive and anticipating less activity.

A row is brewing over who will pay for the new third runway at Heathrow Airport. On Monday, Chancellor Rachel Reeves backed the project, expected to cost £20bn, which Heathrow wants to recoup through 15 years’ charges on travellers. Based on the airport’s maximum capacity of 100m people a year, this would equate to a levy of about £15 per trip, The Telegraph says. However, this is being resisted by British Airways (BA) and Virgin Atlantic, who question why their passengers should bankroll a runway that would mainly benefit rival airlines seeking to increase their operations at Heathrow. The two airlines also said the runway should go ahead only if the current charging model - under which the Civil Aviation Authority set fees for airlines every five years - is scrapped. The continuation of the existing charging regime with further charges on top would be unacceptable, they said. Virgin CEO Shai Weiss said operating from Heathrow was already “eye-wateringly” expensive: “The current economic regulatory model for Heathrow is not fit for purpose. It enabled Heathrow to levy the highest passenger charges in the world while providing a sub-par service,” he told the newspaper, while a Virgin spokesman added that the charges won’t affect the luxury market or business traffic, but will “hit the family of four from Middlesborough who want to go to Disneyland”. Jonathan Sullivan, corporate development chief at BA parent International Airlines Group (IAG), welcomed the Chancellor’s recognition of the role of aviation in growing the economy, but said: “We don’t need tweaks to the regulatory system but fundamental reform.”

Meanwhile, Wizz Air CEO József Váradi has said he wants to turn Luton Airport into a major hub if it gets Government approval in April to lift capacity from 18m to 32m travellers a year. Hungarian airline Wizz is already the biggest carrier at Luton, which ranks as the airline’s third-biggest hub after its base in Budapest and neighbouring Romanian capital Bucharest.

Greencore, Britain’s largest sandwich making company, says it is in talks with supermarkets about the increased costs it is facing because of the hike in Employer National Insurance Contributions and a higher minimum wage bill landing in April. In an investor update yesterday, the FTSE 250 listed firm said it “continues to face an unprecedented labour cost challenge” because of the rise. “The nature of our business is labour-intensive, and the Group has been working hard to offset this cost, however given the scale of the challenge, we are also engaging in constructive dialogue with our customers to help mitigate these costs,” it said. Headquartered in Dublin, Greencore runs 16 factories across the UK, employing around 13,300 people. Its customers include Marks & Spencer, Sainsbury’s, Morrisons and Aldi. It made 748m sandwiches and other food-to-go products last year, as well as 125m ready meals, 204m bottles of cooking sauces and dips.

John Lewis and Waitrose missed their Christmas sales’ targets according to reports from the Daily Telegraph. The employee-owned John Lewis Partnership (JLP) blamed “lower consumer confidence and weaker than expected market confidence” for trading in the month to 21^st December.

Metro Bank has confirmed it is in talks to sell its consumer loan portfolio as part of a wider plan to refocus on commercial lending. "This potential transaction further supports Metro Bank's strategic shift towards SME (small and medium enterprises), commercial and corporate lending," it said, adding: "Metro Bank continues to seek opportunities to optimise its balance sheet, in particular given the strong growth the bank has seen in new commercial and corporate lending." It is not known who Metro is in talks with.

Smiths Group has announced plans to sell off Smiths Interconnect and separate Smiths Detection via a demerger or sale. The FTSE 100 engineering group said the move would enable it to double down on its John Crane and Flex-Tex businesses, unlocking “significant value” and enhancing returns to shareholders. Earlier this month, US activist investor Engine Capital urged the conglomerate to follow other industrial companies by breaking up its four businesses.

The Daily Mail is axing dozens of jobs in a merger with its digital counterpart MailOnline. In an update to staff yesterday, editor-in-chief Ted Verity and MailOnline Publisher and CEO Danny Groom said the print and online departments will be fully combined, meaning in addition to redundancies, some staff may see changes in their working patterns, job titles, line manager or duties. No figure on the job losses was given, but media reports suggest they will number between 20 and 100.

RedBird IMI, the Abu Dhabi fund that has been banned from taking control of The Telegraph, is eyeing a merger with All3Media and ITV studios, according to Reuters. All3Media produces current hit show The Traitors, and was acquired by RedBird IMI for £1.2bn last year. The talks are at an early stage and may not lead to any transaction, the report said.

The European Central Bank (ECB) cut its interest rate yesterday by a quarter-point, to 2.75%, its lowest level since early 2023.

And finally… Meta has paid Donald Trump $25m (£20m) to settle a suit he filed against it and owner Mark Zuckerberg after it banned his accounts on Facebook and Instagram in 2021 following the attack on the US Capitol in January that year. “We believe the risks of allowing the President to continue to use our service during this period are simply too great”, Zuckerberg claimed at the time, but lifted the restrictions in July 2024 in the run-up to the presidential elections. Trump has also sued YouTube, X and Google, although the latter case was dropped.