THE DAILY BRIEFING

VETERAN EXIT

A shake-up in Tesco’s overseas business will see Trevor Masters, chief executive of Tesco International, leave after 40 years.

Masters, who started at the grocer as a teenage management trainee, will be replaced by Tony Hoggett as chief executive of Asia, and Matt Simister, who takes the same role in Central Europe.

TOP TECH

The UK has jumped up the rankings of the most promising markets for technology breakthroughs. Despite uncertainty over Brexit, the UK rose from seventh to fourth, according to KPMG’s global technology innovation report. It is behind the US, China and India.

TRAINEES HIRED

Openreach is hiring 1,500 trainees. The business, which operates the UK’s broadband infrastructure network and is owned by BT, will start by taking on 119 recruits in April.

BT has agreed with Ofcom to split off Openreach into a separate company following pressure from rivals.

CYPRUS CONTRACT

Defence firm Carillion has won a £90m contract to design and build a communications centre in Cyprus for the Ministry of Defence.

BREXIT BARRIER

Tariff barriers would deter small firms from selling their products to Europe, a report claimed. The Federation of Small Businesses said 27pc of small firms would be much less likely to trade with the EU should any tariff – no matter how low – be introduced.

SWEDE DEAL

Rolls- Royce is developing technology to help ferry crews in Sweden better understand what is going on around them.

The engineer will develop an ‘intelligence awareness system’ for Stena line AB using sensors and radar to feed information to crew.

CUT WARNINGS

Food workers’ union GMB has urged Unilever investors to stop any drastic costcutting at the firm. It followed speculation Unilever was drawing up plans to sell its Flora and Stork spreads business to fend off another takeover approach after Kraft Heinz’s recent failed £115bn bid. Unilever declined to comment.

RULE BREAKS

Brussels rules which insurers claim are stifling UK investments could be tweaked by the Bank of England. Many claim the Solvency II directives on how much cash firms must keep to guard against going bust are expensive and over-complicated. The Bank’s deputy governor Sam Woods admitted there was room for improvement.