THE DAILY BRIEFING
RAPID DELIVERY Supermarket Tesco has launched a one-hour delivery service in London allowing customers to order up to 20 food items on the Tesco Now app for £7.99.
COSMETIC DEAL The £880m deal to sell The Body Shop to Brazilian giant Natura has been signed by current owner L’Oreal.
LOSSES UP One-off costs caused losses to widen for school equipment supplier Findel. The online retailer sank £59.4m into the red in the year to April, significantly worse than a £1.7m loss the previous year.
BANK MERGER Spanish bank Bankia is buying rival Banco Mare Nostrum to create the country’s fourth- biggest lender, in a deal worth around £725m.
TOSHIBA WAR US data firm Western Digital Corp has increased its offer for Toshiba’s flash memory operation to stop it signing a deal with a group led by Japanese investors.
CARDS BOOST Greetings card maker IG Design has announced a 31pc boost in annual revenue, from £237m to £311m, and a 29pc boost in profit, from £13.5m to £17.5m.
CAR RACE Train and bus operator First Group is testing self-driving cars in a race to be the first on the roads in the US.
OIL PROFITS Embattled oilfield services company Petrofac expects a profit of between £106m and £113m during the first half of the year.
BANK SPLURGE German lender Deutsche Bank has bought two office buildings on London’s Southbank for £310m, in a sign of confidence in the post-Brexit capital.
LLOYD’S CUTS Insurance market Lloyd’s of London plans to cut around 10pc of its 750- strong UK workforce as it sets up an EU subsidiary in Brussels.
TAX BATTLE The number of taxpayers challenging decisions by HM Revenue & Customs is reportedly up 20pc from a year ago.
FASHION HUB Online fashion firm Net-A-Porter is opening a tech hub in White City, west London, creating 100 jobs. It is also partnering with Imperial College London to teach children the basics of coding.
TAKEOVER GO-AHEAD 21st Century Fox’s proposed £11.7bn takeover of Sky has been approved by Ireland, following in the footsteps of Austria, Germany, and Italy.