THE DAILY BRIEFING
■ GAMBLING GROWTH Online gambling firm GVC Holdings raked in £2.3m a day from punters during the three months to September 30, up 10pc from a year earlier. Its brands include Foxy Bingo and Partypoker and this was its highest growth since buying rival Bwin. party for £1.1bn in 2016. ■ CITI MOVE US lender Citigroup is setting up a small office in Luxembourg for private banking clients after Brexit.
The move will create 150 new jobs at most – a fraction of its 9,000 employees in Britain. ■ LENDER START- UP Two exbankers from small lender Shawbrook, Marc Sefton and Kieran McSweeney, are setting up a new investment company, Aquilam Cap
ital, which will lend to small and medium-sized businesses. ■ SOLAR SALE Investment manager Foresight Solar Fund has agreed to buy three solar farms in Australia from Canadian Solar.
It raises the group’s global solar portfolio to 1.2GW. ■ FORD FACTORY Car maker Ford has started making its new Eco Sport small SUV in Romania.
It had been importing the car from India but has made the £170m investment to meet rising demand in Europe, also creating 1,700 jobs. ■ AIRBUS SWOOP Aircraft maker Airbus has bought the remaining stake it did not own in Malaysian repair centre Sepang Aircraft Engineering, as it tries to grow in the Asia Pacific region. ■ SPANISH EXPANSION Stem cell insurance firm Widecells is expanding into Spain. The firm covers the cost of treatment for families who have stored stem cells from umbilical cord blood. ■ WIZZ BIZ Hungarian budget airline Wizz Air has set up a company, named Wizz Air UK, to ensure flights between Britain and the EU can continue after Brexit if no aviation deal is reached . ■ BANKERS’ BONANZA Investment bankers at JP Morgan took home an average £34,000 each in the three months to September 30 – down from £38,500 in the same period last year. ■ ROEMER ROAMS The banker who ensures Barclays staff behave themselves, compliance head Michael Roemer, is off to scandal-hit US lender Wells Fargo, where staff created millions of fake accounts.