THE DAILY BRIEFING

■ PRODUCTION UP

Oil and gas firm Ithaca Energy says it produced 13,909 barrels of oil per day last year – about 49pc more than the previous year – due to the start-up of production from its Stella field. The firm was bought by Israel’s Delek group last year for about £247m.

■ GOLD GROWS

russia-focused gold miner Petropavlovsk says sales for 2017 rose 10pc, with the average price achieved up 3pc to £891.

■ ACCOUNT LAUNCH

The Nationwide building society is planning to launch a current account for small businesses. It hopes to secure up to £50m from a fund being set up by rival royal Bank of Scotland to boost competition in the market.

The mutual’s boss, Joe Garner, said it is the only player plotting to enter the market which has the scale to compete with established high Street firms.

■ SPIN-OFF PLAN

The Londonlisted owner of the Bank of Georgia is to spin off its investment business and create two firms in the FTSe 250.

The firm, BGeO, runs Georgia’s largest retail bank with 2.3m customers and a wealth management arm, but is breaking itself up. Shares fell 0.3pc, or 12p, to 3558p.

■ CARS BACKING

a start-up which helps drivers buy and sell used cars online has been handed £100m by Citigroup. Oodle lets motorists search for a car and arrange financing through its website.

■ HACKING THREAT

Banks in Switzerland must do more to protect themselves against cyberattacks, the country’s watchdog

Finma claims. It says there is a growing threat from hackers and even though the majority of banks are prepared for the dangers, Switzerland is lagging behind other finance centres.

■ CARTOONS IPO

China’s most popular streaming website for socalled ‘anime’ cartoons is set to go public with a £340m initial public offering. Bilibili will sell 42m shares in the US, according to Bloomberg.

The Shanghai-based website had almost 72m monthly users at the end of last year.

■ SNOW HAVOC

Sales at supermarket Waitrose fell by 3.4pc in the week to March 24 as the supermarket was hit by snow across the UK.

Purchases of hot drinks and canned soups shot up 7pc and 19pc respectively, while sales of medicines increased 2.4pc.