THE DAILY BRIEFING

AMERICAN BOOST Engineer Keller Group made sales of £1bn during the first half of the year, with a strong performance in North America and Europe. It is paying an interim dividend of 12p per share, up 24pc. HOTEL LIFT Park Plaza owner

PPHE Hotel Group has moved to a premium listing on the London Stock Exchange. The listing will likely pave the way for PPHE to obtain a dual listing on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange. BAR BILL London pub chain The City Pub Group has bought three sites in the capital and agreed a leasehold on a seafront bar in Brighton for a total of £8.1m.

BEAUTY PARADE Online beauty business The Hut Group has bagged a £795m bank loan to fund its international expansion. The funds provided by Barclays, HSBC, Santander, Citibank and JP Morgan, will help the group purchase more overseas companies, a spokesman said.

LENDING LULL A slowdown in mortgages has hit Clydesdale and

Yorkshire Banking Group. Mortgage applications have fallen following a change to the way it handles them, and added the market is ultracompetitive. Bosses said the firm is still on track to hit its targets, but shares fell 0.25pc, or 0.8p, to 337p.

BANKER PLEA The US boss of foreign exchange trading at Barclays has asked a judge to throw out criminal charges relating to a £6bn currency deal for IT company Hewlett-Packard. Robert Bogucki, who has been on leave from the bank for almost two years, claims he had no legal responsibility to act in HP’s best interests.

TECH DEAL Chip designer ARM Holdings has bought US data analytics company Treasure Data. The Cambridge-based firm, which is owned by Japan’s Softbank, reportedly paid £475m.

PAPER LOSS The newly merged owner of the Daily Mirror and Daily Express newspapers, Reach, has slipped into a loss of £113.5m in the first half of the year.

The company said this was partly due to £150m in asset write-downs associated with its struggling weekly and regional daily newspapers. BREXIT BOOST Nearly a third (31pc) of UK firms believe leaving the EU is having a positive effect on their business activity, while 28pc said it was having a negative effect.