THE DAILY BRIEFING
TUI FINES Tour operator Tui has been fined for failing to stick to the travel industry’s code of conduct.
Tui, which owns Thomson Holidays and First Choice, was fined 48 times during 2015 and 2016 by the travel association ABTA.
Breaches included inaccurate advertising and sending holidaymakers to resorts undergoing building work.
ANIMATION DEAL London video games service provider Keywords Studios has acquired Spov, an animation company which has worked on games such as Call of Duty, Batman and Marvel’s Doctor Strange, for £1.2m.
FIRST LEADS First Direct has topped a current account customer satisfaction survey, while Barclays came bottom. Some 90pc of First Direct customers rated its service as great, according to a survey of nearly 7,500 people from MoneySavingExpert.com.
Nationwide was second, with Co-op and its Smile brand ranked third.
CURB CALL The CBI, which represents 190,000 businesses, said shareholders should be given more powers to have a final say on executive pay where it has ‘disconnected’ from exceptional performance. It also wants measures to curb excessive payments.
It recommends providing information on the pay of executives and other employees. TRUMP SNUB A make-up company run by Joe Corre, the founder of Agent Provocateur, has urged Trump supporters not to buy its products.
Illamasqua, an edgy cosmetics brand that specialises in dramatic stage make-up, has vowed to ‘never knowingly sell products to people who support President Trump’s values’.
EXPRESS PAYBACK An online shopping company backed by Mike Ashley must pay back £12.5m to 330,000 customers after selling them insurance ‘that offered little or no value’.
Express Gifts, a subsidiary of Findel in which Ashley has a near-30pc stake, agreed with the City watchdog, the Financial Conduct Authority, that the cover was for items that ‘customers would not generally consider insuring’. ONLINE BOOST The surge in online shopping helped industrial developer Segro boast strong results.
The firm, which rents warehouse space, saw the value of its assets increase by 4.8pc in 2016, but profits fell to £426.4m from £686.5m. Its final dividend was up 5.7pc to 11.2p per share.