THE DAILY BRIEFING
PROBE OVER The Financial Conduct Authority has ended an investigation into a profit warning announced by outsourcer Mitie in September 2016.
FRENCH BURGERS Private equity house Bridgepoint has signed a deal with French restaurant operator Groupe Bertrand to open new Burger King stores in France.
PAY CALL Shareholders in JD Sports have been urged to vote against chairman Peter Cowgill’s pay award at its AGM today. Last year, one in five voted against the firm’s remuneration report, which saw Cowgill’s salary rise 10.5pc.
BRIDAL BARGAINS High Street retailer Next is opening a wedding dress concession in its flagship store in Manchester. Wed2b will run the concession, which sells the dresses for under £699. BITCOIN BAN Social network Facebook has scrapped a ban on adverts for cryptocurrencies on its website. It will now allow ads from approved advisers.
DIGITAL DEALS Advertising firm M&C Saatchi has bought controlling stakes in two companies, Red Hare Digital and Grey Whippet, that work with Youtube and Instagram stars to promote products.
TRADER TIE-UP Former Barclays boss Bob Diamond has bought into a French trading company. Diamond’s firm Atlas Merchant Capital has teamed up with Edmond de Rothschild to take a 27.7pc stake in the broker, Kepler Cheuvreux.
COINING CON Security software firm McAfee has warned of a surge in viruses which hijack computers and use them to produce cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin. McAfee said that it detected 400,000 of these attacks in the last three months of 2017, but this surged to 2.9m in the first quarter of this year.
SHREWD SAVERS More than half of people contributing to workplace pensions pay in more than the minimum amount required by their employer, according to research by broker Hargreaves Lansdown.
TECH STAKE The London Stock Exchange has bought a 16pc stake in US trading technology firm Acadiasoft. The Boston-headquartered company helps more than 700 banks, asset managers and pension funds around the world buy and sell complex financial products.
SLICK CITIES Five of the top 20 cities in Europe are British, the highest total of any country, according to estate agent Savills. The firm ranked London and Cambridge in first and second place in its dynamic cities study, which measures how well they will be able to adapt to the future.
RELAXED RULES Rules to open up the UK banking market could lead to new services for more than 32m people and 4.8m small businesses within five years, a study claims. Reforms that force lenders to share information with tech firms at a customer’s request came into effect earlier this year. PwC expects companies involved in the industry to generate £7.2bn of revenue a year by 2022.