Business

When we consider the likely effects of Boris Johnson’s administration over the next three years, and possibly beyond, it is easy to believe his achievements will be near or less than zero. Looking back to his time as mayor of London, he wasted most of his first term dealing with …

GlaxoSmithKline’s progress on Covid vaccines has been slow, frustrating and surprising. More was expected sooner, because the company remains far bigger in the wider vaccine field than, say, AstraZeneca. But there are now tangible signs the pace is improving. Monday’s encouraging data from a phase 2 trial with French group …

Statistical quirk or a warning of a fundamental change in the inflationary weather? We know on which side of the debate the US Federal Reserve will land. It will take the relaxed view that the sharpest monthly rise in US consumer prices since 2008 – 4.2% – is nothing to …

“Few articles change owners more frequently than clothes. They travel downwards from grade to grade in the social scale with remarkable regularity,” wrote the journalist Adolphe Smith in 1877 as he traced a garment’s journey: cleaned, repaired and resold repeatedly; eventually cut down into a smaller item; finally, when it …

The prime location of Topshop’s Oxford Street store has gone on sale for as much as £420m in the latest step in the dismantling of Sir Philip Green’s retail empire. A US property investment bank, Eastdil Secured, is seeking buyers for the site after Green’s company, Arcadia, collapsed into administration …

Once considered a fashion faux-pas, sales of Crocs soared in the first three-months of the year, as the rubber shoe brand celebrated record demand from shoppers seeking comfortable footwear during the pandemic. The company’s revenues climbed by 64% in the first quarter, reaching a record-breaking $460m (£331m), just days after …

David Cameron repeatedly pushed the Bank of England and the Treasury to risk up to £20bn in taxpayer cash to help Greensill Capital, just as the lender started to face “significant” financial pressure at the start of the pandemic. The UK’s central bank was urged to provide support to Greensill, …

Safety regulators warned people with kids and pets Saturday to immediately stop using a treadmill made by Peloton after one child died and nearly 40 others were injured. The US Consumer Product Safety Commission said it received reports of children and a pet being pulled, pinned and entrapped under the …

After three months of being deprived of a retail fix, it was only to be expected that shoppers would be out in force following the relaxation of lockdown rules in England. Sure, the weather was Arctic in parts of the country, but it takes more than the odd snow flurry …

A glowing, Deliveroo-style tribute from Rishi Sunak will not be required for this flotation. Vaccitech, the Oxford-based firm that owns some of the key biotechnology behind the AstraZeneca Covid vaccine, is off to New York for a public listing. One can almost hear the groans from the Treasury. For a …