The Bank of England (BoE) is expected by 46 out of 53 analysts polled by Reuters to increase interest rates

The Bank of England (BoE) is expected by 46 out of 53 analysts polled by Reuters to increase interest rates by 75 basis points at noon today. If it does take so, it will be its biggest hike in 33 years, and take the BoE base rate to 3%. Consumer price inflation returned to a 40-year high of 10.1% in September. "The BoE is faced with an incredibly difficult balancing act of orchestrating large rate hikes in a recessionary economy," said Shweta Singh, a senior economist at British fund manager Cardano.

The Commons Treasury Committee has heard that renters could find it more difficult to find properties in the next year or two as landlords struggle with higher mortgage rates. Ray Boulger, from mortgage broker John Charcol, told MPs that landlords would be more reluctant to buy "buy-to-let" properties which could have a "serious impact" on the availability of homes. He added the buy-to-let sector was likely to see more "stress" than other areas of the mortgage market and that landlords would find it difficult in some areas to secure a mortgage of more than 50% or 60% of a property's value. That, added to tax changes which have led some landlords to consider selling up, would reduce availability for tenants, he said. He said the situation was particularly acute in London and South East England.

Staff at Royal Mail will strike for 48 hours on and around Black Friday on 25th November, The Communication Workers' Union (CWU) has announced. The union is telling its 115,000 members to reject a fresh pay rise offer of approximately 9% over two years, calling Royal Mail's offer "derisory." Workers are also set to strike on 30th November and 1st December, however the union is called off further strikes planned for 12 and 14 November, citing a desire to take more "proportionate" action. Royal Mail said: "Royal Mail proposed a new pay-for-change offer to the CWU worth 9% over two years, despite making a loss of £219m in the first half of the year. The CWU is playing a dangerous game with its members' jobs and the future of Royal Mail. We apologise to our customers for the inconvenience the CWU's continued strike action will cause. We are doing all we can to minimise delays and keep people, businesses and the country connected.".

Union Unite said yesterday it had secured a 10% pay increase for more than 900 bus workers in East London from bus operator Stagecoach Group, backdated to April 2022. The wage increase follows similar raises at bus operators Arriva and Go-Ahead.

Lawyers representing the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) have told Southwark Crown Court that employees and agents of a British subsidiary of FTSE 100 mining and trading group Glencore used private jets to transfer cash to pay bribes to oil officials in West Africa. Glencore, a Swiss-based multinational, has pleaded guilty to seven bribery offences in relation to a total of $26.9m in payments paid “primarily [to] officials in state-owned oil companies” in Cameroon, Ivory Coast and Nigeria,” prosecuting counsel Alexandra Healy said on the first day of the sentencing hearing yesterday. Glencore has also admitted two charges of failing to prevent bribery over payments of approximately $1 million to agents in Equatorial Guinea and South Sudan, a portion of which Healy said was used to pay bribes to secure “valuable oil contracts”. “The approval and offering of bribes was an acceptable way of doing business for the company” and that was “corruption was endemic within the corporation,” she told Judge Peter Fraser, adding that the SFO’s investigation into the conduct of individuals “continues”. The judge is expected to rule on the level of the penalty tomorrow.

Tesco has won a pre-trial legal argument against Lidl on appeal. In 2021, Lidl claimed that rival Tesco was trying “to ride on [its] coat-tails” by using a logo of a yellow circle on a blue background to promote its “Clubcard Prices” discount scheme. Tesco subsequently filed a counterclaim against Lidl, saying the discount supermarket Lidl then applied for trademarks for its yellow circle logo in “bad faith” as a “legal weapon” against Tesco.  Although an earlier court ruling dismissed Tesco’s “bad faith” claim, the Court of Appeal ruled yesterday that this argument was valid and therefore could be included in the trial which combines Lidl’s initial lawsuit and Tesco’s counterclaim, which is due to be heard at the High Court early next year. Both supermarkets said they remained confident of their trial position.

Sainsbury’s CEO Simon Roberts says shoppers are "watching every penny and every pound", as he revealed profits had been hit by the rising cost of living. The supermarket gets "how tough it is for millions of households," he added, saying he was trying to keep prices low. Although sales across the business had climbed 4.4% to £16.4bn in the six months ending in September, the UK's second-largest supermarket also revealed a dip in profits as the business absorbed some of the impact of rising food costs and put up wages twice. The company, which also owns Argos, said underlying pre-tax profit declined by 8% to £340m compared with the same period last year. Food prices are rising at their fastest rate in 42 years.  

Frozen food chain Iceland says its customers will be able to buy up to three frozen ready meals for 1p each this week, as part of their online shopping. The discount is available to orders over £25 between 1-4th November. Richard Walker, managing director at Iceland, said: “Our customers told us that they really benefitted from our online 1p deal when we ran it with fresh veg, so we’re really pleased to offer it now on frozen ready meals”.

Sky News claims that BT Group is having to increase a multibillion-pound cost-savings target to counter inflationary headwinds. The broadcaster says CEO Philip Jansen is poised to use the telecom giant's half-year results announcement to outline plans to find a further £500m of savings by the end of 2025. Previously, he announced a savings’ target of £2.5bn to improve the efficiency of the former state monopoly, which he joined in 2019. However, Sky’s sources also suggested a substantial increase in the company's capital expenditure plans was also "highly likely," and could include a sharply increased figure for the number of homes being lined up for full-fibre broadband. Further efficiency savings are thought unlikely to have any significant short-term impact on BT's 100,000-strong workforce, as cuts would be largely found from supply chain efficiencies and improvements to the company's product offering. BT has previously said it expects to record earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation of £7.9bn in this financial year, despite being hit in recent months by a wave of strike action involving frontline staff because of below-inflation pay offers. BT has declined to comment on Sky’s story.

Ithaca Energy's plans to launch an initial public offering (IPO) on the London Stock Exchange next week could value the North Sea oil and gas producer at up to £3.1bn, which would make it London's largest IPO this year. Shares in the company - owned by Tel Aviv-listed Delek Group - are being offered at 250 to 310 pence a share, implying a market value of £2.5bn - £3.1bn bookrunners on the deal said on Wednesday.

Irish budget airline Ryanair has posted a jump in October traffic. Passenger numbers rose 38% from October 2021 to 15.7m, and the load factor - which gauges how full the planes are - increased to 94% from 84%. Over the year, traffic has grown 178% to 157.4m and the load factor is up to 12% to 91%. The airline said it operated more than 88,560 flights in October, with "strong" school half-term bookings.

Twitter boss Elon Musk says he will charge $8 a month for sought-after blue tick "verified" badge. He said Blue service subscribers would get priority in replies, mentions and search, be able to post longer videos and audios, and see half as many ads. He also offered subscribers a pay wall bypass from "publishers willing to work with us." Musk's comments follow media reports that he was looking at the process of profile verification and how the blue check marks were given. Twitter used to give these to noteworthy profiles based on its own criteria. Stephen Fry has led the backlash against the move. An early Twitter user with 12.5m followers, he tweeted: "If that gets instituted, I'm gone like Enron."

Match Group, the owner of dating app Tinder says the number of paid subscriptions to the dating app rose 7% globally in July-September. Consumers may be spending less on everything from video streaming to food shopping as the cost of living rises, but it appears many are not ready to cut back on dating just yet, the BBC commented.