Business

Sir David Attenborough has become the oldest person ever to win a Daytime Emmy, marking another extraordinary milestone in a broadcasting career that has spanned more than seven decades. The 99-year-old naturalist and filmmaker took home the award for Outstanding Daytime Personality – Nondaily for his narration of Netflix’s Secret Lives of Orangutans, beating fellow nominees including Martha Stewart and Anthony Mackie. Attenborough’s win, announced at the 52nd Annual Daytime Emmy Awards in Pasadena, California,...

Britain’s second-largest bookmaker has warned it will close all its 1,300 betting shops and cut 7,000 jobs if the government presses ahead with plans to double gambling taxes in next month’s budget. Joanne Whittaker, chief executive of Betfred, said the measures being considered by chancellor Rachel Reeves would “wipe out the high-street betting shop”, threatening the future of Britain’s traditional gaming sector. “The most frightening element is we’re going to lose the whole retail business,”...

The governor of the Bank of England, Andrew Bailey, has issued his starkest warning yet about the long-term impact of Brexit, saying that the economic consequences of Britain’s exit from the European Union will remain “negative for the foreseeable future.” Speaking in Washington DC to a gathering of global central bankers, Bailey said he was not commenting on Brexit as a political issue but as a matter of economic fact. “It’s my job as a...

Silicon Valley stalwart Ron Conway has stepped down from the board of the Salesforce Foundation after a decade of service, sparking a rare public rift within the tech-philanthropy community. The resignation comes in direct response to CEO Marc Benioff’s recent remarks expressing support for former President Donald Trump and the deployment of National Guard troops to San Francisco. Conway — regarded as the “godfather of Silicon Valley” for his early investments in Google, Airbnb and...

In online spaces overflowing with formulaic copywriting, posting for the sake of posting, and polished strategy – the perfect Instagram feeds – audiences have grown weary of perfection. In this Business Matters interview with Marco Robinson, award-winning entrepreneur, coach, property investor, and the man behind Channel 4’s Get a House for Free, we explore how many UK companies could benefit from showing their real side in marketing. By sharing the stories of their people —...

More than 400 UK businesses have been officially recognised by the government for paying their suppliers promptly and fairly, as part of the Fair Payment Code, a scheme run by the Office of the Small Business Commissioner. The code, launched in December 2024, is part of a national drive to combat Britain’s late-payment culture, which costs the economy £11 billion each year and leads to the closure of an estimated 14,000 small firms annually —...

Agricultural technology startup Wild Bioscience has secured £45 million in Series A funding led by the Ellison Institute of Technology (EIT), the research organisation founded by Larry Ellison, chairman and chief technology officer of Oracle. The investment — joined by existing backers Oxford Science Enterprises (OSE), Braavos Capital, and the University of Oxford — will fuel the company’s mission to revolutionise global agriculture through AI-driven genetic discovery and precision breeding. Ellison, one of the world’s...

Tottenham’s entrepreneurial scene is thriving. New data reveals that the concentration of small businesses in the North London district has doubled in just four years, coinciding with the transformation of the area into a hub for major international events. According to the research by GoDaddy’ sSmall Business Research Lab, Tottenham’s “microbusiness density” — the number of small businesses per 100 residents — has surged from 1.4 in 2021 to 2.8 in 2025, marking one of...

Capita has been fined £14 million by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) for serious data protection failures following a major cyber-attack in March 2023 that compromised the personal details of 6.6 million people across the UK. The attack, which saw hackers infiltrate Capita’s systems and extract nearly one terabyte of sensitive data, affected customers, pension scheme members, and staff of one of Britain’s largest outsourcing firms. In its report, the ICO described the incident as...