News

Elon Musk can walk away from his $44bn takeover of Twitter for just $1bn — less than 1 per cent of his net worth and a fraction of the $21bn of the equity he has committed to complete the acquisition of the social media group. The “reverse termination fee”, revealed in a regulatory filing by

BASF has pledged to wind down its remaining businesses in Russia and Belarus, becoming one of the last big German groups to make such a move following the invasion of Ukraine. The world’s largest chemicals company by revenue, which last month froze all new projects in Russia, said on Wednesday it would close its existing

Shenzhen-based drone maker DJI has suspended its business in Russia and Ukraine, making it one of the first big Chinese companies to publicly halt Russian operations after President Vladimir Putin’s invasion. Russia’s use of DJI drones had drawn condemnation from Ukrainian officials and direct pleas to the company’s billionaire chief executive to cease its business

John Foley is retiring as chief executive of UK savings and investment group M&G, which has struggled to find its feet since its demerger from insurer Prudential in 2019. M&G said on Wednesday that Foley, who has been in the job since 2015, will continue in the position until a successor is in place. He

Profits at Lloyds Banking Group fell less than expected in the first quarter, as revenue from rising interest rates and continued mortgage growth offset extra provisions taken to account for the impact of surging inflation on the economy. Pre-tax profit fell 14 per cent to £1.6bn in the first three months of 2022, beating analysts’

The first exchange traded product to combine gold and bitcoin in a single fund has launched on the SIX Swiss Exchange. The fund combines a millennia-old store of value with an upstart security that some have touted as the “new digital gold” — even if bitcoin’s slide in recent months has tarnished any reputation it

The Biden administration is looking into claims that Yangtze Memory Technologies Co, a Chinese semiconductor maker, has supplied Huawei with chips, in a potential violation of US export controls. The White House and US Department of Commerce have received copies of a report that claimed Huawei, the Chinese telecoms equipment supplier that Washington believes is

North Koreans seeking greater access to information are engaged in a digital “game of cat and mouse” with Kim Jong Un’s totalitarian regime, according to a new analysis of the country’s telecommunications devices. The study, conducted by researchers on behalf of US-based non-profit organisation Lumen and seen by the Financial Times, shines a light on

Good morning and welcome to Europe Express. Germany moved on several fronts yesterday — most notably on sending heavy weaponry to Ukraine, after weeks of resisting Kyiv’s calls. But Berlin also indicated yesterday that it could very soon stomach an EU oil embargo on Russia, something that was out of the question just weeks ago.

China’s zero-Covid policy has put the country’s stocks on track for their steepest monthly loss in six years, as investors and analysts warn of deeper falls to come on concerns that Beijing could miss its growth target for the first time. Souring sentiment has pushed the country’s CSI 300 stock benchmark down 10 per cent

In the village of Semypolky, north-east of Kyiv, green shoots of winter wheat are sprouting in Mykola Gordiychuk’s field. But no one has been working the soil. “These fields should have been filled with machinery” at this time of year, he says. “But it’s been empty. No one has been here.” The farm, where Gordiychuk

Your browser does not support playing this file but you can still download the MP3 file to play locally. US tech stocks fell to their lowest level in more than a year, the Brexit trade deal has caused a “steep decline” in UK trade with the EU, Chinese businesses have scoured the globe for important

You can enable subtitles (captions) in the video player So if you could sum up this topic with one snappy phrase, what would it be? Making the heart of a star to power the world. Nuclear fusion is about fusing atoms to release huge amounts of energy. We know it’s physically possible because it happens

Downsizing the French welfare state would not just reinvigorate the country’s economic fortunes, as Ruchir Sharma argued (“The fat French state is about to get fatter”, Opinion, April 26). It is essential to protect against populists like Marine Le Pen over the long term by rebuilding a fairer, more meritocratic system. France’s bloated state intervenes

The UK’s plans to enact legislation that would grant ministers the powers to override parts of the Northern Ireland protocol that they dislike are a spectacular error of judgment and strategy (Report, April 22). Not only would any such legislation clearly and unambiguously put the UK in breach of its international obligations under the withdrawal

Gillian Tett poses the question what to do with Russian music (April 16). Ban it! The All England Club has now announced a ban on all Russians playing at Wimbledon (Opinion, April 23). Art galleries around the world must take down their Kandinskys and the London mayor should also organise a public book burning of Dostoevsky’s

Indonesia’s plan to buy oil from Russia amid the war in Ukraine has ignited an argument over where the country should come down on global issues. The south-east Asian nation, which desperately needs cheap oil to tame inflation, regardless of where it comes from, has attracted strong criticism and accusations that buying from Russia will

Alphabet was on its way to becoming a meme stock earlier this year. Retail investors suddenly noticed that Google’s parent company traded on a lower earnings multiple than peers while reporting higher revenue growth. For the world’s top search engine with $67bn in annual free cash flow this seemed conservative. All of that remains true.

Russia’s invasion will cost Ukraine’s economy as much as half its economic output this year, according to projections from the Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies. The think-tank’s spring outlook, published on Wednesday, shows Russia is also likely to suffer a deep recession as a result of western sanctions, while the rest of the central

US-based private equity firms Apollo Global and L Catterton have each held talks with Mattel, the maker of Barbie dolls and Fisher-Price toys, about a potential buyout of the $7.8bn Nasdaq-listed company. The takeover interest in Mattel is preliminary, said multiple sources familiar with the matter, and was unsolicited, indicating that any prospective deal is

Investors refused to back resolutions demanding stricter fossil fuel financing policies at three major US banks on Tuesday, dealing a blow to environmentalists hoping to apply more pressure to lenders over climate issues. Proposals filed at Wells Fargo, Bank of America and Citi called on the banks to align their fossil fuel financing policies with