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The Guardian Business
FinanceEN-GB

‘It is much, much faster’: could China’s battery-swapping e-trucks be the answer to EV range anxiety?

Battery maker CATL aims to have 2,000 swapping stations in China by the end of 2027 and to bring the tech to Europe Every day, Wang Bing drives his big electric lorry to send about five tonnes of goods between the cities of Haikou and Dongfang on Hainan, a tropical island in southern China. A round trip covers about 500 kilometres (310 miles). But refuelling is not something Wang worries about. “When my battery runs low, I just drive my truck into a battery-swapping station to get a fully charged one,” says the 53-year-old, who shares the journey with a colleague in eight-hour shifts. Continue reading...

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Overhead view of trucks on a long bridge crossing a flat floodplain by a river with a city or industrial zone ahead on the other side.
The Guardian Business
FinanceEN-GB

Poundland owner secures two extra weeks to ensure retail chain’s survival

US investment firm Gordon Brothers is ‘taking due care’ to consider if one of three bidders has enough funds Poundland’s owner has said it is “taking due care” to consider if one of three bidders had enough funds to ensure its survival after the troubled budget retail chain secured two more weeks to find a deal. The management of Poundland, which employs approximately 12,000 people and operates 600 stores in the UK and Ireland, won approval from the high court for an extension of legal protection from creditors on Thursday morning. Continue reading...

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Pedestrians walk past a graffiti-covered Poundland shopfront in Camden, north London
The Guardian Business
FinanceEN-GB

AI helped UK defy expectations – but will economy’s resilience fizzle out?

Despite John Healey’s defiance, the economy faces threats from a tech slowdown and energy bills this winter AI helps UK economy grow at fastest pace for more than two years The forecasters were clear when John Healey became chancellor in July: Britain’s resilience to the war in the Middle East would not last. The global economic headwinds were too strong, inflation was beginning to rise and growth would slow to a trickle. Four months into the job, the economy is continuing to defy expectations after growing by 0.7% in the third quarter – the fastest expansion in two and a half years. It puts the UK on course to be the second-fastest growing G7 economy this year. Continue reading...

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Liquid cooled servers at the Global Switch Docklands datacentre campus in London
The Guardian Business
FinanceEN-GB

Rats, dengue and an all-day stench: can Panama City solve its waste crisis?

For decades, mountains of waste have blighted poor neighbourhoods on the edge of the city. But as the problems spread, a belated reckoning is under way Life in San Miguelito has long been dictated by rubbish. Routes to the shop are carefully navigated to avoid pungent mountains of rotting waste, some visible from space. Driving during the rainy season is a perilous obstacle course, dodging black bin bags and rusty fridges in the middle of the road. Children are taught early to avoid the river, the rubbish, the rats, yet mosquito-borne diseases still stalk the community. For Yamileth, who lives with her family on one of the steep, narrow streets that thread the hillside neighbourhood, the waste is a constant backdrop to daily life. Mornings are punctuated by the stench and buzz of flies, and in the evenings you can hear rats scuttling and stray dogs rustling as they rip open bags in search of food among the rubbish heaps, known in slang as patacones (also the name of a staple side dish made from green plantains). Continue reading...

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A Panama river choked with plastic bottles and rubbish, held back by a floating barrier
The Guardian Business
FinanceEN-GB

Metro Bank up for sale, with billionaire investor in line for £420m windfall

Shares up 7% after announcement as Jaime Gilinski Bacal seeks exit three years after helping to rescue bank Metro Bank is putting itself up for sale three years after its near-collapse, in a move that could hand a £420m windfall to its Colombian billionaire investor, Jaime Gilinski Bacal. Metro Bank made the rare decision to publicly announce it was open to bids on Thursday, paving the way for a wider pool of suitors. The announcement pushed the share price up by 7% by mid-morning, valuing the bank at about £1.3bn. Continue reading...

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People waking past a Metro Bank
The Guardian Business
FinanceEN-GB

Burberry returns to profit as sales soar, from £85 socks to £9,000 coats

CEO says ‘democratic approach’ has helped brand outperform tough market, with big rises in China and US Burberry has returned to profit as its back-to-basics strategy drove strong sales of the British brand’s coats, jackets and handbags over the summer. Joshua Schulman, the chief executive, said the luxury brand had outperformed a “challenging luxury market” to achieve sales growth of 6%, helped by strong online and wholesale sales particularly in China and the US. “Our strategy is working,” he said. Continue reading...

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Guests wearing Burberry outside the brand’s show during London Fashion Week 2025
The Guardian Business
FinanceEN-GB

Billions lost and markets roiled by one man’s indiscretion. Isn’t it now clear that these tech bros are too powerful? | Aditya Chakrabortty

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang’s affair must be the costliest fling in human history – and a preview of what awaits when the tech bubble bursts One thing we all know about the tech billionaires is they are super-smart. We know this largely because they never stop telling us. The “cognitive elite”, to use their favoured phrase, are entitled to shape our future without our say-so. When Elon Musk goes hiring, he wants “super-high-IQ small-government revolutionaries”. Long before they got private jets, what fuelled these boys was faith in their own brainpower. As a teenager, Jensen Huang wooed his future wife, Lori, thus: “If you do homework with me every Sunday, I promise you you’ll get straight As.” Lord Byron: I believe it’s your move. Continue reading...

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Illustration of tech billionaires' hands toasting champagne glasses beneath a glowing globe
The Guardian Business
FinanceEN-GB

Datacentres are deeply unpopular. Has Sweden made one we can all love?

It is built of wood, resembles an Ikea and its power is totally renewable. Plus, it was built with the local community in mind. Is this facility in Falun the best datacentre in the world? ‘It was pretty cool, when they were building it. It looked like a very large Ikea,” says John Wernvik, of EcoDataCenter. He is giving me a tour of their facility in Falun, Sweden, which could lay claim to being the world’s greenest datacentre – although to many, that is a contradiction in terms. One difference is immediately visible: this datacentre is made out of wood. Huge panels of cross-laminated timber arrived at the site pre-cut, and were assembled by crane according to instructions, like flatpack furniture. Aesthetically, this section of the datacentre is more like an Ikea before the fit-out, a cavernous, echoey, immaculately clean hangar. The wood is not EcoDataCenter’s only claim to sustainability; it is more than just cosmetic, says Wernvik, the company’s chief external relations and sustainability officer. “Compared with a traditional datacentre built with steel and concrete, we lower the embodied carbon of the full structure by three times.” With a complex the size of a football pitch, that is a lot of wood, but, says Wernvik, “the amount of timber one of our datacentres uses takes the Swedish forest about 10 to 15 minutes to grow back”. Continue reading...

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Workers assemble large timber wall panels at the EcoDataCenter 2 construction site
The Guardian Business
FinanceEN-GB

UK drone maker founded by Ukrainians hits £4.5bn value after raising £500m

Britain’s national wealth fund invests £113m in UForce, whose equipment has been used heavily in war with Russia A London-based naval drone maker founded by Ukrainians has reached a £4.5bn valuation after it raised more than £500m from investors including the UK government. UForce, which makes military drones for land, air and sea, received £113m from the UK’s national wealth fund. The investment makes UForce one of the UK’s fastest-growing unicorns – or startups with a valuation of more than $1bn. Its drones have been used extensively in the war in Ukraine. Continue reading...

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A Ukrainian soldier controls a Magura naval drone during demonstration for journalists in 2024
The Guardian Business
FinanceEN-GB

AI helps UK economy grow at fastest pace for more than two years

GDP ‘grew robustly’ by 0.7% in third quarter and by 0.2% month on month in September despite high oil prices AI helped the UK defy expectations – but will Britain’s resilience fizzle out? The UK economy grew by 0.7% in the third quarter, its fastest expansion in two and a half years, as the rollout of AI services increased activity. The Office for National Statistics reported that the economy “grew robustly” in the July to September quarter, almost entirely due to strong and widespread growth in the services sector, led by the IT sector. Continue reading...

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People walk past the City of London skyline
The Guardian Business
FinanceEN-GB

Argentina threatens UK oil firm CEO with jail over Falklands drilling

Exclusive: Legal notice comes as Buenos Aires ramps up rhetoric over UK territory and seeks to halt Sea Lion project The Argentinian government threatened a British businessman involved in an offshore Falkland Islands oil project with jail, the Guardian can reveal. Sam Moody, the chief executive of Rockhopper Exploration, and his company’s chief financial officer received the correspondence this autumn as Buenos Aires began ramping up its rhetoric over the British overseas territory. Continue reading...

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An aerial view of the Falkland Islands’s capital city, Port Stanley.
The Guardian Business
FinanceEN-GB

‘Tourists hate themselves’ – which is why Tasmania is telling them to stay away

Island state declares it ‘is not really for tourists’ – but is the marketing strategy just a cheeky piece of reverse psychology? Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast Research shows “tourists hate themselves” – which is exactly why the marketing flacks at Tourism Tasmania are telling them to stay away from the island state. Its new campaign declares Tasmania is “not really for tourists”, enlisting former SBS newsreader Lee Lin Chin to help sell the tongue-in-cheek campaign, based on the idea that Australians prefer identifying as a “traveller” rather than a “tourist”. Continue reading...

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A long queue of people stretches along a laneway outside a café, part of Tourism Tasmania's campaign
The Guardian Business
FinanceEN-GB

Water industry bonus ban to be tightened as Ofwat warns of ‘damage to public trust’

Regulator to hasten review over concerns that firms are ‘undermining’ rules to make large payments to bosses Business live – latest updates The water company bonus ban is set to be tightened after the regulator accused the industry of a risk of “damaging public trust” with large payments to bosses that appeared to get around the rules. Anglian Water was singled out for particular criticism over “retention payments” worth up to £800,000 for its chief executive, Mark Thurston, despite the bonus ban. Anglian will face increased monitoring of its governance arrangements because of the controversial payments. Continue reading...

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Sewage being processed at Thames Water's Longreach sewage treatment works in Dartford
The Guardian Business
FinanceEN-GB

‘We can’t be at the bottom indefinitely’: Can Britain’s most maligned service station be turned around?

In 2022 and 2023, Hartshead Moor East, near Leeds, was voted the worst in Great Britain. Ever since, staff have been on a mission to redeem its reputation The crime issue of the Long Read magazine is out now. Click here to order In October 2023, at Skelton Lake service station on the M1 south-east of Leeds, Janine Gray received some bad news. She was surrounded by journalists and leading lights from the transport industry: people from the AA, the RAC, motorway service area chief executives, officials from National Highways. The big dogs. And it was among these gathered dignitaries that Gray heard the news she had been hoping, for the previous 12 months, not to hear. For the second year running, Hartshead Moor East – one half of the motorway services near Leeds that she managed – had been officially declared the worst service station in Britain. This poll, conducted annually by the consumer watchdog Transport Focus, always makes the news. It produces gags on Have I Got News For You, punning headlines in the papers, “and finally” segments on local TV channels. Now Gray and her staff would be subjected to another round of ridicule. Of all the country’s service stations, which have a sort of aura of shitness to them anyway, theirs was apparently the shittest. Again. Continue reading...

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Illustration showing service station elements
The Guardian Business
FinanceEN-GB

‘He’s the hottest thing right now’: how a $1 scarf seller became Seoul’s biggest attraction

Seoul’s ‘scarf uncle’ has become a South Korean sensation for a sales technique that consists of talking customers out of purchases By mid-morning the main alley of Namdaemun market in Seoul is ringed by private security guards and police, and the queue – penned behind a cordon – shuffles forward clutching numbered tickets. Those in it, mostly middle-aged women, have waited more than an hour. In front of them, a stall holder is selling scarves, offering a deal of six for 10,000 won (about $6.80), roughly $1.15 each. The salesman – who is known by nicknames such as “scarf ajeossi”, or scarf uncle – has become something of a national sensation for a sales technique that consists of talking customers out of purchases. “Don’t spend your money,” he quips. “It doesn’t suit you.” Continue reading...

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South Korean scarf seller in Namdaemun market. Credit: happy_kisook
The Guardian Business
FinanceEN-GB

Nvidia hires leading US law firm to investigate Jensen Huang’s relationship

Move comes as chipmaker reels from reports its CEO was having an affair with an alleged Chinese spy Nvidia has appointed a leading US law firm to conduct a “thorough and independent” investigation into the relationship between its chief executive, Jensen Huang, and an alleged Chinese spy. The $4.1tn (£3tn) chipmaker’s board has hired New York-based Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz for the investigation, which will be led by the Wachtell partner Joon Kim. The firm’s website describes Kim, a former government prosecutor in New York, as a specialist in areas including internal investigations, white-collar criminal and regulatory defence, and crisis management. Continue reading...

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Nvidia’s Jensen Huang in a T-shirt speaks with the company logo behind him
The Guardian Business
FinanceEN-GB

Poundland owner extracted millions when chain was on ‘knife-edge’, MPs say

Retailer’s management to seek two-week extension of legal protection from creditors in high court MPs have accused the owner of Poundland of extracting millions of pounds from the budget retailer when it was on a “knife-edge” as it seeks extra time to secure a rescue deal. The management of Poundland, which employs 12,000 people and operates 600 stores in the UK and Ireland, will seek a two-week extension of legal protection from creditors from the high court on Thursday morning. Continue reading...

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A woman walks past a Poundland store in London
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