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Friday newspaper round-up: Unilever, civil servants, Wegovy

(Sharecast News) - Unilever could face a potential row with shareholders after it emerged that the new boss of the consumer goods company can earn up to €17.4m (£14.9m) this year if he hits maximum targets. Hein Schumacher, who joined the owner of Marmite, Domestos and Dove in June last year, took home €3.9m for his first six months as chief executive. He earned a €1.86m annual bonus on top of his €1.4m in basic pay and benefits, which included €292,492 to help cover his relocation to the UK, according to Unilever's annual report published on Thursday. - Guardian Thousands of people in the UK are being deemed incapable of any work every month due to mental health problems, figures have shown. According to official data published by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), at least 20,000 incapacity benefit claims are for mental health problems - making up more than two-thirds of the total. - Guardian

Ministers are planning to crack down on telegraph poles following a community backlash over unsightly broadband infrastructure. Data minister Julia Lopez has written to network operators including BT's Openreach and Virgin Media O2 urging them to curb the installation of new telegraph poles as they expand full-fibre services. - Telegraph

Civil servants at Britain's official statistics body have threatened to go on strike after being asked to work in the office for two days a week. More than 1,000 employees at the Office for National Statistics (ONS) are being balloted over strike action after bosses told them to stop working from home full time. - Telegraph

Surging demand for Wegovy has helped the Danish economy to dodge recession, with the country's growth last year almost entirely driven by Novo Nordisk, the pharmaceuticals group behind the weight-loss jab. Official figures from Denmark's statistics agency show that the country's drugs industry, which is dominated by Novo Nordisk, powered the economy's 1.8 per cent growth in 2023, helping Denmark to avoid the stagnation that has affected most European economies. - The Times

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Thursday newspaper round-up: JCB, M&S, smart meters
(Sharecast News) - The British digger maker JCB, owned by the billionaire Bamford family, continued to build and supply equipment for the Russian market months after saying it had stopped exports because of Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine, the Guardian can reveal. Russian customs records show that JCB, whose owners are major donors to the Conservative party, continued to make new products available for Russian dealers well after 2 March 2022, when the company publicly stated that it had "voluntarily paused exports" to Russia. - Guardian
Wednesday newspaper round-up: Brexit border outages, Boeing, Stellantis
(Sharecast News) - Lorries carrying perishable food and plants from the EU are being held for up to 20 hours at the UK's busiest Brexit border post as failures with the government's IT systems delay imports entering Britain. Businesses have described the government's new border control checks as a "disaster" after IT outages led to lorries carrying meat, cheese and cut flowers being held for long periods, reducing the shelf life of their goods and prompting retailers to reject some orders. - Guardian
Tuesday newspaper round-up: Tesco, OpenAI, housebuilding
(Sharecast News) - Tesco is facing criticism from "shocked" charities who say they are struggling to distribute unwanted food to homeless and hungry people after they claim the retailer brought in rules that mean unwanted food can only be collected in the evening. The supermarket group has switched to a new system which asks charities to pick up unwanted food, such as items reaching their best before date, only in the evening when a store is closing rather than the following morning, the charities have claimed. - Guardian
Monday newspaper round-up: BT, ultra-long mortgages, Fever-Tree
(Sharecast News) - BT has said it is increasingly using artificial intelligence to help it detect and neutralise threats from hackers targeting business customers amid repeated attacks on companies. The £10.5bn group is aiming to build up its business protecting customers from online criminals and has patented technology that uses AI to analyse attack data to allow companies to protect their tech infrastructure. British businesses are routinely facing hacking attempts, and some recent high-profile victims have included including the outsourcer Capita, Royal Mail and British Airways. - Guardian

Important information: This information is not a personal recommendation for any particular investment. If you are unsure about the suitability of an investment you should speak to one of Fidelity’s advisers or an authorised financial adviser of your choice. When you are thinking about investing in shares, it’s generally a good idea to consider holding them alongside other investments in a diversified portfolio of assets. Past performance is not a reliable indicator of future returns.

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