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Important information: The value of investments can go down as well as up so you may get back less than you invest. Investors should note that the views expressed may no longer be current and may have already been acted upon. This is a third-party news feed and may not reflect Fidelity’s views.

Friday newspaper round-up: Royal Mail strikes, FTX, winter blackouts

(Sharecast News) - Royal Mail workers will stage six more days of strike action in December, including on Christmas Eve, as part of the latest walkouts to affect the postal service. Members of the Communication Workers Union (CWU) at the service will go on strike on 9, 11, 14, 15, 23 and 24 December. - Guardian Collapsed cryptocurrency exchange FTX's financial records were worse than Enron, its administrator has claimed. John Ray, who was appointed as FTX's liquidator last week, told a US bankruptcy court in filings made public on Wednesday: "Never in my career have I seen such a complete failure of corporate controls and such a complete absence of trustworthy financial information as occurred here." - Telegraph

Plans to avert winter blackouts have been dealt a blow as repairs to a key power cable from France to Britain have been delayed until next year. National Grid's Interconnexion France-Angleterre (IFA) cable under the Channel has been running at half capacity since a fire in September 2021 damaged its substation in Kent. - Telegraph

Andy Hornby could be dragged into another controversy after the former HBOS chief was named in a £1.5 billion legal battle over the Libor benchmark interest rate being fought by an entrepreneur and Lloyds Banking Group. It was only in August that City regulators closed a six-year investigation into former senior executives at HBOS after resolving not to take enforcement action against them over the bank's failure in 2008. - The Times

The former Newcastle United owner Mike Ashley has taken over the Coventry Building Society Arena after buying its three operating companies. The acquisition by Ashley's Frasers Group of the 32,609-seat stadium has provided Coventry City Football Club with a permanent home next season and has secured the future of 1,000 jobs in the stadium, which houses a hotel and a casino. The ground was also the home of Wasps rugby club before it went into administration last month. - The Times

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Friday newspaper round-up: OBR, franchise agreements, GoCardless
(Sharecast News) - MPs have launched an inquiry into the role and performance of the Office for Budget Responsibility. The all-party Commons Treasury committee will spend until the end of next month investigating the independent agency's forecasting performance and impartiality. The panel will consider whether reforms are needed 15 years after the OBR was set up by George Osborne when he was Tory chancellor. - Guardian
Thursday newspaper round-up: Youth employment, SpaceX, EY
(Sharecast News) - Britain is slipping down the global league table for youth employment amid a dramatic rise in worklessness that is putting a generation's future at risk, research has warned. Sounding the alarm over a worsening youth jobs crisis, the report from the accountancy firm PwC said Britain's economy was missing out on £26bn a year because of sharp regional divisions in youth joblessness. - Guardian
Wednesday newspaper round-up: UK borrowing costs, Channel 4, Anduril
(Sharecast News) - The "premium" that the UK pays to borrow money compared with its international peers may be coming to an end as markets grow more confident about the government's plans, a thinktank has suggested. The Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) said that the chancellor Rachel Reeves's announcement in the autumn budget that she would be more than doubling the UK's financial headroom by 2030 from £9.9bn to £22bn had begun to assure bond markets about Labour's fiscal approach. - Guardian
Tuesday newspaper round-up: household spending, British Library, Jamie Dimon, WPP
(Sharecast News) - UK households cut back on spending at the fastest pace in almost five years last month as consumers put Christmas shopping on hold, according to a leading survey. Adding to concerns that uncertainty surrounding the budget has helped dampen consumer confidence, Barclays said card spending fell 1.1% year on year in November - the largest fall since February 2021. The bank said retailers still enjoyed their busiest day of the year so far on Black Friday, with transaction volumes 62.5% higher than the average day for 2025. - 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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