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Monday newspaper round-up: House prices, gas network, Scottish power

(Sharecast News) - UK house prices are on track to beat forecasts of a decline in 2024, a leading estate agent has said, as a mortgage pricing war and expectations of Bank of England interest rate cuts rekindle the property market. After a year of sustained price falls in 2023, the global property consultancy Knight Frank said it was updating its forecast for UK house prices to rise by 3% in 2024, up from an earlier estimate of a 4% drop. - Guardian The world's five richest men have more than doubled their fortunes to $869bn (£681.5bn) since 2020, while the world's poorest 60% - almost 5 billion people - have lost money. The details come in a report by Oxfam as the world's richest people gather from Monday in Davos, Switzerland, for the annual World Economic Forum meeting of political leaders, corporate executives and the super-rich. - Guardian

Britain's sprawling gas network is still reliant on a fleet of ageing aircraft engines, some stripped from 1960s RAF Lightning fighter jets, it has emerged. Jon Butterworth, chief executive of National Gas, said many of the engines that drive gas through the system date back decades, some to the Cold War, and now need millions of pounds spent on replacing them. - Telegraph

The billionaire Tory donor Alan Howard shared a £268m pay out from his hedge fund last year as bets on interest rates reaped dividends for the company. The pay out by Brevan Howard Asset Management was more than three times the £82m shared a year earlier, company filings showed and the biggest since 2019 when £440m was paid out to partners. - Telegraph

Scottish Power will spend a record amount on upgrading ageing electricity transmission lines that will allow more renewable energy to be transported south of the border from Scotland. The ten-year investment plan is the first in an expected wave of spending set to be announced this year by the three big operators of Britain's power lines, seen as vital if the country is to meet a target of net-zero emissions by 2050. - The Times

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Wednesday newspaper round-up: Thames Water, Johnson & Johnson, BoE
(Sharecast News) - Thames Water may need as much as £10bn in debt and equity investment to repair its finances, according to a representative of creditors hoping to lend the struggling utility another £3bn. London's high court heard evidence on Tuesday that suggested the UK's largest water company may need significantly more resources than the roughly £6.3bn it has previously indicated. - Guardian
Monday newspaper round-up: Zero-hours contracts, Barclays, Asos
(Sharecast News) - Hundreds of thousands of British workers are on zero-hours contracts despite being with the same employer for years, according to analysis from the TUC. The majority of zero-hours contract workers have been with their employer for more than 12 months, while one in eight have not been granted regular employment rights after more than a decade working in the same place, the organisation said. - Guardian
Friday newspaper round-up: Apple, Daily Mail, OpenAI, Homebase
(Sharecast News) - Apple slightly beat analysts' expectations in its first-quarter earnings for fiscal year 2025 on Thursday. The iPhone-maker's revenue rose by 4%, coming in at $124.30bn, barely above estimates of $124.12bn. Earnings per share were $2.40, just ahead of analysts' expectations of $2.35. Shares rose more than 8% in extended trading after CEO Tim Cook indicated in an earnings call on Thursday that Apple is on the trajectory for revenue growth next quarter. - Guardian
Thursday newspaper round-up: Car production, UK retailers, water bills, KPMG
(Sharecast News) - The architect of a ban on newspaper takeovers by foreign states has demanded that an Abu Dhabi fund be forced to sell The Telegraph by Easter. Baroness Stowell, the Conservative chairman of the Lords communications and digital committee, said the Government should impose an ultimatum on RedBird IMI. It should be backed by the threat of regulatory action, she said, to strip the fund of control of what has been dubbed "the newspaper auction from hell". - Telegraph

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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