Thursday newspaper round-up: Borrowing costs, earnings, Walt Disney

(Sharecast News) - Labour has warned that more than half a million homeowners face a surge in mortgage costs before the local elections in England in May, as ministers battle to contain the damage from what is expected to be a long period of high interest rates. With the Bank of England widely expected to hold its key base rate at 5.25% on Thursday, the party released analysis that showed 630,000 more homeowners would be hit by higher borrowing costs before local elections next year. - Guardian Denmark's Ørsted has cancelled two big offshore windfarm projects in the US at a cost of more than £3bn amid surging costs facing the global wind industry. Shares in the world's biggest wind power company fell 25% on Wednesday after it told investors it had no choice but to take a 28.4bn Danish kroner (£3.3bn) impairment charge and stop the developments off the New Jersey coast. - Guardian

One of Europe's biggest private equity firms has postponed plans for a blockbuster listing in Amsterdam amid tumultuous market conditions. CVC Capital Partners, which was preparing to float this month, is said to have put its plans on ice for a second time. The buyout firm previously attempted to float last year but pushed plans back. - Telegraph

Workers have suffered a drop in their real earnings over the past year as high inflation erodes the value of rising pay packets, according to official figures. The Office for National Statistics said real earnings for full-time workers had dropped by 1.5 per cent between April 2022 and April 2023, when including the impact of inflation. - The Times

Walt Disney has formally begun the process of buying Comcast's one-third stake in Hulu - a deal that will give the entertainment giant full ownership of the streaming service and freedom to incorporate it into its Disney+ streaming service. Disney said it expected to pay Comcast, the parent company of NBCUniversal, about $8.61 billion by December 1. This represents NBCU's percentage of the $27.5 billion guaranteed floor value for Hulu when it agreed to sell its stake to Disney in 2019, minus the anticipated outstanding capital call contributions payable by NBCU to Disney. - The Times