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Wednesday newspaper round-up: Lyft, Hinkley, Waitrose, BAT

(Sharecast News) - UK shop workers are facing 1,300 incidents of violence and abuse a day and a battle to control "brazen" acts of shoplifting, as pressure mounts on ministers to intervene to protect retail employees. Retailers saw the number of incidents of racial abuse, sexual harassment, physical assaults and threats with weapons rise 50% last year, while thefts more than doubled to 16.7m incidents, according to the British Retail Consortium (BRC), the trade body which represents most major retailers. - Guardian Lyft beat estimates for fourth-quarter profits on Tuesday and said it would generate positive free cashflow for the first time in 2024, as the ride-share platform reaps the benefits of heavy cost-cutting. Company shares surged nearly 60% in extended trading but erased a third of those gains after Lyft's chief financial officer corrected a major mistake in the earnings report. Erin Brewer had said that the company would grow by 500 basis points (5%) in 2024, but later said that the real increase would be a factor of 10 lower - 50 basis points (0.5%). In 2023, the stock gained about 36%. - Guardian

British taxpayers have been asked to stump up cash to fund nuclear power plants being built in the UK by the French energy giant EDF. Bruno Le Maire, France's finance minister, said on Tuesday he would be asking Jeremy Hunt for "an equitable sharing of costs" for the power stations which include Hinkley Point C, in Somerset, and Sizewell C, in Suffolk. - Telegraph

Waitrose is to cut hundreds of prices as the retailer battles against Marks & Spencer for Britain's middle class shoppers. The supermarket said on Wednesday it would invest £30m into lowering the price of swathes of its own-brand products. Waitrose's price cuts will span 200 items across meat, fruit and vegetables, as well as kitchen cupboard staples. The retailer promised a further round of price cuts in the spring. - Telegraph

British American Tobacco has retained "call" options to reacquire its Russian and Belarusian businesses, it has emerged. The owner of Lucky Strike and Dunhill cigarettes agreed to sell the businesses in September, 18 months after it had committed to doing so in the wake of Moscow's invasion of Ukraine. However, BAT did not disclose at the time that it had retained the option to buy them back. - 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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