Business

Image caption The dedicated Harry Potter section at Primark Tottenham Court Road in London Primark has warned customers not to purchase its products from third parties online as they will be paying higher prices for them than in store. Reports had suggested Primark – which does not have an online shop – was now selling […]

Image copyright Getty Images Royal Mail is facing its first national postal strike in a decade after staff voted overwhelmingly in favour of industrial action. The dispute between workers and the firm is over job security and terms and conditions of employment. More than 97% of votes by members of the Communication Workers Union backed

Image copyright AFP Image caption New IMF managing director Kristalina Georgieva The global economy is growing at its slowest pace since the financial crisis, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has said. The fund said world growth would hit just 3% this year – down from its July forecast of 3.2% and a sharp slowdown from

Media playback is unsupported on your device Media captionThomas Cook ex-boss on bonus: ‘It’s not up to me’ Thomas Cook’s former boss has defended a bonus payment of £500,000 and said he was not the only one to blame for the collapse of the holiday operator. Peter Fankhauser told a cross-party committee of MPs that

Image copyright Getty Images The UK jobs market is showing signs of slowing, after a surprise drop in the number of people in work. The unemployment rate unexpectedly rose to 3.9% in the June-to-August period from 3.8%, after the number of people in work unexpectedly fell by 56,000, official figures showed. The Office for National

Image copyright Reuters Well-known stockpicker Neil Woodford’s flagship fund is to be wound up, its corporate director Link Fund Solutions has announced. But investors will not get any money back until mid-January at the earliest. Mr Woodford has also been removed as investment manager of the fund, which will be renamed. Withdrawals from the Woodford

Image copyright Getty Images The UK’s financial regulator has announced a crackdown on the car financing industry which it claims will save drivers £165m. The Financial Conduct Authority wants to ban the way that some car dealers and brokers make commission on sales. It said that some dealers make commission on the loan’s interest rate,

Image copyright AFP Image caption Esther Duflo and her husband and fellow prize-winner Abhijit Banerjee Economics Nobel prize winner Esther Duflo says she wants to use the award “as a megaphone” in her fight to ease poverty and improve children’s education. Prof Duflo, only the second woman to win the economics award, told the BBC

Image copyright Gousto Image caption Timo started the business from the lounge of his London flat The BBC’s weekly The Boss series profiles different business leaders from around the world. This week we speak to Timo Boldt, founder and chief executive of meal kit business Gousto. When Timo Boldt was a go-getting 26-year-old finance professional,

Image copyright Getty Images The UK will not meet its climate change targets without a revolution in home heating, a think tank says. A report from the cross-party Policy Connect says gas central heating boilers also threaten the UK’s clean air goals. But a poll conducted among MPs suggests that most do not consider pollution