VW settlement with US over diesel scandal clears hurdle
Openreach to stay part of BT, sending shares higher
Tesco and Sainsbury's shares fall, as sales drop
ABInBev raises SABMiller offer by £1 to £45
NatWest and RBS may charge business customers to hold cash
Sir Philip Green demands apology from Frank Field MP
Image source, Getty ImagesThe business environment in Turkey has been deteriorating for quite some time', analyst David Lea from Control Risks, tells Business Daily.
The recent coup attempt now has businesses in Turkey asking if it is physically safe to operate in the country.
BBC Scotland business editor tweets:
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Image source, ReutersGerman lenders Commerzbank and Deutsche Bank have taken a bit of a hammering this morning on the Dax in Frankfurt. The former is down 5.5%, while the latter dropped 4%.
Commerzbank's "core tier one ratio", a key measure used to assess how well capitalised a bank is, fell to 11.5% in the second quarter of this year. Although this is higher than required by regulators, investors like large banks to accrue significant capital, so as to insulate them in the event of legal expenses, or other unforeseen events.
Deutsche is facing a lawsuit in the US.
Confused about the new corporate structures of BT and Openreach? Well the telecoms giant has handily sent round a flow chart. All should be crystal clear now.
Image source, BT
Image source, ReutersBarcelona has become the first football club rake in £500m in a year, after generating a record turnover of €679m (£570m) last season.
That figure is "larger than any Real Madrid have ever disclosed to date", according to City AM, external.
The club, which won two titles, made a profit of €29m after tax.
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Victoria Derbyshire
TalkTalk chief executive Dido Harding has had a busy morning doing the rounds - and she's also been on the Victoria Derbyshire programme talking about Openreach.
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Image source, Getty ImagesVirgin Money has abandoned plans to start lending to small and medium-sized businesses due to economic uncertainty in the wake of Brexit. Chief executive Jayne-Anne Gadhia said the London marathon sponsor would instead expand the coverage of its online bank.
"Although we do not expect gloom and doom, the future is more uncertain for the economy and for businesses in general, so we think the time isn't particularly right for us ... we're really focused on building the business we've got today rather than developing new product lines," she said.
Image source, Getty ImagesAberdeen Asset Management, one of the biggest shareholders in SABMiller, said the higher £45 a share offer from AB InBev remained "unacceptable" as it undervalued the company and continued to favour SABMiller's two major shareholders, Altria and Bevco.
"We have engaged with SABMiller's board on the differential treatment of shareholders since the deal was first constructed. The way that the value of the partial share offer has diverged from the cash offer has compounded our discomfort," it said.
Altria and Bevco should not be able to vote on the cash offer as they were inherently conflicted by their future stakes in AB InBev if the deal completed, Aberdeen said.
"We believe the board's only choice is to treat Altria and Bevco as a separate class of shareholders and would urge them to make a public statement to this effect."
Failing a new offer, Aberdeen would "happily" remain a long-term shareholder in SABMiller.
Business presenter Ben Thompson tweets:
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Image source, Getty ImagesThe Communication Workers Union says it will ballot 3,500 Post Office workers over whether to take strike action in the wake of "significant job losses".
"The ballot is in reaction to the company’s plans for wholesale privatisation of the crown network and widespread job losses – with 80 Crown post offices announced for closure already this year and up to 2,000 job losses planned across the business – in addition to the company’s decision to close the defined benefit pension scheme," the CWU said.
The ballot opens on 1 August and the result will be announced on 19 August.
Image source, Getty ImagesShares in London-focused Capital & Counties are down 5% after writing down the value of its Earls Court redevelopment by £200m to £1.2bn. The company says it has sold just four of the 7,500 units in the development, which stands on the site of the former exhibition centre (pictured) since its last trading update in May.
Shares in housebuilders are down slightly as a result.
Image source, Getty ImagesThe folks at Bloomberg have compiled this beautiful report, external on how the likes of Citigroup and HSBC have been scaling back their retail businesses since the financial crisis.
Quote MessageBanks are figuring out that providing every product and every service to every client in every country was just wrong, so they are unwinding and shedding assets. We’re not close to being done.”
Vikram Pandit, Former Citigroup chief executive
What have individual savers been doing in response to the Brexit vote? The latest results from fund managers suggest that a few have taken their money and run. On Monday, Aberdeen Asset Management said it has suffered outflows of nearly £9bn in the past three months - hardly life threatening for Aberdeen, which has £300bn under management, but still significant.
Martin Gilbert, Aberdeen's chief executive, tells Today that the world "is a very uncertain place", which is why the firm suspended withdrawals from one of its commercial property funds.
"The fund manager was very smart - he sold all his property stocks just before the Brexit vote," he says.
Shares in Aberdeen have risen just over 10% this year.
Business borrowing fell by £526m in June - the first decline this year and the biggest fall since December 2015 - as investment decisions were delayed until after the EU referendum vote.
BBA chief economist Rebecca Harding said: "Overall, business confidence was clearly fragile in anticipation of the outcome of the vote, but these results are not a verdict on the health of the economy post-Brexit."
UK banks also approved the fewest mortgages for house purchases in June since March 2015. The total fell to 40,103 from May's downwardly revised 41,842, the BBA said. Its figures exclude lending by building societies, which accounts for around a third of mortgages.
Image source, RMTAbout 400 Wood Group workers on Shell's North Sea oil and gas platforms are holding a 24-hour strike - the first in almost 30 years - in a dispute over pay.
Campaigners have been occupying Shell's offices in London today in support of their Wood Group counterparts, who belong to the RMT and Unite unions.
But just how do you strike on a platform hundreds of miles offsore? The BBC's Ken Banks talks us through the logistics.
More on those letters to RBS and NatWest business customers. One Business Live reader, who wants to remain anonymous, emails:
Quote MessageThe RBS letters to customers didn’t just make mention of the fact that they were changing their terms to allow them to charge interest on credit balances. For most of the small businesses receiving the letter the main issue was to tell them that RBS are going to charge for electronic transactions which are currently free. This will result in increases in bank charges for many small businesses of over 600% in my case. It’s quite obvious that RBS now want their customers to pay for their previous wrongdoings and excessive costs. Those who have embraced electronic payments and receipts are now going to have to pay so much more. Other banks I have made enquiries to are not charging for electronic transactions and if you can believe anything a bank tells you, I am advised that they have no intention of introducing such charges."
Image source, ReutersIt's a familiar story in the supermarket business, with the top end retailers and the discounters both doing well, while those in the middle continue to suffer.
Sales at both Tesco and Sainsbury's fell by 0.2%, according to the latest Kantar Worldpanel figures for the 12 weeks to mid-July, while Asda sales fell by 5.6%.
Lidl and Aldi, however, soared by 12.5% and 11% respectively, while on the other end of the spectrum, Waitrose grew by 1.6%.
The nation’s average shopping basket is 1.4% cheaper than a year ago, but it remains to be seen if the Brexit vote will bring about any price rises this year.
Beer sales also did well - until England were beaten by Iceland - the country, not the supermarket that is - in the Euro 2016 football tournament.
Pre-tax profits at PZ Cussons, which owns personal care brands such as Imperial Leather and Carex, are down by £5.8m.
The company, which has been trading in Nigeria for more than a century, says "the liquidity squeeze and restrictions in foreign exchange availability" in its largest market, caused by the fall in the oil price, have "created some of the most difficult trading conditions we have seen for some time".
However, shares are up 1.2% and have risen more than 14% this year.
BBC Radio 5 Live
Image source, EPAAdam Parsons asks BT chief executive Gavin Patterson when we can expect superfast broadband across the vast majority of the UK.
He says 95% of the country will have high-speed internet by the end of 2017, and the telecoms giant hopes to get to fill the 5% gap by 2020.
However, Mr Patterson says we should acknowledge that the current infrastructure is already "market-leading in Europe".