FTSE 100 pushes above 7,000 for first time since Covid crash as Wall Street hits new records April 16, 2021 London’s FTSE 100 rose above the 7,000-mark today for the first time since Covid pummelled financial markets last year. Across the Atlantic, Wall Street again hit new record highs on the back of a bumper set of earnigns from America’s banking giants. Speedy vaccine rollouts and government policy support has lifted investor confidence about a [...]
BT’s Italian accounting fraud linked to London, investigation reveals April 23, 2019 A criminal investigation into BT’s Italian division has uncovered a string of damning emails linking UK executives to alleged accounting fraud in the country. Emails seized by police and seen by Reuters appear to show that senior executives in the UK were involved in artificially inflating financial results for BT’s Italian business, despite the fact [...]
Sky Sports attracts record viewing figures for second time in two months December 8, 2020 Sky Sports has thrived during the second national lockdown, breaking its audience records for the second time in two months. Sunday 29 November saw an average of 1.17m viewers and a peak of 4m tune in to the Sky Sports portfolio of channels. Drawing the record audience were a triple header of live football that [...]
How the O2-Virgin Media merger will reshape the telecoms sector May 7, 2020 O2 and Virgin Media this morning confirmed they will join forces in a mammoth merger that will create a new £31bn telecoms powerhouse. The deal — reports of which first emerged last week — came as little surprise to industry watchers, though the timing of the deal in the middle of a global pandemic has [...]
The Week in Sportbiz: Cricket meets hip-hop; Germany exports VAR; and the ‘Yes Sir, I Can Boogie’ goes global November 19, 2020 Cricket and hip-hop aren’t obvious bedfellows but they cosied up this week when South Africa fast bowler Lungi Ngidi joined Jay-Z’s talent stable Roc Nation. Ngidi, South Africa’s player of the year in one-day and T20 internationals, is the first cricketer to sign with Roc Nation Sports. Roc Nation has snapped up mostly American athletes, [...]
UK regulator to ban telecom providers from selling ‘locked’ smartphones October 27, 2020 Mobile phone operators across Britain will be banned from selling ‘locked’ handsets, UK telecoms regulator Ofcom announced this morning. Most of Britain’s largest providers, including BT/EE, Tesco Mobile and Vodafone, sell mobile devices that cannot be used on other networks unless they are unlocked, a potentially complicated process which often costs around £10. Ofcom has now [...]
Sports law in 2021: Data disputes, the evolution of esports, all eyes on Premier League TV rights, and rules tighten for clubs and agents December 31, 2020 While there may not have been as much action on the pitch in 2020, this year has been an eventful one for sports lawyers off the pitch to say the least. Coronavirus has acted as a magnifying glass, intensifying the financial and legal pressures that those in the sports ecosystem face. But how is 2021 [...]
Why 2023 has been a year to forget for the London Stock Exchange and the capital’s equity markets September 2, 2023 Take-privates and secondary listings have damaged the reputation of the London Stock Exchange. How did we get here?
Week in Sportbiz: Is crypto the next big player in sports sponsorship? Plus Extreme E’s Suez near miss and Amazon’s Six Nations interest March 25, 2021 Where US sports lead, others tend to follow, so it was with interest that industry insiders noted developments in Florida this week. Miami Heat’s home is set to be rebranded the FTX Arena after the NBA side struck a naming rights agreement with the cryptocurrency exchange. FTX will pay $135m for the 19-year deal, the [...]
Huawei sells Honor smartphone brand as US sanctions bite November 17, 2020 Huawei is selling its budget smartphone brand Honor to a newly-formed consortium of Chinese buyers after US sanctions pushed the division to the brink of collapse. The Chinese tech giant said it will offload Honor’s business assets to Shenzhen Zhixin New Information Technology Co, a group of over 30 agents and dealers, including several state-owned [...]