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Apax Global Alpha taken private in €916.5m deal. The London-listed trust has been acquired by Janus Bidco Limited, backed by Apax Partners and Ares Management, with shareholders to receive €1.90 per share in cash as the company delists from the London Stock Exchange.
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The Bank of England is set to slow quantitative tightening. Policymakers are expected to cut gilt sales from £100 billion to £67.5 billion a year, leaving rates unchanged at 4 per cent as they balance inflation control with concerns over bond market volatility.
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Lloyds Banking Group has signed a new multi-year deal with Broadcom. The agreement expands its use of VMware Cloud Foundation and mainframe software to modernise private cloud and strengthen digital banking services for millions of customers.
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Britain sees 84 new companies launched every hour in 2025. More than 363,000 businesses were registered from January to June 2025, despite a 21% decline from the previous year. Reforms and low SME confidence contributed to the decrease.
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Nvidia has revealed a major investment of up to £11 billion into the UK’s AI ecosystem. This project aims to create the largest GPU cluster in Europe by 2026, utilising 120,000 of Nvidia’s most recent Blackwell Ultra chips in new data centres.
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Microsoft will invest £22 billion in UK artificial intelligence. The plan includes a national AI supercomputer, expanded cloud infrastructure, and thousands of new processors, with the government forecasting more than 5,000 jobs and major regional growth in the North East of England.
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UK inflation rate stayed at 3.8 per cent in August. Headline consumer prices were unchanged from July, while housing and food costs remained elevated, leaving the Bank of England under pressure as it weighs its next decision on interest rates.
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UK labour market cools as payrolls fall and wage growth slows. The Office for National Statistics reports an 8,000 drop in payroll employment in August, with wage growth also decelerating. Unemployment remains steady, but vacancies continue to decline.
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HMRC loses £836m to tax loophole abuse, exceeding estimates. The practice of ‘phoenixing’ has significantly impacted HMRC’s ability to collect taxes, with losses reaching £836m in the 2022-23 tax year, surpassing previous estimates by 45 per cent.
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This week’s UK M&A activity spanned mining, housing, marketing, legal services, and reinsurance. From a $50 billion copper mega-merger to digital-first disruption of property law, the deals illustrate the UK’s role as a stage for global capital and strategic sector reshaping.