The average asking price of a house reached a record high of £375,131 in May, according to Rightmove. The average prices of properties coming to market rose 0.8%, or £2,807, month on month. The number of sales agreed during the first four months of the year was also 17% higher than for the same period last year.

The Government estimates it will spend at least £4.7bn implementing post-Brexit border arrangements, The National Audit Office (NAO) said this morning.

“Despite Brexit,” the UK has extended its lead as Europe’s top destination for investment in financial services, a new survey from EY reveals.  Britain attracted 108 financial services projects last year, up from 76 in 2022 and well ahead of European rivals. France, in second place, secured just 39 foreign direct investment (FDI) projects in 2023. Anna Anthony, EY UK financial services managing partner noted: “The UK didn’t just maintain its lead as the most attractive European financial services market last year, it extended it significantly”.

The City’s insurance market has more people working in the industry that at any other point in at least the last ten years, when industry body London Market Group (LMG) started counting. LMG found staff levels at commercial insurance and reinsurance firms in 2023 totalled 59,000. In 2021, firms in the sector employed just 41,000 people. LMG CEO Caroline Wagstaff said in an interview with the Financial Times that the insurance industry was a “crown jewel that no one pays attention to”. The London insurance market wrote approximately $180bn (£142bn) in gross premiums last year – double the levels of a decade ago – and the market makes up just over 25% of the City of London’s economic output.

Tata Steel has reached a deal with National Grid’s electricity supply operator (ESO) to start supplying hundreds of megawatts of power to a new electric arc furnace at the steelworks in Port Talbot, South Wales, from 2027. Tata has been in talks with ESO since 2020, given the huge amounts of energy the two planned new furnaces will consume. The Guardian says the agreement signals that Tata is pushing forward on an ambitious timescale for the switch; it hopes to make an order for the furnace equipment by September, and start construction by August 2025. The plan to replace two coal-fired blast furnaces will cut carbon emissions, but also mean as many as 2,800 steelworkers will lose their jobs, in a devastating blow to a community built around the plant.

EG Group reported a £1.2bn pre-tax profit for the year, up from a loss of £415.5m in 2022. The petrol forecourt chain, built by the billionaire Issa brothers, who also own Asda, was sold to the supermarket in October last year, and that has heralded the change in its fortunes: if the Asda deal is taken out of the figures, EG Group made a pre-tax loss of £98.3m.

Ferrovial and Macquarie, the co-owners of AGS Airports, which own and operate Aberdeen, Glasgow and Southampton airports have enlisted bankers at Credit Agricole and Solomon Partners advisers to sell the group in its entirety, according to The Telegraph. Each owns 50% of the business, which the pair bought for £1bn in 2014.  Spanish firm Ferrovial is currently attempting a £2.4bn sale of its 25% stake in Heathrow airport, however that has faltered. Australia’s Macquarie had been touted as a potential bidder for the outstanding stake but scrapped its acquisition plans last month.

Green taxes could put the cost of a return trip to New York up by £40, or around 6%, according to figures from Virgin Atlantic, which says incoming net zero regulations may see the cost of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) passed on directly to customers. SAF is a refined blend of waste oils, animal fats and ethanol from corn and is viewed as the most practical route towards reducing aviation’s net CO2 emission before completely new technologies, such as hydrogen propulsion, become available next decade or beyond, the Telegraph says. Airlines operating from the UK will be required to use at least 10% SAF to power their flights from 2030, but the fuel currently costs six times as much as traditional jet fuel.

Meanwhile, Virgin Atlantic is being sued by hundreds of long-serving cabin crew for unfair dismissal, claiming the airline used Covid redundancies to target older staff. The Guardian reports that an employment tribunal in London will start examining more than 200 cases next month. Like other airlines, Virgin grounded most of its fleet from March 2020, before cutting 3,000 jobs. Eventually more than 40% of its 10,000-strong workforce went. A “holding pool” was established for staff who were made redundant, to be potentially hired again when flights resumed, however, according to one claim, disclosure documents show that Virgin retained 350 new cabin crew via the pool, some with as little as one week’s training, while onboard managers, who were 45 on average with 20 years’ experience, were made redundant. A spokesperson for the airline said: “Following the severe impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the aviation industry, Virgin Atlantic had to make very difficult decisions. Sadly, this included reducing the number of people employed across the business by 45%. Our people are incredibly important to us, from those who have been with us since 1984, to our newest recruits. Throughout the redundancy process, we were committed to ensuring all our people were treated fairly and compassionately”.

Ryanair reported higher annual profits today, and announced the appointment of former UK home secretary Amber Rudd to its board. Profit after tax climbed 34%to €1.9bn in the 12 months to 30^th March as demand rose 9% to 184m passengers. Revenue jumped 25% to €13.4bn. However, the Irish budget airline but warned that summer airfares would be softer than anticipated. Nevertheless, it also announced a €700m share buyback as it had "surplus cash". CEO Michael O’Leary said: "The final outcome for full-year 2025 will be heavily dependent upon avoiding adverse events ... such as wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, extensive air traffic control disruptions or further Boeing delivery delays." Ryanair’s annual report also noted the airline expects to be short of 23 Boeing 737 Max aircraft by the end of July, adding that talks were ongoing with Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun. There have been two fatal crashes involving the plane and investigations are ongoing. Colhoun has announced he is leaving the company. Amber Rudd was also energy and climate change secretary under David Cameron. She resigned as Home Secretary in 2018 in relation to the scandal over the mistreatment of the Windrush generation of migrants to the UK and did not seek re-election in 2019. She was an investment banker before becoming an MP, and has since worked for public relations companies, as an adviser to Darktrace, ta cyber-security company that is being bought by a US private equity investor, and on the board of the British Gas owner, Centrica. She joins Ryanair as a non-executive director on 1^st July.

British Land has sold its 50% stake in Meadowhall Shopping Centre to its partner, Norges Bank Investment Management - the Norwegian sovereign wealth fund - for £360m. After settling net debt of around £200m, the proceeds of the sale will be £156m, which will be used for general corporate purposes and reinvestment into retail parks. However, as part of the transaction, British Land will remain as asset manager of Meadowhall shopping centre. The FTSE 250-listed property firm, which has owned Meadowhall for 25 years, has been reducing its exposure to shopping centres in favour of retail parks.

Keywords Studios, the video game services company, has said it would be “minded” to accept a £2.2bn takeover bid from Swedish private equity giant EQT Partners if it makes a firm offer. AIM-listed Keywords said in a statement it had previously received four unsolicited proposals from EQT in recent months, all of which its board rejected. The latest proposal represents a premium of around 73% to Keywords’ stock price at the close on Friday. Keywords, founded in 1998, employs more than 13,000 staff across 26 countries.

BT has pushed back the switch from the analogue Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) to digital landlines from the end of 2025 to the end of January 2027. The telecoms giant said the move “follows the introduction of a series of improvements to the programme,” however a government charter, introduced late last year, asked UK phone providers not to force people to switch over until better protections are in place for the vulnerable and elderly, as digital landlines currently stop working during power cuts. Howard Watson, chief security and networks officer at BT, said: “The urgency for switching customers onto digital services grows by the day because the 40-year-old analogue landline technology is increasingly fragile.

Meanwhile, BT, as the owner of EE mobile, has also signed a trial agreement with Elon Musk’s Starlink to use its network of low-Earth orbit satellites to carry calls, text and data to mobile masts. In theory, the deal would allow customers in rural signal blackspots to connect directly to the Starlink network and make calls and send texts in even the most remote locations. However, sources told The Telegraph discussions were at an early stage and it would be several years before the technology is ready to be rolled out. Virgin Media O2 (VMO2) has already struck a similar deal with the company to boost its rural connectivity and it is understood that Liberty Global, which owns VMO2 alongside Telefonica, is also in discussions with Starlink over a Europe-wide deal for its customers.

Getir, the grocery delivery app which this month confirmed plans to exit the UK, has an outstanding debt to Tottenham Hotspur Football Club running to millions of pounds, Sky News understands. The Turkey-based firm, whose three-year training kit sponsorship deal expired at the end of the Premier League season on Sunday, owes close to £5m to the club, and it ‘unclear’ Sky says whether it has the means to settle its financial obligations to the club.

Eurozone inflation was unchanged in April at 2.4%, according to figures released by Eurostat on Friday. Annual inflation in the European Union was 2.6% in April, also stable compared to the previous month.

The US imposed new tariffs of up to 100% on Chinese imports of electric vehicles, batteries, solar panels, semiconductors and other products last week. The move is an attempt by President Biden’s administration to counter the fact that the Chinese government subsidises certain industries enabling them to run at a loss to compete.

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