Royal Mail’s takeover by Czech billionaire Daniel Kretinsky has been approved by the Government, the BBC says. The £3.6bn deal follows a probe under the National Security and Investment Act - because the firm’s service is vital to the national infrastructure – and meetings with the Communication Workers Union in recent weeks. It takes the Royal Mail out of British ownership for the first time since it was founded 500 years’ ago. Kretinsky’s EP Group has promised to maintain the "one price goes anywhere" universal service; not to raid the Royal Mail pension surplus; to keep the brand name and Royal Mail's headquarters and tax residency in the UK for the next five years; and not make any compulsory redundancies until next year. Kretinsky has also made commitments to trade unions that include workers getting a 10% share of any dividends paid out to Kretinsky, as well as the formation of a workers’ group that will meet monthly with the directors of Royal Mail to give employees a bigger voice on how it is run. When the sale is complete, the Government will retain a so-called ‘golden share’ giving it the right to approve any major changes to Royal Mail's ownership, HQ location, and tax residency. Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds said the deal was evidence of the Government's commitment to "working towards ensuring a financially stable Royal Mail with protected links between communities other providers can't reach".

Chancellor Rachel Reeves’s Inheritance Tax (IHT) raid on family businesses and farms will cost the Treasury over £1bn more than it makes, according to analysis by CBI Economics. The report says the Government has “underestimated the impact” of changes to business property relief (BPR), because the majority of family businesses will be forced to cut investment because of the raid, leading to job losses totalling 125,678 in number. This loss of economic activity will lead to a £2.6bn reduction in income from taxes such as corporation tax, income tax and national insurance over the next five years, CBI Economics concludes, much more than the estimated £1.38bn in extra inheritance tax Reeves hopes to raise. Conservative Party Leader Kemi Badenoch will cite the research in a speech to The Business Property Relief Summit, in London today, the Telegraph says. She is expected to say: “Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves spent months, years even, on a charm offensive to convince businesses they had nothing to fear from a Labour Government. Within weeks of taking office, they unleashed the worst raid on family business in living memory. They promised to get growth going. Instead, growth is going backwards”. “Keir Starmer’s decisions will drain investment and growth out of the British economy. And no one is safe. Businesses small and large, rural and urban, whether they make goods or provide services,” she will continue, adding that the warning about job losses is “chilling,” their number being “equivalent to the entire population of Blackburn.” From April next year, inheritance tax will be charged at 20% on inherited business assets - including farms - worth over £1m when the owner dies. Before Reeves’ first Budget in October, businesses were exempt from IHT.

James Reed of Reed, one of the UK’s largest recruiters, told the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg yesterday that jobs advertised on his website were 26% lower than a year ago, and suggested this is because the Budget “spooked business”. He added: “That worries me because when I’ve seen that in the past, it’s been an indication that recession is around the corner.” "We're like the crow's nest on a ship. We get the vacancies coming into our website early, so we see what's happening in the labour market," he said.

The Government has disposed of just over 80.9m of its shares in NatWest, taking its remaining stake in the bank it bailed out during the 2008 financial crisis to 9.99%. Chancellor Rachel Reeves said last month that the State plans to fully exit the bank by 2026. Meanwhile, Sky News reports the bank’s remuneration committee is likely to recommend NatWest Group CEO Paul Thwaite receives an increase in his maximum annual bonus from 100% of his base salary to 150%, plus a performance share plan which could pay him up to three times his basic pay each year, putting him in line for a potential remuneration package worth around £6.5m, if approved. Last year, he was awarded a total package of just over £2.4m.

Frasers Group, Mike Ashley’s retail empire, has won backing from planning officers for its application to build a huge new headquarters on farmland in Ansty, Warwickshire, despite their conclusion it would “clearly cause substantial and permanent harm to the green belt by reducing its openness”. However, they also concluded that the 275-acre site could be recommended for approval because the benefits of the development justify the “harms” to green belt land, hence the “very special circumstances” led them to recommend acceptance of the proposal. “The project consists of five warehouses totalling 3.3m sq ft, each one purportedly bigger than the village itself; a 100-bed hotel; a space to test out retail concepts; offices; a gym, swimming pool and other sports facilities; a training academy with classrooms and an auditorium; a nursery; multi-storey car parks; and a helipad. Benefits from the site include a potential £69m economic boost to the UK, and potential support for up to 750 additional shops with 11,000 new jobs across Britain. A 10pc boost to the economy of the nearby Rugby economy is also anticipated,” The Telegraph reports. However, planning officers also warn there was likely to be a “significant adverse impact” on Coventry city centre, which it said could suffer a potential 4% loss in trade because the Frasers HQ would attract more shoppers there, leading to the closure of rival stores elsewhere. 194 local people objected to the plans. Frasers bought the land for £53.5m three years ago. The Labour-run Rugby Borough Council’s planning committee meets later this week to decide whether or not to give the project the go-ahead.

TalkTalk is to cutting hundreds of jobs in an attempt to make £120m in cost savings. The company has already begun consulting on redundancies to scrap around 130 jobs at its Salford-based consumer division, but it is reported that further cuts are now set to follow at a wholesale business. TalkTalk had 1,857 employees at the end of February, according to its latest accounts. Two-thirds of these were in administrative roles. The telecom is also selling non-core businesses, closing offices and cutting spend on marketing, travel and catering, as well as increasing automation, outsourcing, offshoring and AI use. Founder Sir Charles Dunstone and other shareholders paid an emergency bailout to the firm earlier this year to prevent a default on its debts.

French media giant Canal+ has listed on the London Stock Exchange this morning.

Apple says it has invested more than £18 billion in the UK over the past five years, and now supports 550,000 jobs in the UK, either through direct employment, its retail stores, supply chain, or the expansive network of developers who create software to distribute via the App Store. The US tech giant also confirmed its UK engineering teams have doubled in size since 2019, reflecting its growing presence in the country since the launch of the iPhone 11, and said UK production of films and series for Apple TV+ has tripled in the last two years alone. Apple is the world’s most valuable company, worth in excess $3.7tn.

UK-based partners at accountancy firm Grant Thornton have voted to back the sale of a majority stake to private equity firm Cinven, Sky News has learnt.

Entain Group has been charged with alleged contraventions of an anti-money laundering (AML) and counter-terrorism financing (CTF) act in Australia. The Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre (AUSTRAC) says it found "systemic failures" in the FTSE 100 company's approach to its AML/CTF obligations, such as not having adequate controls to confirm customers' identities and not conducting appropriate checks on higher-risk customers. This is the first time AUSTRAC has brought civil penalty proceedings against a business operating in the online betting sector. Entain, which operates out of Australia and New Zealand through the Ladbrokes, Neds, Entain Venues, TAB and Trackside brands, said it takes the allegations "extremely seriously", and has co-operated fully with AUSTRAC throughout its investigation, which started in September 2022.

Ageas is to buy Saga's underwriting business as part of 20-year partnership for motor and home insurance. The Affinity Partnership will see Ageas take on price-comparison website distribution, pricing and underwriting, claims and customer servicing activities, while Saga will retain responsibility for brand and direct marketing. Saga will receive an upfront payment of £80m and contingent considerations of up to £30m in 2026, and the same again in 2032, subject to certain policy volume and profitability targets being met and the satisfaction of certain conditions. Ageas will pay £67.5m for Saga's underwriting business, Acromas Insurance Company Limited (AICL).

Activist investor Nelson Peltz's Trian Fund Management firm has bought 7.5m shares in Rentokill for £31m. Trian took a 2.26% stake in Rentokil in June and in September, at which point the company announced the appointment of a representative of Trian to its board as a non-executive director.

Bitcoin keeps climbing. It hit another record of more than $106,000 earlier today, an increase analysts attribute to hopes Donald Trump will create a US national fund for the currency when he takes office as US President for the second time on 20^th January. The cryptocurrency has made gains of more than 190% so far this year.

Isak Andic, the 71-year old billionaire founder of high street fashion chain Mango, died after reportedly falling down a ravine to his death while hiking in caves in an area of the Montserrat mountains in Spain. Mango CEO Toni Ruiz said in a statement: "His departure leaves a huge void but all of us are, in some way, his legacy and the testimony of his achievements. Andic, who was born in Turkey, founded Mango with the help of his brother, Nahman, in Barcelona in 1984. Mango now operates almost 3,000 outlets in 120 countries. Forbes has estimated Andic's net worth to be $4.5bn (£3.6bn).

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