The top business news of the week includes further difficulties for high street brands such as Next and House of Fraser. Uber has sold off its south-east Asia operations and Amazon has snapped up the headline sponsor spot for the next series of the Great British Bake Off. We’ve also got our eyes on the gender pay gap figures as the deadline is only days away.
More troubles on the high street as Next reports that 2017 was “the most challenging year we have faced for 25 years”. House of Fraser’s owner has reportedly injected an additional £15 million into the business after a difficult financial period and Conviviality has gone into administration, putting more than 2,500 jobs at risk.
Uber has sold its operations in south-east Asia to local rival Grab. The region includes Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Myanmar. In return, Uber is said to have received a stake in Grab worth “several billion dollars” and a seat on its board.
After Channel 4’s success with the latest series of the Great British Bake Off, Amazon has moved in to secure the spot as headline sponsor for the next series. The deal is said to be worth around £5 million. Amazon plans to use the slot to advertise its speakers and virtual assistant, Alexa.
The deadline for publishing gender pay gap figures for UK businesses with 250+ employees is coming up and many firms have already released theirs. An article published this week by the Financial Times revealed that, according to the figures already released, almost 90 percent of women work in companies that pay their male staff more than their female employees.
There is some good news for BrewDog, however, as it is set to increase the number of UK bars by more than a third after buying the Draft House pub chain.
