Commercial news round-up: fat cats, Next, Debenhams, rail fares, Spotify
updated on 04 January 2018
The post-New Year fog may not have quite lifted yet, but one startling fact should serve to wake you up – deemed ‘Fat cat Thursday’, by lunchtime today the chief executives of top British companies will have made more money than the average UK worker will earn in the entire year. A depressing state of affairs, by anyone’s standards. For more financial and business news that you should be alert to, read on:
- Next was one of the big retail winners over the Christmas period, enjoying a 1.5% rise in full-price sales, which was far better than the 0.3% fall it had expected. The company has since raised its profit predictions for the coming year, although still warns that “subdued consumer demand and lower spending on clothing would persist in 2018”.
- Conversely, Debenhams has been suffering with the Christmas doldrums. Its like-for-like sales fell 2.6% in the 17 weeks to 30 December and the company’s shares have taken a nosedive as a result.
- As regular as Christmas, this year’s annual rail fare rises are the biggest since 2013, with commuters looking at an average increase on tickets of 3.4%.
- Spotify is staring down the barrel of a mammoth lawsuit for unpaid royalties. A company representing a variety of artists that include Neil Young and Janis Joplin has claimed that the music-streaming service owes around $1.6 billion for hosting songs it allegedly doesn’t have the full rights to.
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