Key events
Wheat prices rise amid Black Sea tensions
Wheat prices have risen, as traders worried over war risks to Black Sea exports.
The most-traded wheat contract on the Chicago board of trade rose 1.5% to $6.49 a bushel. On Euronext, the front-month wheat contract rose 0.6% to €224.25 a metric ton.
Chicago wheat futures prices are well below the highs of more than $7 a bushel hit last month when disruptions to Black Sea exports began, but are still up nearly 30% so far this year.
Bloomberg reported over the weekend that Turkey has restricted commercial ship traffic entering the Black Sea following attacks on vessels. But Turkish officials have since indicated ships are passing normally through the Turkish straits, easing concerns.
Turkish foreing minister Hakan Fidan said on Saturday that Ankara had asked Russia and Ukraine to declare a moratorium on their attacks in the Black Sea, which have disrupted grain flows.
AJ Bell investment director Russ Mould has looked at the moves in markets:
The FTSE 100 dipped in early trading in stark contrast to the fireworks seen on Wall Street late last week.
The US rally was supported by weaker-than-anticipated US jobs numbers which helped dial down fears about an imminent rate hike from the Federal Reserve.
The Iran conflict remains a key source of concern for markets with a lasting resolution seeming a distant prospect at this point. Tehran has apparently resisted direct negotiations with Washington over a reopening of the Strait of Hormuz until several conditions are met.
A drop in US Treasury yields off the back of last week’s jobs numbers supported gold. Investors often turn their back on gold if interest rates are expected to go up a lot as that makes cash more attractive than the precious metal which offers no yield. Reduced expectations for interest rate hikes can have the opposite effect, with investors looking at gold once again. Also currently working in gold’s favour are ongoing tensions in the Middle East as investors seek assets that have historically held their value in uncertain times.
Miners did much of the heavy lifting in London, with housebuilders and data and software companies among those on the back foot.
Swiss Re warns on heatwave risks; parts of Germany relax truck restrictions
As another heatwave looms this week, the UK’s fifth, the boss of the reinsurance company Swiss Re has warned that authorities failed to grasp the scale of risk to human life posed by heatwaves.
Europe has reported thousands of excess deaths during a record-breaking spell of soaring temperatures, most of them people over 65. France and Spain have faced particularly high temperatures in recent weeks.
Swiss Re chief executive Andreas Berger told Swiss newspaper NZZ am Sonntag:
The risk of heatwaves and the associated fatalities was underestimated.
We need to raise awareness of the dangers arising from this.
The Robert Koch institute for public health estimated that there were about 11,900 heat-related deaths in Germany this year by late July, mostly due to extreme temperatures in late June.
The heat has also reduced water levels in major rivers such as the Rhine and the Danube, prompting Hungary to shut down its nuclear reactors for the first time as it relies on Danuber water for cooling.
In Germany, several states have eased trucking restrictions, allowing lorries to drive on Sundays and holidays, to make up for the decline in shipping. Markus Wolf, Rhineland-Palatinate’s transport secretary, said:
Low water levels are putting a strain on supply chains. That’s why we’re taking action and creating additional transport options by road at short notice.
Eurozone investor confidence turns positive in August
Investor morale in the eurozone unexpectedly returned to positive territory in August, according to a survey.
The Sentix index rose to 0.9 points from -31.1 in July, and was better than economists had expected. Sentiment improved for a fourth month to the highest level since February.
Sentix said that the shock to confidence caused by the Iran war, which started with US-Israeli air strikes on Tehran on 28 February, has been partially absorbed, although high energy costs and subdued order books are still a drag.
The headline index for Germany, Europe’s biggest economy, also improved but stayed negative, at -11.9 points versus -19.4 in July, the third monthly increase and the highest since February.
The survey of 1,097 investors was conducted between 6 and 8 August.
Boss of John Lewis department store chain quits ‘to pursue new projects’
More retail news: The John Lewis Partnership, Britain’s biggest employee-owned retailer, has said that Peter Ruis, the boss of its department store chain, will step down “to pursue new projects”.
It said Ruis, who has been managing director of John Lewis department stores since 2024, will be replaced by Will Kernan, who sits on the partnership’s board as a non-executive director, as part of an “orderly succession plan”.
Ruis returned to John Lewis in January 2024, after a number of other retail leadership roles, having previously been with the partnership for nine years, latterly as buying and brand director.
He has led a significant modernisation of the brand, John Lewis said: reimagining its 100-year brand promise Never Knowingly Undersold; overseeing transformational investment in John Lewis stores, most recently with the renovation of Glasgow; attracting exciting brands and overseeing the launch of Topshop, its new Platter restaurant and Sports assortment; changes to its digital platform; and achieving record customer satisfaction.
Kernan has served as the chief executive of River Island, The White Company and Wiggle and worked for New Look for 13 years, as group financial director, group trading director, chief operating officer and group managing director. Most recently, he has been chairman of Neptune, the high-end furniture and kitchen retailer which has partnered with John Lewis, and reported a doubling in annual profits in 2024-25.
Kernan said:
Having served on the partnership’s board for three years, I have a clear understanding of the John Lewis business and a huge appreciation for the partnership’s values and employee-ownership model. We have significant headroom for growth and I’m looking forward to leading the team to ensure John Lewis remains the country’s most trusted and loved retailer, in store and online.
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos closer to deal to buy stake in Liverpool FC
A consortium including the Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is closing in on a deal to buy a one-third stake in Liverpool Football Club.
Sky News reported that Fenway Sports Group (FSG), the Anfield club’s controlling shareholder since 2010, could announce a deal as soon as this week.
Bezos is expected to be part of an investor group alongside Eduardo Saverin, one of the co-founders of the social network Facebook.
The consortium is led by Amit Bhatia, the son-in-law of steel billionaire Lakshmi Mittal who was until recently a shareholder in Championship club Queens Park Rangers.
Oil prices rise 1% while stock markets are mixed
In financial markets, European shares are flat to slightly lower or, in the case of the German market, slightly higher, while oil prices rose 1%.
The UK’s FTSE 100 index slipped 0.2%, or 25 points, to 10,875. France’s CAC dipped 0.1% and the Spanish and Italian exchanges were broadly unchanged. Germany’s Dax bucked the trend with a 0.35% increase.
Brent crude climbed more than $1 to $84.59 a barrel, a 1.2% rise, with investors nervous about the situation in the Middle East.
Optimism over talks to reopen the strait of Hormuz so oil and gas tankers can pass through unimpeded was tempered by Iran’s insistence that the US meets certain demands, including compensation for air strikes on the country.
Iran said on Sunday that a deal with Oman was in its final stages. But Tehran is not in direct negotiations with Washington and will not restart talks unless the US sticks to the terms of an interim deal signed in June, according to foreign minister Abbas Araqchi.
Co-op chair Debbie White quits four months after CEO departure
The Co-op’s chair Debbie White has stepped down, just a few months after its chief executive left abruptly.
Shirine Khoury-Haq quit in March after a difficult year that included a cyber-attack and recent claims of a “toxic” culture at the business. The cyber attack hit sales and led to a worsening financial position.
The company, which owns more than 800 funeral parlours and an insurance and legal advisory business, as well as operating more than 2,000 convenience stores, dived to an underlying loss of £125m in the year to 2 January.
Moni Mannings, senior independent director, has been appointed as interim chair until a permanent successor is found, the Co-op said today.
White said:
My decision has been made easier knowing that our Co-op is back in a position of stability and opportunity. Under the leadership of interim CEO Kate Allum, supported by a highly capable leadership team, board and council, the organisation is well placed to continue building momentum and delivering for its members and customers.
Harvey Nichols warns of collapse as bidders including Mike Ashley circle
Jasper Jolly
Harvey Nichols has warned that it will not be able to survive another year without new investment, as bidders for the Knightsbridge-headquartered department store chain circle.
The retailer’s Hong Kong-based owner, Dickson Poon, put it up for sale in June, with Frasers Group chair Mike Ashley aiming to buy it for about £40m.
Harvey Nichols used to attract a high-profile clientele, including the late Princess Diana, and its place in popular culture was confirmed in its 1990s heyday by the TV sitcom Absolutely Fabulous, which used the store as a symbol for luxury retail. Yet “Harvey Nicks” has struggled to adjust to increased competition from other shopping destinations, as well as the unstoppable march of internet commerce.
The company has not made a profit since the coronavirus pandemic locked out big-spending tourists, and it reported a loss after tax of £105m after writing off inter-company loans for the year to 29 March 2025, according to accounts published over the weekend.
The directors warned that the company was not a going concern, because it would run out of money within the next year and that it had no agreements for new funding.
The accounts said that the company had received “a number of bids” to buy it, and that it was hoping to complete a deal within the next year.
FTSE 100 retailer Next had been interested in taking over the business, although it has withdrawn its interest, according to more recent reports.
That has left Ashley, the founder of the Sports Direct retail empire, as one of the frontrunners. Ashley on Friday told the Financial Times that Harvey Nichols was in a “death spiral” and that it would be a “huge challenge” to turn it around.
Ashley has bought a series of struggling premium brands in recent years after starting out with a single sports shop. He said he would keep the Knightsbridge and Edinburgh stores, but rebrand other stores as House of Fraser or Flannels under his Fraser group.
Harvey Nichols was founded in 1831, as a linen shop. Its department store headquarters in Knightsbridge opened in 1889. In the last century it has been owned by Debenhams and the Burton Group, before Poon bought it in 1991 for £53m.
Poon oversaw an expansion outside London, with a Leeds opening in 1996. The chain now has shops in Birmingham, Bristol, Dublin, Edinburgh and Manchester, as well as a series of restaurants including the one in London’s riverside Oxo Tower. Outside of the UK it has a store in Riyadh, one in Dubai, two in Hong Kong and one in Kuwait.
Thames Water faces row over £1m payment to finance chief
Jasper Jolly
Thames Water has paid its chief financial officer, Steve Buck, a £1m signing fee despite intense scrutiny of Britain’s biggest water company’s finances as it tries to avoid being taken into public control.
The utility revealed that it made the payment last month, in a letter sent last week by Sir Adrian Montague, its chair, to MPs on the environment, food and rural affairs select committee, Sky News first reported.
Thames is one of at least eight water companies banned from paying performance-related bonuses because of continued environmental failings from its creaking infrastructure. The company, which provides water and sewage services to 16 million customers in London and the Thames valley, has been on the verge of collapse for more than two years.
Andy Burnham has previously indicated that the government should take control of Thames in order to write off debts worth billions of pounds. However, the creditors who effectively control Thames have spent months negotiating to take formal ownership, if regulators will give leniency on future fines. The creditors have offered the government a “golden share” in the business in a last-ditch bid to avoid having their debts written down.
Yet the continued payments of millions of pounds to executives will probably strengthen calls for the government to step in and take formal control via a special administration regime.
The payment to Buck was made at the end of last month, after Thames took legal advice over its obligations.
The payment was drawn from a £3bn emergency debt package agreed last year with creditors. That money is designed to keep Thames running while it tries to negotiate a longer-term takeover by its creditors, more than two years after its shareholders effectively walked away from the business.
Cat Hobbs, director of We Own It, a campaign group calling for nationalisation of the water industry, said:
The Thames Water saga is beyond a joke a this point – they are completely taking the mickey. Andy Burnham must step in immediately and take back the company … the shareholders have walked away, and the debt can be drastically cut and refinanced more cheaply in public hands. It’s criminal to let this rip off continue with 16m households paying the price.
Vistry shares plunge after report that credit insurer has cut cover for its suppliers
The UK housebuilder Vistry’s shares plunged as much as 9%, after a report that the credit insurer Allianz Trade is reducing cover it provides to Vistry suppliers – which was swiftly denied by the housebuilder.
This could worsen the struggling company’s cashflow and financial position, and Vistry shares are the top faller on the FTSE 250 index after the Financial Times report.
In recent weeks, the insurer warned suppliers it is adjusting its credit limits for Vistry, which could result in cover being reduced by up to 70%, the FT said, citing one person as saying that final level of cover provided will depend on Vistry’s financial performance in the weeks ahead.
Suppliers buy credit insurance to protect themselves in case their customers fail to pay for goods and services, and when coverage is withdrawn, suppliers may ask for payment upfront. Credit insurance is often provided by several insurers.
A Vistry spokesperson said:
Credit insurers continue to provide substantial cover for our supply chain which more than meets the group’s requirements on an ongoing basis. We are not aware of any supplier withdrawing trade from Vistry due to credit insurance changes and we have seen no interruptions to our supply chain.
We maintain positive relationships with our suppliers as we continue to build at scale and pace, delivering the high-quality homes this country needs.
Last month, Vistry warned that it will make a loss of around £30m in the first half of the year, after it resorted to heavy discounting to attract buyers for unsold homes.
The company has shifted towards building social homes in partnership with housing associations, local authorities and build-to-rent investors in recent years.
Robert Walters boss says legal, technology and accounting recruitment is picking up
Toby Fowlston, chief executive the recruitment company Robert Walters, talked of “shards of light in certain parts of the world,” including the UK.
The company has just reported a 9% rise in net fee income in the first half of the year.
Fowlston said the jobs report from KPMG and REC was encouraging.
He explained that the company, which focuses on mid to senior professional services (not the lower end of the market) has seen an upturn in legal, technology and accounting recruitment, while the consumer-led industries like retail and hospitality are still struggling to recruit people.
But technology in particular, the job flow hasn’t really been the challenge. The challenge has been the confidence levels, particularly of candidates to move. And I was really encouraged to see that starting salaries for permanent roles from the recent data are now at the fastest rate for six months. And we know temporary wage growth is continuing to increase as well.
People are impacted by the cost of living. People are impacted, particularly those with fixed rate mortgages, with interest rates having obviously shifted over the last three to five years. So our view is that you’ve got candidates now who are now actively starting to consider the move.
He noted that 18% of workers are in the public sector while the rest work in the private sector, and of those, about 60% work for small and medium-sized businesses of less than 250 employees.
Thinking back to 2008/9 and the global financial crisis, as well as the Covid pandemic of 2020/21, there was a “very big global snapback,” Fowlston said.
That’s not what we’re seeing at the moment. We’re seeing shards of light in certain parts of the world. The UK is most certainly one of them. So I’m actually quite encouraged by what we’re seeing in the UK.
We’ve got the budget coming up, in the autumn [on 28 October]. I think there is a great opportunity there to bring some real confidence back into the employment sector and remove some of the red tape that I think is prohibited. Some of the employers are making hiring decisions.
Rob Wood, chief economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, said rising employment and wage gains suggest the Bank of Engand’s monetary policy committee needs to be cautious.
There may be an element of a “Burnham Bounce” in the survey, as the drop in temporary hiring and rise in permanent in July—usually a sign of falling uncertainty—sits oddly with the resumption of hostilities in the Middle East in July. So Sentiment could easily drop back somewhat.
Wage growth accelerated to the strongest since January, and the permanent salaries index lies above the 52.3 average seen in 2025, suggesting there has been no slowdown in pay growth over the past 18 months. Vacancy growth recovering and staff availability high but easing slightly also point to a labour market beginning to steady.
Most surveys, with the exception of the PMI, are now consistent with rising employment and wage growth plateauing at an above-inflation target-consistent rate.
Introduction: UK employment market shows ‘rays of light’ for jobseekers with upturn in pay, study shows
Good morning, and welcome to our rolling coverage of business, the financial markets and the world economy.
There are signs of improvement in the UK jobs market, with an upturn in pay and the first rise in temporary vacancies in two years as employers sought more flexibility.
Employers have stopped shedding permanent jobs, with placements stabilising in July and temporary billings rose further, at the fastest pace since early 2023, according to a monthly survey from KPMG and the Recruitment and Employment Federation.
Recruiters said demand for permanent staff remained subdued amid political and economic uncertainty and higher labour costs, though some employers continued to hire for new projects.
Callum Licence, head of advisory at KPMG UK and Switzerland, said:
Despite ongoing uncertainty it’s encouraging that businesses are starting to press ahead with investment, which means across the board we are starting to see the data moving in the right direction. This is most pronounced in the continued rise of temporary work, where employers have been looking at flexible approaches and hiring has been growing for several months, and permanent hiring is starting to turn a corner.
Temporary workers are in demand across the UK and though modest, the rate of growth was the fastest seen since August 2023. At the same time, permanent vacancies fell at a slower, but still solid rate. As a result, overall demand for workers fell at the softest pace in 22 months.
Pay continued to improve in July, with recruiters often talking of a lack of suitably skilled or experienced candidates for roles. The rate of starting salary inflation was solid, reaching the highest level in six months, while temp wage growth hit a 26-month high. However, the upturn in starting salaries remained much slower than the long-run trend.
Appointments to permanent positions stabilised ending a 45-month period of decline. London and the Midlands recorded renewed upturns in permanent staff hiring in July, with growth hitting a near four-year high in the capital, but there were further declines in the south and north of England.
Growth in temporary roles slowed from June’s 38-month record, but was among the best recorded since early 2023. The north of England recorded the steepest upturn in temp billings, followed by London. A softer increase was seen in the south of England, while billings fell slightly across the Midlands.
Maxine Bligh, REC’s chief membership and innovation officer, said:
Rays of light are beginning to break through for the job market as employers revive hiring plans. Temporary vacancies are up for the first time in two years, while recruiters’ revenue from supplying temporary workers has risen for a fourth consecutive month.
Remarkably, this is the first month without a decline in permanent placements since Liz Truss resigned as prime minister in 2022, underlining just how prolonged the downturn in permanent hiring has been. That makes it all the more important that the government takes decisions now that build business confidence and momentum in hiring.
