6:49 am, July 26, 2024
Private equity firm Apollo to buy parcel delivery giant Evri for £2.7bn
Private equity firm Apollo Global Management has said it is buying parcel delivery firm Evri in a £2.7bn deal.
Apollo is set to buy Evri from Advent International, the private equity outfit that bought the company, then the UK operations of the Hermes delivery group, for one billion euros in 2020.
Advent rebranded it as Evri in 2022, and the company now delivers 720m parcels a year, serving about 12m customers a week.
CrowdStrike faces backlash over 10 dollar apology vouchers for IT collapse
Cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike is facing new criticism after offering a 10 dollar UberEats voucher as an apology for the major global IT failure that grounded flights and saw medical appointments cancelled.
A flawed software update from the company affected around 8.5m Windows computers worldwide last Friday, bringing businesses and infrastructure to a grinding halt.
Now the company has been criticised for sending an email to staff and some partners thanking them for helping to fix the issue and telling recipients: ‘To express our gratitude, your next cup of coffee or late-night snack is on us!’, with the gesture widely mocked on social media.
Rachel Reeves set to unveil £20bn hole in public finances
Rachel Reeves is expected to unveil a hole in the public finances of around £20bn, signalling that tax rises could be on the way.
On Monday, the chancellor will set out the results of the spending audit she ordered Treasury officials to produce.
Her update will reveal ‘the true scale of the damage the Conservatives have done to the public finances’, a Labour source said.
Streeting warns health watchdog not fit for purpose as report outlines failings
England’s health and social care watchdog is ‘not fit for purpose’, health secretary Wes Streeting has said, pledging immediate action to restore public confidence.
He was reacting to an independent review into the Care Quality Commission, the body that monitors and inspects all health and adult social care providers to ensure safety and quality standards.
It identified ‘significant internal failings’ affecting its ability to identify poor performance at hospitals, care homes and GP practices. Streeting said he was ‘stunned by the extent of the failings’ revealed in the report.
Family ‘deeply traumatised’ and want justice after airport video, says MP
The ‘deeply traumatised’ family at the centre of the Manchester Airport controversy want justice, their MP said, after a video appeared to show a man being kicked on the floor by a police officer.
A Greater Manchester Police officer was suspended yesterday after the footage, filmed at Manchester Airport’s terminal two on Tuesday, was shared widely on social media, while there were protests outside Rochdale police station and Mayor Andy Burnham’s office.
The family of the man are particularly shocked by what happened because some of their family members are police officers, newly elected Rochdale Labour MP Paul Waugh said after speaking to them.
Migrants and homeless people cleared out of Paris for Olympics
Carrying backpacks and small children, hundreds of people sleeping on the streets of Paris climbed aboard buses surrounded by armed police yesterday, the latest group of migrants and homeless people to be driven out of the city ahead of today’s opening ceremony of the 2024 Olympics.
The group of largely African migrants headed for the fringes of the city in buses paid for by the French government and into temporary lodging until at least the end of the Games.
French authorities have been clearing out migrant and homeless encampments for months leading up to the massive global sports event.
Wildfire in Canadian Rockies ravages town of Jasper
A fast-moving wildfire in the Canadian Rockies that prompted thousands of people to flee the town of Jasper roared into the near-deserted community overnight – causing devastating damage, the mayor said yesterday.
Officials said it was too early to confirm how many houses were destroyed, but Jasper mayor Richard Ireland said in a letter to residents on the town’s website that the wildfire had ‘ravaged our beloved community’.
Jasper had been menaced by fires from the north and south, and the town’s 5,000 residents — plus 20,000 park visitors – fled at short notice late on Monday night and on Tuesday when the fires flared up in the national park.
Jeremy Clarkson’s Ford Escort RS Cosworth could fetch £75,000 at auction
A 1992 Ford Escort RS Cosworth once evaluated by Jeremy Clarkson over 12 months is heading for auction.
One of three pre-production prototypes, the Cosworth was featured in Top Gear Magazine and Clarkson’s Car Years, with the former seeing Clarkson running the car for a year and writing 12 reports about his time with the car.
Now it’s heading under the hammer via Iconic Auctioneers at its event on August 24, where it could fetch up to £75,000 when the hammer falls.
Yesterday’s headlines on Car Dealer you might have missed
- Is the online-only model dead? Car Dealer asks the experts as Cinch opens used car sites
- Stellantis sees its profits slashed in half in bruising first six months of 2024
- Car production down by 7.6% in first half of year as manufacturers switch to EVs
- Honda e:Ny1 back on top as ‘hottest’ new car on Auto Trader, thanks to big affordability push
- Vertu Motors completes deal to buy Honda Exeter from Hendy Group
- GardX Group completes acquisition of Middle East & North Africa distribution partner
Market movements
The FTSE 100 closed 32.66 points up yesterday to end the day on 8,186.35. The Cac 40 was down 86.71 points at 7,427.02, the Dax was down 88.74 points at 18,298.72, and the Dow Jones was up 81.20 points at 39,935.07.
Weather outlook
Today, after a mostly dry and sunny start, but with some showers in north-west Scotland, patchy cloud will develop and scattered showers will break out in the afternoon, mainly in the north, says BBC Weather.
Much of the UK will see scattered showers tomorrow, particularly in the afternoon, and it’ll be locally thundery in the north. There will be sunny spells for many but cloudier periods for central areas of the UK.
