Business

The marketing services tycoon Sir Martin Sorrell will this week swoop to make two US additions worth more than $200m (£146m) to his digital advertising empire. Sky News understands that S4 Capital – founded by Sir Martin in the wake of his departure from WPP Group – will announce on Monday that it is buying

After a landmark year when several new billion-dollar streaming services jockeyed for attention, there is a big question greeting the new class as 2021 begins: Where from here? Apple, Disney, NBCUniversal and WarnerMedia, the most prominent new players in the streaming game, have all made a solid go of it, to varying degrees. (Alas, poor

Bitcoin has topped $30,000 for the first time, extending a rally that saw its value climb by 300% in 2020. The cryptocurrency rose to as high as $31,824 early on Saturday – just two weeks after passing the $20,000 mark. Its rise has been attributed to traders increasingly betting on it becoming a mainstream payment

Los Angeles County ended 2020 breaking Covid-19 records and brought in the new year doing just the same. On Saturday Los Angeles Public Health officials reported that L.A. County has surpassed 800,000 total coronavirus cases – with nearly half of the cases being reported in the last month. To date Los Angeles County has confirmed

Lord Sugar, the Amstrad founder and star of The Apprentice, is fuelling a landlord-led revolt against a rescue deal for Caffe Nero, the struggling chain of coffee shops. Sky News has learnt that Amsprop Investments, the peer’s private commercial property group, is among seven parties which have lodged a legal challenge aimed at blocking Caffe

UPDATED with latest: Friday was by far the deadliest day of the pandemic in California. On Wednesday, California saw a frightening new high of 432 Covid-related deaths. Thursday’s number dipped slightly to 428. On Friday, the number of lives recorded lost to the virus rocketed to 585. That’s a 37% rise in one day. Some

Boris Johnson is calling for more teachers, nurses, police officers and other frontline workers to help the UK recover from the coronavirus pandemic. The prime minister will call on those looking for a job or career change this year to consider frontline public sector roles. An advertising campaign will begin on 5 January on TV

The number of daily new Covid-19 cases in Los Angeles County had been falling for two weeks. From an all-time high of 21,411 on December 16, new cases had settled at between 13,000 and 15,000. While deaths remained punishingly high, there was some hope that a plateau in cases meant that transmission of the virus

The dismantling of Sir Philip Green’s high street empire is about to accelerate after the appointment of agents to oversee the sale of the tycoon’s former flagship Topshop store. Sky News has learnt that administrators to Redcastle (214 Oxford Street) Limited, which owns the central London property next to Oxford Circus station have appointed Eastdil

If 2020 began with promise, all that changed as every industry tradition we took for granted was stripped away without warning. The pandemic has seen nearly 20 million positive cases in the U.S. alone, and soon 350,000 will be dead. Every facet of entertainment was impacted: live theaters and movie theaters closed, production in TV

The FTSE 100 has clocked up its worst year since the 2008 financial crisis – underperforming against global rivals that have bounced back following a coronavirus sell-off earlier in the year. London’s leading share index closed at 6460.5 in a shortened closing session on New Year’s Eve, 14.3% down over the course of 2020. It

A word for stocks in 2020: epic — as in monumental, as a bona fide crash in the spring alternated thereafter with convulsions of angst and optimism reflecting a world turned upside down by the first global pandemic in a century. Major indexes from the Dow Jones to the Nasdaq, S&P 500 and Russell 3000

Tesco, Pizza Hut and Superdrug are among 139 companies that have been named and shamed by the government for failing to pay the minimum wage. The employers short-changed more than 95,000 workers by a total of £6.7m during the period investigated between 2016 and 2018, the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) said.

Here’s our rundown of the 10 storylines set to dominate the international film business in 2021. Covid, of course What a difference a year makes. The pandemic that pretty much no one foresaw has re-shaped the entire world, including the entertainment business. 2021 will give us a better idea of which aspects of that re-shaping

One of Britain’s most prominent technology entrepreneurs is to be reunited with the backers of her biggest corporate success when she takes the helm of a cash shell that will target a £100m software industry takeover. Sky News has learnt that Vin Murria, who made her investors a fortune when she sold Advanced Computer Software

Amid an avalanche of awful Covid-19 news on Wednesday, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti announced a renewed focus on preventing gatherings ahead of New Year’s Eve. “Nobody should be gathering in a big party and nobody should be gathering in a small party, as well,” said the mayor. “Do NOT get together with others on

House leaders paid tribute to Luke Letlow, the 41-year-old congressman-elect from Louisiana who died on Tuesday after being hospitalized for complications from Covid-19. He was set to take office next week. Andrew Bautsch, a spokesman, confirmed the the Associated Press that Letlow died at Ochsner-LSU Health Shreveport. “Our hearts break tonight as we process the

Boeing 737 MAX aircraft have resumed passenger flights in the US for the first time since a 20-month safety ban was lifted last month. American Airlines flight 718, carrying around 100 passengers, landed at New York’s LaGuardia Airport on Tuesday after departing from Miami earlier in the day. The airline and plane manufacturer Boeing have

The WGA has rejected WME’s latest proposal that would end their long-running legal battle, saying that “WME has yet to grapple, in a serious way, with its own conflicts of interest.” WME sent the guild a new proposal on Dec. 22 that would, had it been accepted by the guild, have ended the WGA’s 20-month