It is a big morning for fans of table top fantasy game Warhammer, with the news that a long-awaited agreement to develop the brand into TV and film has been signed in principle with tech giant Amazon. Meanwhile, UK retail sales unexpectedly fell in November as the cost of the living crisis engulfing the sector deepened leaving the confidence of British consumers is still lingering near its record low.
(Bloomberg) — It is a big morning for fans of table top fantasy game Warhammer, with the news that a long-awaited agreement to develop the brand into TV and film has been signed in principle with tech giant Amazon. Meanwhile, UK retail sales unexpectedly fell in November as the cost of the living crisis engulfing the sector deepened leaving the confidence of British consumers is still lingering near its record low.
Here’s the key business news from London this morning:
In The City
Games Workshop Group Plc: The maker of Warhammer, the table-top fantasy figurines, has signed an agreement in principle with Amazon to turn its intellectual property into film and television productions, alongside associated merchandising rights.
- Amazon can start discussing the project with writers, and it is expected that the rights will initially be granted to develop the futuristic Warhammer 40,000 universe
BT Group Plc: The telecommunications giant will combine its Global and Enterprise units into a single unit, BT Business.
- The company says it’ll leverage the “full scale and capabilities” of the company to deliver a better service for its business customers, as well as driving costs savings of at least £100 million by the end of 2025
CRH Plc: The building materials provider is setting up a venture capital unit to help develop new technologies and solutions in construction sector.
- CRH Ventures will have $250 million venturing and innovation fund and will focus on technologies focusing on sustainability, decarbonisation and automation
In Westminster
The Labour Party easily retained a parliamentary seat in a special election in northwest England, bolstering Keir Starmer’s position ahead of a national vote expected in less than two years.
UK consumer confidence lingered near its record low for an eighth month, the longest streak of gloom in the survey’s 50-year history.
That’s as London’s pubs and restaurants that survived Covid and the widespread adoption of working-from-home are now facing another threat in persistent train strikes. Snow and walkouts aren’t helping, but they won’t “upend holiday spending,” says Bloomberg Opinion’s Andrea Felsted, adding that it’s January that “we should all be worrying about.”
In Case You Missed It
“UK equities are far cheaper than can be reasonably explained. That’s fantastic news for investors,” writes personal finance columnist Merryn Somerset Webb.
Elsewhere, Citigroup Inc. told most employees they can work from anywhere for the final two weeks of the year, as Chief Executive Officer Jane Fraser bucks a trend among rivals to get office workers back to their desks full time.
Finally, EY is standing by its plan to split into two companies by mid-year despite choppy capital markets that could make the move pricier than expected. Global Managing Partner Andy Baldwin told Bloomberg the group is moving toward an initial “soft” separation of the auditing and consulting businesses by July 1.
Looking Ahead
Next week has unsurprisingly slim pickings, but one calendar item still stands out: final third-quarter UK GDP are due on Thursday morning, following the Bank of England’s projection yesterday that the economy should contract slightly less this quarter than previously forecast.
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