Good morning. It was supposed to mark the dawn of a new era for the British space sector but unfortunately over night the first ever satellite mission launched from UK soil ended in failure. 2,000 people gathered in Cornwall to watch Virgin Orbit fail to deploy its nine satellites as planned.

Big Stories

Lidl’s festive win

Yesterday the German discount supermarket reported that it gained 1.3m British customers over the festive period as shoppers looked for cheaper options amid the cost of living crisis. It said it experienced its busiest ever trading day in 28 years in the UK on Friday 23 December.

Industry research from Kantar shows that Lidl’s market share increased from 6.2% in January 2022 to 7.2% in the three months up to Christmas Day. It puts Lidl behind rival Aldi as the UK’s sixth biggest supermarket. During the same period consumer spending fell at Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Asda and Morrisons.

Striking out

Yesterday union bosses met with government ministers in a bid to avoid further strike action paralysing the UK. The health secretary hosted the Royal College of Nurses; the education secretary met teachers and rail unions met with the transport minister.

However the crisis talks didn’t go well with union representatives calling them ‘bitterly disappointing’ with more walkouts expected

Ministers want to agree efficiency savings now in order to unlock funding for pay rises in the 12 months to March 2024. But unions want immediate pay improvement to at least match the rising cost of living but the government argues that anything too generous now would make inflation worse.

Rolling in it

In 2022 luxury carmaker Rolls Royce sold 6,021 cars – the highest number in its 119-year history and a 8% jump on the prior year. The Derby based firm, owned by German car giant BMW, saw the biggest growth from the US and Middle Eastern markets while sales in China fell as Covid lockdowns gripped the country. Customer demand for individualised features pushed the average price of a car to above €500,000 for the first time. Later this year the company will unveil its first electric car - Spectre - in it says the first step toward building only fully-electric cars by the end of 2030.

Goldman Sachs shrinks back

The Wall Street giant will slash around 3,200 jobs this week with more than a third of cuts set to come from its core trading and banking units. It will be one of its biggest rounds of job cuts ever and comes amid a slowdown in merger activity and lower asset prices — as well as an uncertain outlook for the global economy. The company’s headcount rose 34% since the end of 2018 and Goldman largely set aside its annual exercise of cutting underperformers during the pandemic. But the prospects of lower deal fees has prompted the bank to reduce its cost base.

It comes as other banking rivals are also cutting back with Morgan Stanley, Citigroup, Barclays and Credit Suisse all shedding hundreds workers in the last six months.

Elsewhere...

Not lovin' it: The former boss of McDonald’s has been fined $400,000 by the US regulator for “concealing the extent of his misconduct” over a relationship with an employee.

Pulled back: The government confirmed that businesses will receive reduced support for their energy bills from the end of March.

Extended battery life: Troubled electric car battery maker Britishvolt has said it is in talks with investors over a possible sale, to keep the firm afloat after it came close to collapse last year.

Corporate credit: Santander has launched a business-to-business buy-now pay-later service for cash strapped companies.

Golden can: The boss of craft brewer BrewDog has paid out almost £500,000 after a misleading 'solid-gold' beer can promotion was reported to regulators.

Going up: Tenants in properties owned by private landlords have faced the highest rise in rent since comparable records began seven years ago, official data shows.

Arm twisting: The prime minister Rishi Sunak has reportedly been in talks with the CEOs of SoftBank and Arm, in a renewed attempt to have the chip designer list its shares in London.

Back to the office: The Disney CEO has summoned all hybrid workers back to the office four days a week starting from March.

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