Good morning. Today we're talking about Nationwide’s takeover of Virgin Money, analysis of the budget and Monzo’s latest fund raise.

Big Stories

Nationwide buys Virgin Money

Nationwide is offering to buy Virgin Money for £2.9bn. Virgin, which is the UK’s sixth-biggest lender, has been struggling to compete with big rivals like Lloyds and NatWest, which can lend more from their larger customer deposit bases. When combined, Nationwide and Virgin would overtake NatWest as the UK’s second-largest provider of mortgages. The offer represents a 38% premium to Virgin Money’s closing share price on Wednesday. The offer is at a level Virgin shares barely touched in the last few years. While the Virgin Money brand will be phased out eventually, its customers are expected to benefit from a wider range of products and services.

Budget tax give and takes

The Chancellor set out his "Budget for Long-Term Growth" with the aim of reducing the Conservative party’s deficit in the polls in an election year. Among the measures announced was lower national insurance contributions partially funded by abolishing the "non-dom" tax benefit and other tax increases. But the £9bn tax cut will be dwarfed by £19bn in tax rises due to kick in after the next election, according to economists. Think tanks from across the political spectrum have also noted that by freezing income tax thresholds, millions will be pulled into higher tax bands as their earnings increase.

Monza’s mega raise

Monzo has secured £340m in new capital to fuel its second try at entering the US. The digital bank attracted investment from Google’s parent company Alphabet and the funding round takes the total valuation to £4bn. Monzo has 9m UK retail customers and added 2m in 2023 alone. The company previously attempted to enter the US market in 2019 and wanted to acquire a full bank license. However in 2021 it was forced to abandon this plan after not making any progress with regulators. This time round Monzo will use a partnership that will allow it to bypass the requirement of getting a full bank license to serve American customers.

Elsewhere...

Out of fashion: Luxury fashion retailer Matches is being put into administration less than three months after it was bought by Mike Ashley's Frasers Group.

Off air: Talk TV has begun cutting staff, with up to two thirds of roles set to go after Rupert Murdoch’s News UK said it was taking the channel off air and online only.

Court date: Elon Musk is facing a $128m lawsuit from former Twitter executives who allege he failed to pay them severance after buying the social network.

Breaking records: Bitcoin reached an all-time high breaching $70,000, as investors become more confident of interest rate cuts by the US Federal Reserve.

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