• Market Loop
  • Posts
  • Today's business and finance round up 15th August 2022

Today's business and finance round up 15th August 2022

UK economy flatlines

15th August 2022

Bite-sized business news from the UK and beyond

Good morning The London restaurant owned by Salt Bae, the Turkish social media chef who went viral for posting videos of his flamboyant style of seasoning steaks, recorded £7m in revenues from its first four months. Nusr-Et received mostly negative reviews when it opened in Knightsbridge last year with £1,500 steaks, but figures released over the weekend shows it’s one of most profitable restaurants in the city.

Today's stories

  • UK economy flatlines

  • Saudi oil giant record profit

ECONOMYUK economy flatlines

Other stories to keep you in the loop

  • Labour to call for energy price cap freeze this autumn

  • Rail fares in England to rise below inflation rate

  • Johnson & Johnson to end global sales of talc-based baby powder

  • Peloton to slash 780 jobs and hike prices in push to turn profit

  • Meditation app Calm sacks one-fifth of staff

  • PwC scraps 2:1 entry requirement for graduates

  • Trainer reseller Kick Game sprints towards £150m sale

  • Former Deutsche Bank CEO dies at 59 after outliving diagnosis by 4 years

ENERGYSaudi oil giant record profit

On Sunday Aramco, Saudi Arabia’s state-owned oil giant, announced a 90% jump in profits for the three months to June of $48.4bn. The quarterly profits from world’s biggest oil firm is thought to be one of largest in history.Like its counterparts in Europe and America, 2022 has been a good year for Aramco. The surge in energy prices, first from the post lockdown boom in demand and now from the uncertainty in supply due to the war in Ukraine, has benefitted oil and gas producers with huge profits. Oil prices have increased from around $70 a barrel from the start of the year to over $120 this summer.Aramco is 98% owned by the Saudi Arabian government which means the state will receive most of the $19bn dividend payout.In July the UK’s Shell reported nearly £10bn in profit between April and June, a record for the FTSE 100 firm. Meanwhile, BP’s profits tripled to almost £7bn in the second quarter, prompting it to give billions of pounds to shareholders.Saudi Arabia is the leader of OPEC+ - a group of the world’s biggest oil-producing countries – which has been under pressure from western countries to boost output to ease high prices. In response to the pressure earlier this month it agreed to one of the smallest increases in production in its history.

Stat of the day

So far in 2022, there have been 745 wildfires in the UK - more than a 200% increase from the total figure of 247 for all of last year

Interesting links from around the web

Forward to Friend