Today's business and finance round up 2nd August 2022

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2nd August 2022

Bite-sized business news from the UK and beyond

Good morning The world of celebrity jet Twitter is an interesting place. In case you missed it, Kylie Jenner, Elon Musk and Taylor Swift are among the names being criticised for their carbon-heavy mode of fast travel.

Today's stories

• JD Sports takes loss on forced sale of rival

• Publisher profits boom as students return to school

RETAILJD Sports takes loss on forced sale of rival

Other stories to keep you in the loop

• Liz Truss wins backing of former Tory leadership rival Penny Mordaunt

• HSBC makes cost of living payment to UK staff

• Heineken puts prices up by 9% and warns of more rises to come

• British Airways pauses Heathrow short-haul flight sales

• New property register aims to stop money laundering

• Waitrose removes best-before dates from fresh food to reduce waste

• Energy bills forecast to hit £3,615 a year

MEDIAPublisher profits boom as students return to school

The return of students sitting exams and huge demand for English language tests helped textbook publisher Pearson post £131m in profits for the first half of 2022, up from just £18m the year before.The closure of test centres and cancellation of exams during the Covid lockdowns heavily impacted the UK’s largest education firm. In recent times it’s been trying to pivot its business model away from physical books in the wake of the shift to online learning, accelerated by the pandemic.One of the initiatives was to launch a Netflix-like subscription service in the US, its biggest market, that gives users access to educational materials for $10 a month. The company is also planning to take out £100m in costs to streamline operations.  Next up the metaverse: Pearson textbooks are re-sold up to seven times and the publisher wants to cash in on this second-hand market. It said it’s looking at non-fungible tokens (NFTs) as a way of earning additional revenues on the re-sale of books and has a whole team dedicated to building out this capability in the metaverse - a proposed network of vast digital worlds and one of the most hyped areas of the tech scene.

Stat of the day

Last month England had the driest July since 1935

Interesting links from around the web

• 5 recession-proof jobs with consistently high demand, according to economists

• How to organise your free time

• 8 signs someone is trying to scam you

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