Public health advocates say more transparency needed in debate over illicit tobacco as industry links questioned

A former Australian Border Force officer who has positioned himself before government inquiries as Australia’s “foremost law enforcement expert” on illicit tobacco also advises nicotine industry-linked organisations – leading public health advocates to argue that more transparency is needed.Rohan Pike, who spent more than two decades in law enforcement and now runs a consultancy, has become a prominent media commentator on the illicit tobacco trade, promoting policies that align with those supported by the tobacco industry.Those positions include opposing further excise increases on cigarettes and pushing for the legalisation of nicotine pouches.In May he was appointed as an illicit-trade adviser to the Global Institute for Novel Nicotine Products (Ginn), a UK-based trade association representing manufacturers of alternative nicotine products, including pouches and “heat not burn” nicotine products. Pike said he does not receive funding or payment from Ginn

France’s Engie strikes deal to buy UK Power Networks for £10.5bn

A French utility has agreed to buy the owner of the electricity cables and power lines across London, the south-east and the east of England in a deal worth £10.5bn.Paris-headquartered Engie said on Wednesday that it had struck a deal to buy UK Power Networks (UKPN) in a “major milestone” for the company’s ambition to become the “best energy transition utility”.Engie will buy the electricity network operator, which operates about 192,000km of power lines serving 8.5 million customers across London and southern and eastern England, from a Hong Kong-based conglomerate founded by billionaire business magnate Li Ka-shing, which has owned UKPN for the past 15 years

Drastic Dave goes vague at Diageo | Nils Pratley

Diageo’s once high-flying share price was already back at 2012 levels. Now the dividend is there too. Sir Dave Lewis has cut it in half, chopping as drastically as the market feared he would.But that doesn’t quite explain Wednesday’s 13% fall in the shares. Rather, that was down to two factors

John Lewis scraps £500m deal to build 1,000 rental homes

The John Lewis Partnership is pulling out of a £500m deal to build almost 1,000 residential rental homes for rent in Bromley, Reading and West Ealing amid a “cautious property market”.The retailer, which owns Waitrose supermarkets and John Lewis department stores, blamed a “fundamental shift in the economic conditions”, which it said had made it difficult for its financial partner, Aberdeen, to raise funds for the venture, first launched in 2020.Aberdeen said its difficulties with fundraising “reflect the realities of the environment” and a “challenging UK market” between 2022 and 2025.A spokesperson said the investment firm still planned to increase its presence in UK homes through existing partnerships.“We have high conviction in build-to-rent in the UK and globally,” they said

Diageo slashes dividend and vows to address Guinness shortage in London

Diageo has slashed its dividend and cut its annual sales and profit forecast for the second time in four months, as the maker of Guinness warned of capacity constraints affecting drinkers of “the black stuff” in London pubs.The world’s largest spirits maker – which owns brands including Smirnoff vodka, Johnnie Walker whisky and Don Julio tequila – lost more than £5bn of its market value on Wednesday as it reported weak demand in the US and China in the first results released under the new chief executive, Sir Dave Lewis.The former Tesco chief executive, who earned the nickname “Drastic Dave” as a result of his cost-cutting during almost three decades at the conglomerate Unilever, took the reins at Diageo in January and wasted no time in cutting the company’s shareholder dividend in his attempt to turn around the drinks maker.Describing his first seven weeks in the role as “pretty intense”, Lewis said in a results webcast it had not been a simple choice to reduce the dividend, halving it to 20 cents a share, down from 40.5 cents a year ago

HSBC bankers to share $3.9bn bonus pot, the highest in more than a decade

Bankers at HSBC are to share a bonus pot worth $3.9bn (£2.9bn), the highest in more than a decade, after Europe’s largest lender reported better-than-expected annual results.The bonus pool for staff is 10% higher than a year earlier and the bank said it had determined it “based on a review of our performance against financial and non-financial metrics”, while the bank’s chief executive’s pay also rose.Georges Elhedery, who took over as the CEO in 2024, signalled that his sweeping turnaround of the lender was drawing to a close