Billionaire Zara founder Amancio Ortega to receive €3.23bn dividend

The billionaire founder of Zara is to receive a company record €3.23bn (£2.8bn) dividend this year from the world’s biggest fashion retailer.Amancio Ortega, who still controls 59% of Spain’s Inditex and whose daughter Marta Ortega Pérez is now chair, will receive half his dividend in May and half in November – as will other shareholders.Inditex, which owns a raft of high street chains including Bershka, Massimo Dutti, Pull&Bear, Stradivarius and Oysho, said on Wednesday it would increase its dividend by 4% after a “robust operating performance” in 2025

Sir Ronnie Hampel obituary

Ronnie Hampel was a businessman’s businessman, a major force in the reshaping of ICI, Britain’s largest manufacturing company, in the 1990s and in the birth of the pharmaceutical company Zeneca (now part of AstraZeneca), as well as a powerful influence on other company boards.He was exceptionally well-connected. His place at the heart of the UK business establishment as chairman of ICI – from 1995 to 1999 – was highlighted by his regular golfing four which included the then cabinet secretary, the chairman of BP and the permanent secretary of the Treasury.Hampel, who has died aged 93, joined ICI in 1955 – in those days the company was known as “the bellwether of British industry”. He learned fast in a range of posts in its sprawling divisions

Will releasing millions of barrels of oil stockpiles really bring down fuel costs?

When the global economy was still in the grip of the devastating 1970s oil crises, exposing the chokehold exerted by a few important oil states, the International Energy Agency (IEA) was created, in the hope of limiting future shocks.Almost half a century on, the IEA’s 32 members have drawn up plans to hit the emergency button, for only the fifth time in its history.On Wednesday, the IEA said 400m barrels of emergency crude, a third of the group’s total government stockpiles, would be released to help calm the oil price shock triggered by the US-Israel war on Iran. It is the biggest release of oil reserves in its history.The cost of a barrel of crude oil quadrupled between October 1973 and January 1974, after members of the Opec cartel cut production; then fell back, before nearly trebling again in 1979, after the Iranian revolution

Lloyd’s of London stresses it is still insuring shipping in strait of Hormuz

There is a price for everything: even the cost of insuring a ship travelling through the strait of Hormuz.Donald Trump’s proposals for the US to provide political risk insurance for seaborne trade in the Gulf may have given the impression a lack of cover was the reason why traffic through the key waterway has almost halted.However, Lloyd’s of London, the heart of maritime insurance globally, emphasises it has not stopped providing contracts to those who ask – although at the right tariff.Fending off criticism over cancelled policies and sharp price rises, Lloyd’s said it still provided insurance cover for hull and cargo for vessels in the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman, including in the strait of Hormuz. However, last week it extended the restricted areas where clients needed to notify insurers to agree an appropriate premium in terms of the risk

British fintech Revolut gets full banking licence

Revolut can finally launch as a fully fledged UK bank after a five-year wait for regulatory approval.The fintech said it had received the all-clear from the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) for a full banking licence, allowing it to offer accounts for retail and business customers.It will start introducing current accounts to a small number of new customers within days, the group said.The move follows Revolut being granted a UK banking licence – with “restrictions” – in 2024, having first lodged its application in 2021.Revolut bosses were said to have grown frustrated with UK regulators, who had been slow to grant a full licence allowing it to hold customer deposits and branch out into more lucrative products such as loans and mortgages

CMA to investigate heating oil suppliers over ‘blatant profiteering’ from Iran war

Heating oil suppliers are to be investigated by the competition watchdog after accusations that firms are “blatantly profiteering” from the conflict in the Middle East by doubling the prices they charge to households.The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said it had received “a number of concerning reports” in recent days from consumers reliant on heating oil about suppliers’ behaviour at a time of rising wholesale costs.About 1.7m households in the UK, mostly in rural areas that are not connected to the mains gas network, rely on heating oil to warm their homes, cook food and provide hot water.The CMA will look into consumer complaints about existing orders being cancelled, with customers then offered new quotes at significantly higher prices, and price increases for automated deliveries to customers that are triggered when the fuel in an oil tank drops to a certain level