BUSINESS LIVE: UK wage growth maintains record pace

Wilko’s collapse has arguably made rival B&M the leader in high street bargain retailing, with analysts touting the group to continue its rapid growth trajectory.

RBS has been named and shamed as the bank that has closed the most branches after axing hundreds of High Street branches over the past eight years.

The bank, which is owned by NatWest and was bailed out by taxpayers during the last financial crisis, has closed more than 80 percent of its branches since 2015.

It is the biggest offender among the big banks on the High Street as it has closed most of its branch network, the Daily Mail can reveal.

Tom Selby, head of pension policy at AJ Bell:

‘Pensioners are expected to receive a huge state pension increase for the second time in a row as a result of the government’s ‘triple-lock’ policy.

‘With price increases appearing to be on a steady downward trajectory, it is almost certain – barring a major inflation shock – that the current profit growth rate of 8.5% will be used for next year’s state pension increase. As a result, the full new state pension will rise to £221.20 per week, while those receiving the old state pension will see their benefits rise to £169.50 per week.

‘This follows the huge 10.1% state pension increase that was implemented in April this year, in line with inflation from the previous September.’

Fevertree Drinks’ profits fell in the first half as margins were hit by higher glass production costs, despite price increases.

The London-based company, which sells most of its drinks mixers in glass bottles, said adjusted core profit for the six months ended June 30 was £10.2 million, compared with £22 million the year before.

Sarah Coles, Head of Personal Finance, Hargreaves Lansdown:

‘Gloom is starting to settle in the employment landscape. We’re not seeing a flood of job losses or redundancies, but the steady stream of bad news means that for some people the outlook is becoming increasingly dire.

‘During the turbulence of recent years, we have only been able to hold on to job security. And while we are not facing major job losses, it is worth at least considering what we would do if the tide turned.”

AB Foods has raised its full-year profit outlook for the second time in four months, driven by strong performances from both its Primark clothing and food businesses.

The group now expects full-year adjusted operating profit, its key profit measure, to be ‘slightly better’ than previous expectations of ‘moderately higher’ last year’s profit of £1.44 billion.

Shares in an online gaming group co-owned by David Beckham soared after it signed a new deal with Sky.

Guild Esports, whose teams of video game professionals compete for money against rivals, has appointed Sky Glass as its official television partner.

Sky Glass is Sky’s streaming TV service that doesn’t require a satellite dish.

British wages excluding bonuses were 7.8 percent percent higher in the three months to July than a year earlier, unchanged from the three months to June, but new data from the Office for National Statistics shows signs that the British labor market is finally cooling down.

The unemployment rate rose to 4.3 percent in the three months to July from 4.2 percent a month earlier, the highest since the three months to September 2021.

The unemployment rate is already higher than the 4.1 percent the Bank of England expected for the third quarter as a whole when it published its last set of forecasts in early August.

The figures will be closely scrutinized ahead of the BoE’s next interest rate decision, with the bank likely to be encouraged by a weakening labor market but cautious about still high wage growth.