Category: 3. Business

Tom Hayes, the first banker jailed over Libor interest rate rigging, is suing his former employer UBS for $400m (£300m), claiming he was a “hand-picked scapegoat” for the Swiss bank as it tried to avoid regulatory scrutiny.

The claim, which was publicly filed in a US court in Connecticut on Monday, alleges that UBS misled US authorities and called him an “evil mastermind” behind the alleged Libor scandal, in order to protect senior executives and minimise fines.

Hayes spent five and a half years of an 11-year term in prison after he was accused of being a ringleader in a vast conspiracy to fix the now defunct London Interbank Offered Rate (Libor), which was used to price trillions of pounds worth of financial products, between 2006 and 2010.

The wider scandal, which erupted in 2012, led to fines of almost $10bn for a dozen banks and brokerages. Hayes maintained his innocence and claimed during his original trial that he was taking part in an “industry-wide” practice, accusing regulators of making him a scapegoat.

Hayes is now seeking recompense for the suffering he says he faced as a result of his original ruling.

He is suing UBS for “malicious prosecution”, and says UBS conducted a “fundamentally flawed” investigation in order to pin the blame on Hayes.

Efforts to sue UBS come months after the UK supreme court overturned a decade-old ruling against Hayes in July. That decision was based on faults in the original trial, with the original judge determined to have given “inaccurate and unfair” instructions to the jury that found Hayes guilty on charges of conspiracy to defraud. This meant the former banker was ultimately deprived of a fair trial.

However, the supreme court judges stopped short of fully exonerating Hayes, saying there was “ample evidence” that could have led a jury, if properly directed, to find him guilty. “But the jury was not properly directed,” the ruling explained, adding: “The convictions are therefore unsafe and cannot stand.”

Commenting on the lawsuit against UBS, Hayes said: “It has taken me over a decade to overturn my wrongful conviction and clear my name. My legal team are now rightlyfully holding UBS to account for scapegoating me in order to save billions in fines and protect its senior executives.

“My life was ruined by the bank’s actions – I lost my liberty and my marriage, missed out on my son’s childhood, and my physical and mental health suffered terribly. UBS also destroyed my reputation and career.”

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“I look forward to putting my case in front of a jury to scrutinise UBS’s conduct in relation to these tragic and unnecessary events,” Hayes added in a statement.

UBS declined to comment.

Toothpaste, coffee and even heartburn medicine are among the latest products quietly shrinking in size while shoppers pay the same price, piling more pressure on household grocery budgets.

Consumer watchdog Which? found a range of new examples of shrinkflation as brands cut back on quantity and quality in an effort to reduce their own costs.

One of the worst instances was Aquafresh complete care original toothpaste, which went from £1.30 for 100ml to £2 for 75ml at Tesco, Sainsbury’s and Ocado – a 105% increase per 100ml.

Haleon Great Britain and Ireland, which owns the Aquafresh brand, told the Guardian: “We understand that people across the UK are facing pressure on their finances. Prices go up and down for a variety of reasons, and we always work hard for people to receive the highest quality products at the lowest price so that the whole family can take care of their teeth.”

Gaviscon heartburn and indigestion liquid shrank from 600ml to 500ml, with Sainsbury’s keeping the price at £14 – equivalent to a 20% increase per 100ml. They did not respond to a request for comment.

Nescafé original instant coffee was cut from 200g to 190g at Tesco, Morrisons and Asda – about a 5% rise per 100g. A Nestlé spokesperson said: “Like every manufacturer, we have seen significant increases in the cost of coffee, making it much more expensive to manufacture our products … Retail pricing is always at the discretion of individual retailers.”

Chocolate has also been hit by rising cocoa prices, with Quality Street tubs reduced from 600g to 550g and prices at Morrisons increasing from £6 to £7 – a 27% rise per 100g. Club and Penguin biscuits, both made by McVitie’s, can no longer be described as chocolate biscuits, as they now contain more palm oil and shea oil than cocoa, a change first reported by trade journal The Grocer.

Which? said any changes, whether to product size or recipe, should be made clear so that shoppers can make informed choices.

Reena Sewraz, retail editor at the watchdog, said: “Households are already under immense financial pressure with food bills inching up and the expense of Christmas looming on the horizon … Supermarkets must be more upfront about their prices so that it’s easy to see what the best value is.

“This includes ensuring that their unit pricing is prominent, legible and consistent in-store and online to help customers easily compare costs across different brands and sizes of packaging; that way shoppers can be more confident they’re getting the best value.”

Hopes that the pressure on households may be easing came from news that UK shop price inflation fell to 1% in October from 1.4% in September, according to the British Retail Consortium, helped by a drop in sugar prices and early Black Friday discounts on electrical and beauty goods.

The drop was led by packaged and tinned foods, where inflation eased to 2.9% in October from 4.2% the previous month. Non-food prices fell by 0.4%, compared to the previous month’s 0.1% decrease, according to the latest shop price monitor from the BRC and research firm NIQ. These shifts offset a rise in fresh food inflation, which increased to 4.3% from 4.1% as prices for beef, poultry and fruit climbed in response to higher domestic production costs.

Helen Dickinson, the chief executive of the BRC, said: “Overall shop price inflation slowed in October, driven by fierce competition among retailers and widespread discounting. While food inflation remains high, especially for fresh food where prices continued to rise, it eased for ambient goods.

“Easing global sugar prices helped to bring down prices of chocolate and confectionery, a treat for those preparing Halloween parties. Beyond food, discounts came early to electricals and health and beauty, as retailers started promotions ahead of Black Friday month.”

The chancellor is facing a larger-than-expected gap in initial Budget numbers as a result of long-running poor productivity in the UK economy.

The downgrade to productivity performance from the government’s official forecaster could lead to a £20bn gap in the public finances on its own, the BBC understands.

The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) will deliver its final draft forecast, showing the output of the economy per hour worked, to the Treasury on Friday.

The Treasury declined to comment on “speculation” ahead of the OBR’s final forecast, which will be published on 26 November.

It comes as speculation is growing over what choices Chancellor Rachel Reeves will take for tax and spending in the run up to her Autumn Budget.

The OBR previously assumed a partial bounce back in productivity growth, but it has never materialised.

This productivity assumption is essential to long-term growth prospects and so, under the current system, even a fraction of a percentage point change can alter how much money a Budget needs to raise by several billion pounds.

The OBR is understood to have downgraded this by 0.3 percentage points – a figure first reported by the Financial Times – bringing its assumption closer to that of the Bank of England.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies think-tank has calculated that for every 0.1 percentage point downgrade in the productivity forecast, public sector net borrowing would increase by £7bn in 2029-30 – meaning a 0.3 point cut could add £21bn to the Budget hole.

The changes open up an initial gap of some £20bn, rather than the £10-£14bn widely anticipated.

Such a hole could be plugged by hiking taxes, reducing public spending or increasing government borrowing.

Reeves admitted on Monday to business leaders in Saudi Arabia that the OBR was “likely to downgrade productivity” which has been “very poor since the financial crisis and Brexit”.

The OBR is expected to explain the decision in detail, but some ministers have privately pointed out that if it had done this earlier, different choices could have been made at this summer’s Spending Review.

There are many other moving parts in the Budget which may lean in the other direction, such as the decline in the interest rates paid on government debt.

However, with other pressures such as the U-turns on welfare spending and a desire to rebuild a bigger buffer in the public finances, speculation is pointing towards significant tax rises including some possible breaches of manifesto commitments, points towards significant tax rises, including possible breaches of manifesto commitments like income tax.

The Treasury will inform the OBR of its first draft Budget measures next week.

A drug-eluting resorbable scaffold continues to keep many patients with below-the-knee (BTK) chronic limb-threatening ischemia (CLTI) free from repeat procedures, even after most of the device’s structure has completely dissolved, 3-year data from the LIFE-BTK trial show.

The combined primary efficacy endpoint—freedom from above-ankle amputation in the index limb, occlusion of the target vessel, binary restenosis of the target lesion, and clinically driven target lesion revascularization—was 59.5% in those treated with the everolimus-eluting Esprit BTK (Abbott) and 44.8% in percutaneous transluminal angioplasty (PTA) patients (P = 0.025).

According to LIFE-BTK principal investigator Sahil Parikh, MD (NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia University Irving Medical Center, New York, NY), who presented the findings in a late-breaking clinical science session at TCT 2025, the 3-year observations indicate that the scaffold is mostly dissolved, with visible remnants remaining in some patients.

“There is little evidence that it was there,” he told TCTMD. “There was a little bit of concern over what happens when the structure collapses with time and the answer is nothing. . . . It should behave like a normal artery, including with respect to reintervention.”

The scaffold consists of a bioresorbable poly-L lactide backbone with thin struts equivalent to contemporary coronary DES and a coating of everolimus. It was approved by the US Food and Drug Administration in 2024 and received CE Mark in 2025 on the basis of the 1-year results from LIFE-BTK, and it remains the only completely dissolvable therapy for peripheral interventions. The 2-year data showed that the percentage of patients who had more than one clinically driven TLR was nearly doubled in the PTA arm compared with the scaffold (4.7% vs 2.4%)

No safety issues have been seen throughout the 3 years in patients who received the scaffold versus those treated with PTA, with no evidence that the dissolving scaffold elicits any sort of inflammatory process or scaffold thrombosis, Parikh added.

The 3-year mark signifies the end of the protocol-mandated imaging follow-up for patients in LIFE-BTK, but clinical follow-up will continue for the surviving patients at years 4 and 5.

Following the presentation, discussant Eric Secemsky, MD (Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston, MA), said LIFE-BTK is “revolutionary” for below-the-knee interventions for several reasons.

Having data suggesting a greater than 50% chance that patients will be alive with a patent vessel and without needing an amputation at 3 years, “completely changes how we train our fellows and how we take care of this disease pathology,” he said.

Beyond favorable angiographic and duplex ultrasound endpoints, Secemsky said LIFE-BTK provides tangible hope for patients that the scaffold can help them avoid repeat peripheral procedures, something that is especially important for younger, working patients who need to stay out of the hospital and in their jobs.

Results at 3-Year Follow-up

LIFE-BTK trial enrolled 261 patients (mean age 72.6 years; 32% female) with Rutherford class 4 or 5 CLTI and infrapopliteal artery stenosis or occlusion who were randomly assigned to receive the everolimus-eluting resorbable scaffold or PTA. The protocol mandated that all lesions be located in separate arteries in the proximal two-thirds of the infrapopliteal space and have runoff to the ankle free of clinically significant disease. Participants in both arms had high rates of smoking, hypertension, hyperlipidemia, and prior PAD.

The mean treated lesion length was 43.7 mm in the scaffold group and 44.7 mm in the angioplasty group, with a total scaffold length per patient of 170 mm or less in a single lesion or split among two target lesions. Most patients had mild/no calcification, with more than one-quarter in both arms having moderate calcification, while 3% in the scaffold group and 2% in the PTA group had severe calcification.

At 3 years, binary restenosis of the target lesion had occurred in 49% of the PTA group versus 38% of the scaffold group (Log-rank P = 0.018).

Clinically driven TLR  occurred in 18.4% of the PTA group versus 10.2% of the scaffold group (log-rank P = 0.052), while major adverse limb events occurred in 94.2% of PTA patients and 90.8% of scaffold patients (Log-rank P = 0.23).

In his presentation, Parikh presented evidence from duplex ultrasound showing that patients who receive the scaffold experience some degree of restoration of natural arterial compliance over time. To TCTMD, he said the investigators hope to learn more about pathophysiologic changes and real-world outcomes in a postapproval study at 50 US sites that has almost completed enrollment.

At 3 years we have evidence of a biological effect that’s durable. Sahil Parikh

“At 3 years we have evidence of a biological effect that’s durable,” Parikh added. He expects to see longer lesions in the real-world population, as well as greater degrees of calcification than were allowed in the trial, which will require more intense lesion preparation.

“That’s going to be important because we don’t really have a good sense of how lesion preparation factors into this yet,” he said. While the trial didn’t allow  atherectomy or other aggressive lesion preparation technologies, operators are bound to want to pair some of those with the scaffold in some cases.

Thus far, the scaffold reflects the positive early experiences of a similar device, the Absorb bioresorbable vascular scaffold (Abbott), which was approved by the FDA in 2016 and gained CE Mark approval 5 year prior. Over time, though, the emergence of scaffold thrombosis in various trials and meta-analyses ended its run in the coronary space.

In a press conference prior to the presentation, Sanjum Sethi, MD (NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia University Irving Medical Center, New York, NY), said the scaffold treatment represents an attractive option for patients with lesion subtypes similar to those enrolled in LIFE-BTK. He noted that between years 1 and 2, the scaffold group had sustained benefits for the composite of limb salvage and primary patency compared with the PTA group, but then “there was  a little hint that at 3 years these patients may be accruing events from their disease as the device is resorbing.”

To TCTMD, Parikh said the investigators don’t consider the small amount of catch-up to be clinically concerning at this point, particularly in light of the imaging evidence of arterial improvements.

Rio Tinto says it is contemplating ceasing operations at its New South Wales-based Tomago aluminium smelter at the end of its current electricity supply contract.

The Tomago aluminium smelter, Australia’s largest, had been struggling with high power prices. It had started a consultation process with employees on the potential future of its operations, but was yet to reach a decision and is weighing a possible closure.

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The smelter’s existing electricity supply contract with AGL Energy expires in December 2028, with Tomago yet to identify a pathway that supports commercially sustainable operations beyond the period “despite extensive engagement and market approaches”, according to the miner’s statement.

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“Unfortunately, all market proposals received so far show future energy prices are not commercially viable, and there is significant uncertainty about when renewable projects will be available at the scale we need,” Tomago Aluminium’s CEO, Jérôme Dozol, said.

A number of smelters in Australia are preparing to switch to 100% renewable energy in the coming decade. Tomago Aluminium, located north-west of Newcastle, had announced in 2021 it would “for all intents and purposes” be 100% renewable by 2029.

The board of Wing Tai Holdings Limited (SGX:W05) has announced that it will pay a dividend of SGD0.03 per share on the 17th of November. Including this payment, the dividend yield on the stock will be 2.0%, which is a modest boost for shareholders’ returns.

We’ve found 21 US stocks that are forecast to pay a dividend yield of over 6% next year. See the full list for free.

The dividend yield is a little bit low, but sustainability of the payments is also an important part of evaluating an income stock. Even in the absence of profits, Wing Tai Holdings is paying a dividend. The company is also yet to generate cash flow, so the dividend sustainability is definitely questionable.

Looking forward, earnings per share could 47.4% over the next year if the trend of the last few years can’t be broken. This means the company will be unprofitable and managers could face the tough choice between continuing to pay the dividend or taking pressure off the balance sheet.

View our latest analysis for Wing Tai Holdings

While the company has been paying a dividend for a long time, it has cut the dividend at least once in the last 10 years. The last annual payment of SGD0.03 was flat on the annual payment from10 years ago. It’s encouraging to see some dividend growth, but the dividend has been cut at least once, and the size of the cut would eliminate most of the growth anyway, which makes this less attractive as an income investment.

With a relatively unstable dividend, it’s even more important to see if earnings per share is growing. Over the past five years, it looks as though Wing Tai Holdings’ EPS has declined at around 47% a year. Dividend payments are likely to come under some pressure unless EPS can pull out of the nosedive it is in.

Overall, this isn’t a great candidate as an income investment, even though the dividend was stable this year. The company seems to be stretching itself a bit to make such big payments, but it doesn’t appear they can be consistent over time. We don’t think that this is a great candidate to be an income stock.

Market movements attest to how highly valued a consistent dividend policy is compared to one which is more unpredictable. However, there are other things to consider for investors when analysing stock performance. For instance, we’ve picked out 1 warning sign for Wing Tai Holdings that investors should take into consideration. Is Wing Tai Holdings not quite the opportunity you were looking for? Why not check out our selection of top dividend stocks.

Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team (at) simplywallst.com.

This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned.

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NextEra has agreed to reopen a nuclear power station in Iowa that will primarily provide power to Google as the tech giant races to secure clean energy to drive its artificial intelligence data centres.

The largest renewable energy company in the US will lead the redevelopment of Duane Arnold Energy Center after Google signed a 25-year agreement to buy electricity from the power station. After being shut down for five years, it is expected to cost more than $1.6bn to restart.

Duane Arnold, a 615-megawatt plant, is expected to start delivering power by 2029, according to NextEra. It is the third US nuclear plant to begin the process of restarting operations.

“This partnership serves as a model for the investments needed across the country to build energy capacity and deliver reliable, clean power, while protecting affordability and creating jobs that will drive the AI-driven economy,” said Ruth Porat, president and chief investment officer of Alphabet and Google.

Google said it also agreed to explore opportunities with NextEra to deploy new nuclear generation capacity in the US amid soaring demand for electricity linked to the rollout of AI.

Nuclear power has been enjoying a renaissance in recent years following a move away from the fuel source due to increased competition from low-cost shale gas and the 2011 Fukushima accident in Japan.

The ability of nuclear energy to provide round-the-clock carbon-free power has pushed it back into the spotlight as the world aims to slash emissions while feeding a rapidly growing need for electricity.

Google’s power supply deal with NextEra follows a similar agreement between Microsoft and Constellation Energy last year, which is expected to enable the Three Mile Island nuclear plant in Pennsylvania to reopen in 2028.

The Palisades nuclear power plant in Michigan is scheduled to be the first fully decommissioned US nuclear power plant to reopen later this year.

It is much more cost effective and faster to reopen a mothballed power plant than build a new facility from scratch, according to nuclear experts.   

Critics of nuclear energy have warned that any effort to reopen retired power plants must not be rushed and should adhere to strict regulatory standards.  

Edwin Lyman, a physicist at the Union of Concerned Scientists, said restarting Duane Arnold should proceed with extreme caution, particularly because of damage it sustained in a type of storm known as a derecho.

“The ageing reactor, which is the same design as the reactors that melted down at Fukushima, Japan in 2011, was shut down after it was struck by a derecho in August 2020 and suffered serious damage, including the destruction of its cooling towers,” Lyman said.

“Until NextEra presents a realistic estimate of the cost to rebuild the plant and restore it to a safe condition is developed, no one will really know if this reactor will be able to generate affordable electricity.”  

However, industry regulation is expected to grow and evolve as there are additional efforts to reopen shuttered reactors, according to Adam Stein, director of the nuclear energy innovation programme at The Breakthrough Institute.

“Thanks to the Palisades restart, there is a regulatory process and a clear understanding of what inspections need to be completed.”