Business Archive

California voters in November will decide whether to increase property taxes on commercial and industrial land to raise up to an estimated $12 billion annually for public schools and city halls across the state. The ballot measure contest will pit big city mayors and

Bulb is a company that you’ve probably never thought much about, unless you happen to buy your electricity or gas through it. But it’s a business whose present fortunes tell you something about why the game of buying energy and selling it on to

Marks & Spencer has been accused of exploiting the Covid-19 pandemic by selling bottles of hand sanitiser for twice as much as equivalents elsewhere. With demand for sanitiser surging during the lockdown as people have been encouraged to wash their hands regularly, the supermarket

Lawmakers push a top Fed official for faster action on lending programs. Randal K. Quarles, the Federal Reserve’s vice chair for banking supervision, said the central bank’s lending programs for midsize businesses and municipalities should be coming soon as the central bank tries to

In the third week of March, while most of our minds were fixed on surging coronavirus death rates and the apocalyptic scenes in hospital wards, global financial markets came as close to a collapse as they have since September 2008. The price of shares

Tesco sales jumped 30% in the first few weeks of the coronavirus outbreak as shoppers stockpiled before the lockdown but the supermarket warned the extra costs involved in feeding the nation during the crisis could add up to almost £1bn. Dave Lewis, the chief

British Gas is bracing for a steep fall in revenues due to the coronavirus pandemic, as households delay paying their bills and its business customers close their sites. The owner of Britain’s largest energy supplier abandoned its cash flow forecasts for the year because

Food wholesalers are calling for help from the government as they struggle to deal with tens of thousands of tonnes of fruit and vegetables, fresh meat and dairy products no longer required by restaurants, hotels and schools. As much as £20m of food with

Companies across Europe including Zara, Nivea and Dyson are making sweeping changes to their business models in a frantic effort to assist with the response to the coronavirus outbreak or to survive the crisis without going bust. The engineering firm Meggitt said it was

A week ago, Mark Canlis’s restaurant in Seattle was offering a $135 tasting menu to a bustling dining room every night. Eileen Hornor’s inn on the Maine coast was booking rooms for the busy spring graduation season. And Kalena Masching, a real estate agent