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Europe
BBC Business

You could be missing out on £150 off your energy bill - here's how to check

Image source, Getty ImagesByKevin PeacheyCost of living correspondentPublished4 hours agoOne call to your energy supplier to ensure your name is on the electricity bill may mean you are in line for a £150 discount this winter – but you need to get in before the deadline. While the cost of heating your home might not be at the forefront of your mind during the long, hot summer prices are set to rise again this winter. Suppliers use customers' records as of Sunday 23 August to check who is eligible for the Warm Home Discount. The government scheme knocks £150 off bills if you are on means-tested benefits such as universal credit. Millions of people will learn of the level of winter energy prices later this month, when Ofgem announces the quarterly price cap for the three months from October. To help those who might struggle to pay, energy companies distribute the £150 Warm Home Discount to about six million households in the winter. Households in receipt of housing benefit, income-related Employment and Support Allowance, Pension Credit and universal credit qualify. Households who are eligible should get the discount automatically, provided their supplier has over 1,000 customers. However, that only happens if your name is on the bill and you are receiving one of these benefits. It can also help suppliers offer better support, such as repayment plans, to those who have energy debt. Someone might not be named on their electricity bill if they have recently moved house. Eligible customers on pre-payment meters who use a key or card to top up will also need to ensure that their household's account is registered in their name. "If you know someone who might benefit, please start spreading the word and encourage them to check they are named on their energy bill," said Energy Secretary Miatta Fahnbulleh. The government also said that 345,000 Scottish low-income households would now automatically receive the rebate in the winter, bringing Scotland's policy in line with England and Wales.

You could be missing out on £150 off your energy bill - here's how to check
Europe
BBC Business

Consortium advances talks for stake in Liverpool

A consortium including billionaire Amazon founder Jeff Bezos has advanced its talks to buy about a 30% stake in Liverpool, BBC Sport has been told. The group is led by British-Indian millionaire businessman Amit Bhatia and also includes Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin. Owners Fenway Sports Group (FSG) confirmed last month that the group had "expressed interest in making a strategic minority investment in Liverpool Football Club". Bhatia is the son-in-law of Indian billionaire businessman Lakshmi Mittal and had been a director and co-owner of Queens Park Rangers for 18 years before relinquishing his stake in the club last month. American businessman Bezos, founder of e-commerce giant Amazon, is the fourth-richest person in the world. According to Forbes, the 62-year-old has an estimated net worth of $256bn (£192bn). FSG, who bought Liverpool in a £300m deal in 2010, previously sold a minority stake in the Anfield side to global sports investment firm Dynasty Equity. BBC Sport contacted FSG about the latest developments, but they had no further comment. In January, Liverpool became the top-earning Premier League club for the first time, according to analysis from financial firm Deloitte. The following month the club announced record revenues of £703m for 2024-25 financial year. Bezos stepped down as Amazon's chief executive in 2021 to become executive chairman, although he still owns 8% of the company. The businessman also owns The Washington Post and aerospace company Blue Origin and was ranked as the world's richest person in 2021.

Consortium advances talks for stake in Liverpool
North America
CNBC Finance

Warner Bros. Discovery reports 10% jump in streaming revenue ahead of proposed Paramount combination

Warner Bros. Discovery on Thursday said it saw strong revenue growth in its streaming segment, anchored by HBO Max, ahead of increased scrutiny over its proposed merger with Paramount Skydance. The media company said in its second-quarter earnings report that its streaming segment surpassed $3 million in revenue, marking a 10% increase from the year prior, with more than $500 million in adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization. The company said those gains were reflective of growth in new markets for HBO Max as well as its content slate, including popular shows like "Euphoria," "House of the Dragon" and "The Pitt." The second half of the year is expected to be strong with additions like "Harry Potter" and "Gilded Age," the company added. Warner Bros. also said advertising revenue for its streaming business increased 9%, primarily due to an increase in global ad-lite subscribers. However, following a new media rights package that no longer includes NBA games for the streaming service, Warner Bros. said the lack of basketball advertising negatively impacted the year-over-year growth rate by 16%, excluding the impact of foreign currency exchanges. Paramount CEO David Ellison said in May that he plans to merge HBO Max and Paramount+ into one streaming service under his proposed acquisition of the the company. That merger has been held up by a challenge by state attorneys general and will go to trial in March. The concept of a combined streaming business drew early criticism from lawmakers who deemed the deal anticompetitive, though Paramount and WBD say they need scale to compete with the industry giants. Paramount+ had roughly 81 million global subscribers as of the end of its most recent quarter. A combined Paramount+ and HBO Max service would have about 200 million subscribers, Ellison previously said. For its second quarter, Warner Bros. Discovery reported revenue of $8.72 billion, a decline of 11% from the year-ago period and falling short of Wall Street expectations of $9.29 billion, according to LSEG. WBD posted net income attributable to the company of $149 million, or 6 cents per share, compared with $1.58 billion, or 63 cents per share, in the same quarter a year prior. The company said that drastic decrease was the result of pre-acquisition adjustments to the value of intangible assets as well as restructuring costs. Adjusted EBITDA for the quarter was $1.88 billion, compared with $1.95 billion in the year-ago period. Get this delivered to your inbox, and more info about our products and services.

Warner Bros. Discovery reports 10% jump in streaming revenue ahead of proposed Paramount combination
North America
CNBC Finance

EU urges Caribbean nations to shut down golden passport programs or face travel restrictions

The European Union has given five Caribbean nations notice that they need to end their citizenship-by-investment programs or risk losing visa-free access to Europe's Schengen area by 2028. The ability to enter the 29 countries in the Schengen area can be a substantial selling point for these golden passport programs. While some immigration attorneys told CNBC that the ultimatum will likely end in a compromise, it is possible the EU will stand its ground. Currently, foreigners can obtain citizenship in one of the countries by making a qualified investment in its economy, such as buying real estate or contributing to a government fund. Passports from one of these nations allow visa-free travel to some 140 countries and territories. With costs starting around $200,000, these citizenship-by-investment, or CBI, programs provide vital revenue to the Caribbean nations. The EU in late June sent letters to the governments of Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Grenada, St. Lucia and St. Kitts and Nevis. The countries are planning a coordinated response, including a mission to Brussels, according to a statement. "Our citizenship-by-investment programs are critical pillars of our non-tax revenue base. They cannot simply be abandoned without viable, credible and sustainable replacement sources of revenue," said Antigua and Barbuda Prime Minister Gaston Browne in a subsequent statement. The EU has cracked down on CBI programs in other nations before, including Malta. However, this request is unusual because it doesn't cite specific security concerns or propose remedies to address them, according to Ron Klasko, immigration attorney and co-founder of advisory Exodus Migration. He said he does not expect the EU to back down. "There's always been pressure from the EU on on the Caribbean countries, mostly related to security issues, and all of them have bolstered their security issues in response to EU requests in recent years. The new thing is different," Klasko said. "They're saying we are opposed to the concept of a commercial transaction resulting in you getting a passport. That goes to the very core of their program, unlike if they're saying we want you to bolster your security, which is where they can do something." Klasko said he is advising one of the five affected nations, which he declined to name, on possible changes to the program that may satisfy the EU. Reaz Jafri, senior counsel at Charles Russell Speechlys, said he views the EU request as a starting point for negotiations rather than a firm ultimatum. Jafri, who also leads Dasein Advisors, a citizenship and residency consultancy, said a few clients have reached out, but they are still going through with their applications. "This conversation has been going on as long as I can remember," said the immigration attorney of 30 years. "I think the EU is looking to maybe get more diligence or better handle on certain things with regards to who gets in and who doesn't come in, and I think they'll comply because they're not looking to skirt any rules." In late 2024, the EU revoked visa-free travel to the Schengen region for citizens of Vanuatu, an island nation in the South Pacific, due to security and migration concerns. In 2025, the European Court of Justice struck down Malta's "golden passport" program as illegal. Malta has since implemented a merit-based program with residency requirements. Even if a compromise can't be reached, Jafri said the Caribbean nations rely too much on revenue from CBI programs to phase them out. More than half of his clients are Americans, who don't need a visa-free perk, he added.

EU urges Caribbean nations to shut down golden passport programs or face travel restrictions
Asia
The Hindu BusinessLine

Saints & Masters launches ONAM Cloud to serve India’s startups and enterprises

Saints and Masters CEO Jai Krishnan G and Chief Human Resource Officer Chitra M ,jointly inaugurate the company’s new office at Infopark Kochi Directors Dias Baby and Sowmya Christopher, Chief Operating Officer Rufar Rub and Chief Strategy Officer Pavin are seen. Saints & Masters, a global technology advisory and execution firm, has launched ONAM (Orchestrated Networks, Applications and Machines) Cloud, a cloud platform designed to offer Indian startups, enterprises and industries enterprise-grade cloud infrastructure. The platform, which went live on Monday, is deployed with Equinix, the largest digital infrastructure company, as its data centre partner. This enables ONAM Cloud to deploy sovereign cloud regions across Equinix’s global footprint of more than 280 data centres, spanning over 70 metropolitan locations in 35-plus countries across six continents. As part of its expansion in India, the company has established a new development centre at Infopark Phase 2 in Kochi. ONAM Cloud also provides customers with direct, private, and on-demand connectivity to public cloud and SaaS services, enabling secure multi-cloud environments without routing sensitive traffic over the public internet, including direct connectivity to Microsoft Azure, AWS, and Google Cloud. Launched in 2021, the Kochi-headquartered Saints & Masters has set a target for ONAM Cloud to enable 10,000 small and medium enterprises in India over the next three years. The initiative aims to make enterprise-grade cloud infrastructure accessible to small and medium businesses as well as large enterprises. The launch comes at a time when India’s cloud market is witnessing rapid growth. According to Gartner, end-user spending on public cloud services in India is projected to increase 28.1 per cent to $17.5 billion in 2026, from $13.7 billion in 2025. Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) is expected to be the fastest-growing segment, with spending projected to rise 40 per cent in 2026, driven in part by growing demand for GPUs and high-performance computing. ONAM Cloud is built on open standards and open-source infrastructure technologies, without dependency on proprietary hypervisor or cloud platform licensing at the infrastructure layer. The architecture is designed to support everything from traditional enterprise workloads to Kubernetes and cloud-native applications, giving customers a transparent and portable foundation with greater freedom over where and how their workloads operate, said Dijeesh Padinharethil, Senior Cloud Architect of ONAM Cloud. Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments. We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of TheHindu Businessline and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.

Saints & Masters launches ONAM Cloud to serve India’s startups and enterprises
Europe
BBC Business

Trump imposes 15% tariff on key chip material to counter China

US President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Thursday that imposes a 15% tariff on imported products made from polysilicon, a crucial material used in semiconductors and solar panels. The order also set minimum import prices on polysilicon and related products. It comes after a national security investigation into the production of the material overseas. The move is intended to help protect US manufacturers as they face increasing competition from China's chip industry - a key source of friction between the world's two largest economies. The Chinese embassy in Washington said the move "seriously disrupts" trade between the two countries and Beijing will act to protect its companies. Washington is "abusing state power to go after Chinese businesses," the embassy said, adding that protectionism will not make the US more competitive. Trump said in the order, external that he had accepted recommendations by Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick to set minimum import prices as well as a 15% tariff on polysilicon and related imports. For decades, the US has allowed "foreign firms to weaken United States producers in the polysilicon sector," said Trump, who has long advocated for the use of tariffs to protect American jobs and boost the economy. The material is critical in military equipment and electronics, yet imports have led to the US' share of global polysilicon production to fall from 50% in 2005 to less than 2% in 2024, Trump said. The order is likely to benefit Hemlock Semiconductor and Wacker Chemie, which are the main producers of the material in the US. The production of computer chips is central to the race between the US and China to develop artificial intelligence (AI). Washington and Beijing have also been locked in a tit-for-tat tariffs war, which has been on hold since May 2025. Analysts quoted by Chinese state media outlet Global Times said the new tariff marks the latest escalation in Washington's efforts to limit China's role in critical technology supply chains. The move follows other US restrictions on the imports of drones, humanoid robots and other tech products from China.

Trump imposes 15% tariff on key chip material to counter China
North America
CNBC Finance

Versant raises 2026 outlook on strength of platforms segment and advertising momentum

Versant Media Group raised its full-year guidance on Thursday, boosted by momentum in its digital brands like Fandango and GolfNow, as well as what executives referred to as "strength" in its overall business model. The company now expects total revenue for 2026 of $6.2 billion to $6.45 billion and adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization of $1.9 billion to $2.05 billion. This marks Versant's third earnings report since it was spun out from Comcast's NBCUniversal at the start of the year. The company, which includes a portfolio of pay TV networks including CNBC, MS Now and The Golf Channel began trading as a public company in January. Versant's earnings once again showcased that live sports and news grab the most viewers and advertising dollars for traditional TV, despite ongoing pressure on the bundle as it loses customers to streaming alternatives. Revenue for linear TV, which also includes channels USA Network, Syfy, Oxygen and E!, was down 6.3% during the quarter to $954 million, due to subscriber declines. CEO Mark Lazarus said in a release on Thursday the company completed carriage agreements "with two large distribution partners, one in the U.S. and one in Canada." Many of Versant's distribution deals were locked up when it was still under NBCUniversal's ownership. Versant executives have said they aim to diversify the company's revenue base — with an eye toward achieving a revenue mix of 50% from its digital, platform, subscription, ad supported and transactional businesses. The aim is to be less reliant on the linear TV model. Currently more than 80% of Versant's revenue stems from the pay TV business. Versant leadership has also said it would explore acquisitions of nontraditional media businesses to broaden its revenue streams and add growth. This week the company closed its acquisition of golf simulation company Full Swing. Versant already owns digital media platform GolfPass and tee-time reservation company GolfNow. Earlier this year Versant bought StockStory, an AI-powered tech platform that provides financial analysis, market insights and stock recommendations for CNBC. Advertising revenue for the quarter was down 0.6% to $423 million, an improvement compared to the rate of decline during the same period last year due to higher ratings for its networks, which are heavily centered on news and sports. Revenue for the platforms segment — which includes Fandango and GolfNow — was up 0.8% to $225 million for the quarter. Excluding the company's divestiture of SportsEngine, platforms revenue was up 9.3%. The company attributed that increase in part to higher revenue at Fandango from movie ticket purchases and video on demand transactions, as well as higher bookings, payments and subscription revenue for GolfNow.

Versant raises 2026 outlook on strength of platforms segment and advertising momentum
North America
CNBC Economy

Europe is blowing up riverbeds as an extreme drought wreaks havoc on its economy

The drought in Europe is so severe that it is jeopardizing countries' economic growth and forcing them to take extreme measures like blowing up riverbeds. Gripped by a summer of weather extremes, Romania recently shut down its sole working nuclear reactor cooled by the Danube for the first time, with Bucharest even deploying naval forces to carry out underwater detonations to improve water flow. Images published Monday showed the Romanian navy blasting rocks in controlled explosions in Izvoarele village as part of a push to divert a higher volume of water toward the cooling systems of the Cernavoda Nuclear Power Plant. Low water levels on the Danube have also threatened to close Hungary's Paks nuclear plant, which supplies around 40% of the country's electricity, and forced Serbia to cut hydropower generation. In Germany, the water levels on the Rhine River, a crucial waterway in Europe's economic heartland, have fallen to their lowest levels in nearly 150 years, posing a risk to the German economy and further disrupting supply chains. The water level at Kaub, a key choke point for vessels transiting to southern Germany and Switzerland, fell to 24 centimeters on Monday and Tuesday, reflecting its lowest level since records began in 1880, with forecasts of even lower levels toward the end of this week, according to official data compiled by ETH Zurich. That's far below the critical level of 78 centimeters at the Kaub gauge for navigation on the Rhine. Transport is still possible below this threshold, but cargo barges must be less heavily loaded, and freight transport costs and low-water surcharges rise sharply. "Major rivers like the Rhine and Danube are critical trade corridors and sources of water for industry and energy generation, so when water levels fall, the effects extend far beyond the waterways themselves," Liz Saccoccia, water security lead at the World Resources Institute, told CNBC by email. "We're already seeing that happen. Nuclear plants in Hungary, Romania and France, along with hydropower facilities in Serbia, have already had to reduce electricity generation because there isn't enough water for cooling or driving turbines, increasing the risk of blackouts and costly electricity imports," Saccoccia said. "Along the Danube, low water levels have prevented farmers from shipping their crops and stopped cruise ships from reaching ports such as Budapest. These are early examples of how increasingly unreliable water supplies can ripple through the economy, affecting trade, energy security, supply chains and local businesses," she added. The issue shines a light on a critically important environmental issue: water scarcity. The issue is especially acute across southern Europe, where around 30% of the population is known to be situated in areas with permanent water stress: when water demand exceeds the available supply.

Europe is blowing up riverbeds as an extreme drought wreaks havoc on its economy
Europe
BBC Business

Thames Water gave finance boss a £1m signing-on fee

Image source, ReutersByTheo Leggett, Business correspondent and Kate Whannel, Political reporterPublished10 August 2026, 09:57 BSTUpdated 8 minutes agoThames Water paid its finance chief a £1m signing-on fee in July as the company struggles with a mountain of debt and faces temporary nationalisation. Steve Buck joined the company in April 2025 but it is understood the seven-figure payment was not made until last month after the company had taken legal advice over its contractual obligations. The existence of the payment, first reported by Sky News,, external was revealed in a letter from the Thames Water chairman to MPs on the Commons Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee. In the letter,, external Sir Adrian Montague said he understood customers would see large payments to senior leaders as "unjust" but argued they were necessary to stop staff leaving. The letter said: "The majority of the team were brought in recently to fix the problems the company faces and are not responsible for causing those problems. "These talented and experienced individuals have opportunities for roles outside Thames Water and, in many cases, have been actively approached by other companies. "These roles would be less in the public gaze, less difficult and more remunerative." Sir Adrian described the payment to Buck as a "necessary incentive" and said the money had come from emergency funding provided by Thames Water's lenders. He said the company is facing recruitment and retention difficulties and warned the problem would "persist" if it was nationalised or put into special administration. Alistair Carmichael, Lib Dem MP and chair of the Environment Committee, said: "Money should be going into improving services, not remunerating already well-paid senior executives. "The government were clear in the early days that they wanted this to stop. It is obvious that they have not succeeded in this. We need to hear now from them about what they intend to do about it." The utility company owes roughly £20bn and has been working with creditors and government officials to find a way forward.

Thames Water gave finance boss a £1m signing-on fee