BUSINESS LIVE: Pearson profits jump; ITV sells Britbox stake; Rightmove hails another strong year

A row between two of Britain’s poshest supermarkets escalated yesterday after Ocado threatened to take court action against Marks & Spencer.

Ocado said it could sue rival upmarket grocer M&S, claiming that it is owed millions of pounds in payments that were linked to performance.

As chief economist at the Paris-based Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), Clare Lombardelli is one of the few Brits to hold one of the high offices at a global policy institution.

So it is slightly curious that after just a year handing out advice to the OECD’s 38 members, generally considered the elite of Western capitalism, she has agreed to return to the UK as deputy governor of the Bank of England.

Sainsbury’s plans to axe 1,500 jobs in a mammoth £1billion cost-cutting drive.

The country’s second-largest supermarket is simplifying operations as it woos shoppers back from discount rivals.

AB InBev said that its growth had been ‘constrained’ after a huge boycott of its beers following a controversy with a transgender model.

The world’s largest brewer said the number of its drinks sold fell 1.7 per cent in 2023 after American shoppers turned their backs on its Bud Light beer.

First it was Wincanton, then Currys and now Direct Line. Companies at the heart of the UK economy are being preyed on by foreign suitors – and it could be just the start.

As global dealmaking comes back with a bang after a long hiatus, private equity barons and cash-rich corporations see listed British businesses as a bargain.

Women will be in the majority on the powerful Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) at the Bank of England for the first time in its 329-year history after the appointment of a new deputy governor.

Threadneedle Street yesterday said Clare Lombardelli (pictured), chief economist at international thinktank the OECD, will sit on the interest rate-setting panel from July.