El gobierno lleva a British Steel bajo propiedad pública; la economía del Reino Unido crece un 0.1% en mayo

It is a downbeat start for the US stock market today – the blue chip S&P 500 is down 0.2% and the tech-heavy Nasdaq is down 0.4%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average, however, is up 0.5%.

Oil prices are up by about 1% amid growing US-Iran tensions over the strait of Hormuz and other key shipping channels in the Gulf.

Brent crude, the international benchmark for oil prices, is up by 1% to $85.85 a barrel.

It comes as Reuters reports that Iran has asked Yemen's Houthi movement to stand ​ready to close a Red Sea oil route if ‌the United States strikes Iranian power ‌infrastructure.

The closure of the Bab ‌el-Mandeb strait, which leads to the Red Sea, could add further pressure to the global oil supply.

The European Commission has issued new rules for Google on Thursday that require it to open up its Android mobile operating system to rival AI companies.

It found that AI assistants not made by Google were unable to function on Android phones at the same level as Google's Gemini.

Under the new rules, Google must allow voice-activation of alternative AI assistants and enable them to perform tasks such as booking a taxi via a third-party app.

By January 2027, Google must also begin sharing anonymised search data with some of its search engine rivals.

Henna Virkkunen, an executive vice president at the European Commission overseeing tech, said:

Thanks to these measures, we hope to see emerging alternatives to Google Search and Google's AI services, such as Gemini, and that users in the EU can enjoy greater choice of services.

Kent Walker, president of global affairs for Google and its parent company Alphabet, told AP that the rules could backfire by removing safeguards that the company had built to protect user privacy like the vetting of third-party AI assistants.

Europeans' private searches would be exposed to unfamiliar companies, without adequate anonymization of the data and without user knowledge or consent. This would weaken citizens' privacy, risk business trade secrets, and endanger national security.

Uber has reached an agreement to take over the German takeaway company Delivery Hero in a $14.8bn (£11bn, or €12.9bn) deal that would create a global food delivery giant.

The US tech firm said it had offered to pay €41.50 a share to Delivery Hero's shareholders, valuing the business at $14.8bn. Uber will pay $13.7bn after accounting for its previous purchases of a quarter of Delivery Hero's shares, most recently in May.

The deal would combine Uber Eats with Delivery Hero's brands across 99 countries, including Asia's foodpanda, Latin America's PedidosYa, and talabat in the Middle East. The combined company booked $236bn in orders in 2025.

Under the deal, the San Francisco-based Uber will not acquire Delivery Hero's operations in 14 countries where it already has a strong presence, including the Glovo app that serves countries such as Portugal and Spain, foodora in countries such as Norway and Sweden, and Yemeksepeti in Turkey. They will instead be bought for $1.6bn by SSW Partners, a New York-based private equity firm.

Splitting the deal with SSW will help to prevent Uber dominating those markets, an important consideration for competition regulators.

Delivery Hero does not operate in the UK, where Uber Eats is among the biggest players in food delivery.

Shares in Mike Ashley's Frasers Group are down 5.4% this morning after the business withheld financial guidance for the year ahead, amid its ongoing takeover bids for Hugo Boss and Accent Group.

The Sports Direct owner made a near €2bn bid for Hugo Boss last month, though the German fashion brand told its shareholders that the offer was “financially inadequateâ€. Frasers has also made an offer to buy the remainder of the Australian footwear business Accent Group, and this week the group also emerged as one of the bidders for the department store Harvey Nichols.

Frasers said in a statement today:

We recently launched a voluntary public takeover offer for Hugo Boss and an on-market takeover offer for Accent Group. As these transactions remain ongoing and may, depending on the level and timing of acceptances, lead to a variety of outcomes, the board considers that it is not appropriate to provide financial guidance for FY27 at this time. We will review the position at half year as appropriate.

Ashley, a retail billionaire who is known for his controversial business tactics, retains a 73% stake in Frasers, which he built from a single sports store in Maidenhead, Berkshire. He stepped down from the board in 2022.

Varun Chandra, Keir Starmer's top business adviser, is expected to remain in his position when Andy Burnham becomes prime minister, according to reports.

The Financial Times is reporting that Chandra has agreed with the Burnham team that he should continue in his role. He has reportedly told colleagues that he wants to provide “continuity†in Number 10.

Chandra, who ran the business advisory firm Hakluyt before joining government, is a central figure in Downing Street and a key champion of the government's push for economic growth.

His role as chief business adviser to the prime minister was expanded earlier this year to include the remit of US trade envoy, in which he offers advice on trade negotiations.

Google may be held legally liable for content on Youtube when it is made by a commercial partner, the European Court of Justice has ruled.

The case follows Google decision to challenge a €750,000 fine imposed by an Italian court in 2022 in relation to content that promoted online gambling, in breach of Italian law.

The administrative court in Italy had ordered Google to remove the videos from the YouTube which the US tech firm owns.

The ECJ found that the legal premise for the fine did fall within EU law on electronic commerce.

In addition, it rejected arguments Google could be exempt from regulations concerning content in this case because the YouTube video did not arrive on the platform through “automated and passive activity excluding any knowledge or control over the information which is transmitted or storedâ€.

The judges ruled:

That is not the case where an operator reviews, for the purpose of concluding a commercial partnership contract, the main theme of a video channel, that channel's most viewed videos or newest videos and the associated metadata. The operator thus acquires specific knowledge of the essential content of a set of videos and cannot therefore claim to act as an intermediary service provider.â€

Elsewhere this morning: TikTok is under investigation by the UK's online regulator Ofcom over concerns around its child safety measures.

The video app's approach to checking the ages of users has sparked “particular concerns†at the watchdog, almost a year after measures to protect children from the worst of online content came into effect under the Online Safety Act.

Ofcom said TikTok is using a method of inferring children's ages that may have failed to correctly identify “a significant proportion of childrenâ€, putting them at risk of exposure to harmful content.

TikTok said in a statement:

We strictly enforce age-appropriate experiences through expert-informed platform rules and ​advanced age inference technologies, in line with ​major â industry peers. We are confident that we meet â our ​Online Safety Act obligations and ​will work with Ofcom to demonstrate this.â€

Robert Booth and Dan Milmo have the full story here:

The market is still digesting the news that current home secretary Shabana Mahmood has emerged as the frontrunner to be Andy Burnham's chancellor.

Jim Reid, of Deutsche Bank, notes this has been a key focus for UK investors in recent days, and that the pound ended the day yesterday up 1.12% against the US dollar. It is still holding above $1.35 this morning, around its highest level in two months.

The yield on the 10-year gilt fell 3.8 basis points to 4.94% yesterday, though it has risen back up today to 4.97%.

Kathleen Brooks, of the broker XTB, said the market experienced a relief rally yesterday after news of Mahmood's potential appointment.

It tells us two things about Andy Burnham's government: firstly, the market trusts Mahmood to take a sensible approach to economic policy, and to tackle the hard questions of welfare spending, secondly, Burnham is willing to have those to the right of the Labour party in his cabinet in key economic roles.

Although there has been no formal announcement that Mahmod will be chancellor, reports suggest that Burnham consulted the City on the appointment, which is a wise thing to do when you rely on investors to buy British debt to keep the economy running.

More action over in the FTSE 250: Ocado shares have slumped 10% this morning after the online grocer reported a set of half-year results that failed to excite investors.

Richard Hunter, head of markets at the broker Interactive Investor, said that many investors had “lost patience†with the business.

There is little doubt that the underlying robotic technology for packing shipping orders is cutting-edge, impressive and efficient, with automated bots scuttling seamlessly within a preset grid. However, rolling out this CFC (Customer Fulfilment Centre) offering to partners has brought its own challenges, with the international expansion on which the group was relying failing to materialise in a meaningful enough way.

…From an investment perspective, there remains a mountain to climb. Recent news that the CEO will be departing, albeit not until a replacement is found in time for the beginning of fiscal 2028, adds another level of uncertainty which could exempt even more investors from entering the fray.

And yet another takeover deal this morning – the FTSE 250 engineering group Rotork has agreed to a £4.1bn takeover by its bigger Swiss rival ABB.

ABB has agreed to pay 506p a share in cash for Rotork, which manufacturers safety devices that open and close valves in pipelines. The shares traded at around 290p yesterday. The stock has surged 67% this morning.

ABB's chief executive Morten Wierod said:

ABB has followed Rotork over many years , and we admire the execution excellence, engineering quality, and customer trust that Rotork's teams deliver each day. We are convinced of the compelling strategic fit of the transaction.â€

It marks the latest in a string of UK-listed companies that have left the London Stock Exchange after agreeing to takeover deals.

Elsewhere this morning, the FTSE 100 energy group DCC said it received an improved offer from US buyout firm KKR and Energy Capital Partners. The terms of its earlier £5.7bn bid (£65.25 a share in cash plus £1.47 in dividends) are the same, but the consortium said it would add up to 125p in cash for each DCC share, using cash proceeds from the sale of DCC's technology business, Nexora.

The consortium must confirm a firm offer for DCC or withdraw by 27 July.

It's a downbeat open for European stock markets this morning – the UK's blue chip FTSE 100 index has slipped 0.6%. The Stoxx Europe 600, which tracks the biggest companies on the continent, is down 0.1%.

The German Dax is down by about 0.1% and the French Cac 40 is down 0.2%.

Turning back to British Steel – business secretary Peter Kyle has said this morning that the government has nationalised the UK's “one virgin steel producer here in Scunthorpe†because “if this were to disappear, we would become at the mercy of international markets and the supply from other countries for the kind of production that goes into our railways and our constructionâ€.

When asked whether the plant's blast furnaces would continue to produce virgin steel in the long term, he told Times Radio:

In the future, that will be a decision for this business and the government to decide going forward.

But it is the intention of the steel strategy that we move towards green steel. That is where the primary demand is into the long term, and I want to make sure that this plant is a modern plant that is producing the kind of steel that those companies and organisations purchasing steel require.â€

Warnings for Andy Burnham are coming in thick and fast as he prepares to take up the Labour leadership on Friday.

The chief executive of the CBI, Rain Newton-Smith, has said that there cannot be another “summer of speculationâ€, after Labour's last two summers were dogged by leaks and speculation about what might come in Rachel Reeves's autumn budgets.

Here's Heather Stewart's full interview with Newton-Smith:

All eyes are now on Andy Burnham, economists are saying this morning, as he stands to inherit a fragile economy from Keir Starmer.

TUC general secretary Paul Nowak said:

Better growth in our economy is good news and essential for boosting jobs and incomes. But despite welcome improvements, the outlook remains uncertain – and up and down the country too many working people are still struggling to get by.

Donald Trump's illegal war has sent energy prices through the roof – and comes after years of bills increasing sharply.

That's why the new prime minister must urgently show working people that this government is on their side by making living standards his number one priority.

That means cutting energy bills for most households – paid for by taxing banks' eyewatering excessive profits. This common-sense step would put more money back in people's pockets, give families the confidence to spend on the high street and support the economy.â€

Ben Jones, senior lead economist at the CBI, says businesses are still cautious about the outlook for the rest of the year.

Uncertainty over the policy outlook and the Autumn Budget, given the looming change in government, is likely to weigh on confidence and investment decisions. The renewed military strikes in the Middle East highlight the risk of further volatility in global energy and financial markets. Our own business surveys weakened in May and softened further in June, with private sector activity expected to remain subdued over the coming months.

With a new Prime Minister coming into office, the government must restore competitiveness by tackling the growing cost pressures that businesses are facing in every corner of the country. This must include taking direct action to lower the UK's industrial electricity costs, which are currently 45% more expensive than the G7 median. Lowering industrial electricity costs will give businesses the confidence to invest and unlock stronger economic growth across the UK.â€

ONS director of economic statistics Liz McKeown notes that there was “robust†growth in the three months to May.

The economy recorded robust growth in the three months to May, though the pace eased slightly as the latest two months showed a weaker picture.

Services drove growth across the three months with computer programming and advertising again leading the way, while the often-volatile pharmaceutical industry also performed well.

This was only partially offset by another weak period for power generation, while architectural and engineering firms also contracted.

While all three main sectors grew over the three months, the slight growth in GDP in May was driven by services alone, with production and construction both falling back.â€

And a spokesperson for the Treasury has said in a statement:

We have the right economic plan which has put the UK in a much stronger position than two years ago with the fastest growth in the G7 in the first quarter and the OECD agreeing that we have restored stability.

We're forecast to be the fastest growing European G7 economy this year and next, inflation is steady, and for the first time since 2004, we are forecast to borrow less this year than the G7 average.â€

The UK economy grew by 0.1% in May, despite the impact of the Iran war on energy costs, official figures show.

The Office for National Statistics said GDP rose, following a 0.1% decline in April. The figures were in line with a 0.1% rise in May that economists had forecast.

Despite April's dip, the economy appears to have been more resilient in the face of the Middle East conflict than some analysts had feared.

The International Monetary Fund recently upgraded its forecast for UK GDP growth for the year as a whole, to 1%, up 0.2 percentage points from its April forecast.

However, the UK economic outlook remains highly uncertain and oil prices have risen sharply again since hostilities resumed in the Middle East this week, underlining the economic challenges facing Andy Burnham as he takes over as Labour leader.

Good morning, and welcome to our rolling coverage of business, the financial markets and the world economy.

British Steel has been brought under public ownership to “protect the future of steel production in the UKâ€, the government has said.

The steelworks, which employs about 2,700 people in Scunthorpe, was taken under operational control by the government in April last year after it emerged that its Chinese owner Jingye Group was preparing close its two blast furnaces.

Keir Starmer said:

British Steel is part of the fabric of our nation and a cornerstone of Britain's industrial strength.

Today's decision secures the future of steelmaking in the UK, protects skilled jobs and safeguards a vital national capability.

This government will always act in the national interest to support British industry, strengthen our economy and ensure the industries we rely on can thrive long into the future.â€

Parliament passed legislation on Wednesday which allowed the government to bring the steel industry into public ownership if it met a public interest test.

Its nationalisation is expected to “protect thousands of jobs, support industry that relies on UK made steel and helps to safeguard supply chains, major infrastructure projects and national securityâ€, the government said.

Jingye had already warned it would seek compensation for nationalisation, after it said in June last year that it planned to try to recover as much as £711m in debts owed by British Steel. The government has said it will appoint an “independent valuer… to assess whether any compensation is payable. The compensation scheme will be set up through regulations expected in autumn.â€

In March, the National Audit Office found that operating the Scunthorpe steelworks cost the government about £1.3m a day.

Business secretary Peter Kyle said:

British Steel now belongs to the British people, and our focus is on the future: stabilising the business, backing the communities that rely on it and building a sustainable, competitive and decarbonised steel sector for the years ahead.

British Steel's interim chief executive, Allan Bell, has said it is an “historic day for Britain and UK manufacturingâ€:

This is a momentous day for British Steel, and everyone connected with our business – our dedicated employees, our valued customers and suppliers, and the tens of thousands of people in our supply chains and local communities. Much more than that, it is an historic day for Britain and UK manufacturing – one which safeguards our future and strengthens national security and infrastructure.

We are grateful to the UK government for the decisive action it has taken, and the support it has given our business – and our people – during such a challenging period. Together, we look to the future with great optimism and will work together to make the world-class steel Britain needs now and for decades to come.

The agenda

• 7am BST: ONS GDP figures for May

• 7am BST: Crest Nicholson reports half-year results, postponed from April. Ocado interim results

• 1.30pm BST: US initial jobless claims

• UK parliament summer recess begins