Morrisons boss to step down; UK approval of Rosebank oilfield condemned as ‘environmental vandalism’ – as it happened

David Potts, chief executive of Morrisons gestures during a news conference in London. Photograph: Reuters

3.03pm BST

Closing summary

David Potts, the retailer who steered the supermarket chain Morrisons into private equity ownership, is stepping down after nine years as chief executive.

He will leave in November, and be succeeded by the former head of the grocery retailer Carrefour France, Rami Baitiéh.

Potts’s departure comes a little more than a year after the completion of the £7bn takeover of the retailer by the US private equity firm Clayton, Dubilier & Rice (CD&R) after an intense bidding war.

Britain has given the go-ahead to develop the UK’s biggest untapped oilfield off Shetland, sparking outrage from environmental campaigners.

The UK oil and gas regulator’s decision to grant the Oslo-listed Equinor and the British firm Ithaca Energy permission to develop the Rosebank oil and gas field in the North Sea was condemned by the Green party MP Caroline Lucas as “the greatest act of environmental vandalism in my lifetime”.

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Thank you for reading. We’ll be back tomorrow. Take care everyone! – JK

2.27pm BST

Olivia Cross, North America economist at Capital Economics, has looked at the 0.2% monthly rise in US durable goods orders in August and what it means for the US economy.

It was, at first glance, better than expected, but the outperformance was mainly due to a surge in defence aircraft orders. Admittedly, gains in core orders and underlying capital goods orders were even stronger. However, contractions earlier in the quarter mean that third-quarter business equipment investment growth probably slowed sharply…

Despite the improvement to underlying capital goods shipments, which feed directly into the BEA’s estimates, business equipment investment still looks set to slow sharply from the 7.7% annualised gain in the second quarter. Moreover, headwinds to the sector are likely to grow over the rest of the year as tighter credit conditions weigh more heavily on investment and economic growth weakens.

Christophe Barraud, chief economist at Bloomberg, tweeted:

🇺🇸*US AUG. DURABLE GOODS ORDERS INCREASE 0.2%; EST. -0.5% - BBG
*US AUG. DURABLES ORDERS EX-TRANS RISE 0.4%; EST. 0.2%
*US PRELIM AUG. NON-DEFENSE CAPITAL GOODS ORDERS EX-AIR RISE 0.9% M/M

— Christophe Barraud🛢🐳 (@C_Barraud) September 27, 2023

Updated at 2.41pm BST