On Wall Street, the benchmark S&P 500 has slipped by 0.17%, but is on track for its best third-quarter performance since 2020, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq fell by 0.27% and the Dow Jones industrial average lost 0.6%.
The UK’s FTSE 100 index is 0.4% higher while other major European markets have also moved cautiously higher, with the exception of the French bourse.
Donald Trump will announce a deal with the New York-based drugmaker Pfizer to voluntarily sell the company’s medications through Medicaid at lower prices, the Washington Post reported, citing sources.
Almost a third of workers at the Prax Lindsey oil refinery in north Lincolnshire, which collapsed into administration this summer, will lose their jobs at the end of October.
The Insolvency Service said the decision to make 125 roles redundant, with 255 people remaining at the site, “was not taken lightly” and follows a thorough review of “all aspects of the business, following its insolvency”.
A spokesperson said:
We understand that this a very difficult time for all those affected by this decision, and the Insolvency Service will fully support employees subject to redundancy via the Redundancy Payments Service.
The conduct of the company and its directors, following the liquidation of Prax oil refinery, remains the subject of an ongoing Insolvency Service investigation.
The job losses emerged weeks after a court froze £150m of assets belonging to the owner of the refinery, Winston Soosaipillai, whose whereabouts have been a unknown since the plant’s sudden financial collapse.
Soosaipillai, who is known by his middle names Sanjeev Kumar, is being sued by administrators for breach of his duties as a director, and the government has called for an investigation into the conduct of bosses at the refinery.
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Spotify boss steps down after 19 years
The boss of Spotify, Daniel Ek, is stepping down after 19 years to become executive chair, in a shake-up at the music streaming company that will split his position between two top executives.
The company said that Alex Norström and Gustav Söderström will take over as co-chief executives at the start of next year.
Ek, who co-founded Spotify in 2006, said that he had already “turned over a large part of the day-to-day management and strategic direction of Spotify to Alex and Gustav”, adding that their promotion “simply matches titles to how we already operate”.
