Press Digest: British Business - August 5

Zegona Communications

05/08/2025 03:47

Aug 5 (Reuters) - The following are the top stories on the business pages of British newspapers. Reuters has not verified these stories and does not vouch for their accuracy.

The Times

- British Petroleum BP.L has made its biggest oil and gas discovery in a quarter of a century with a potential multibillion-barrel find off the coast of Brazil that analysts said could be a "game-changer". BP has not given any estimate for the volume of oil and gas in the discovery.

     - Zegona Communications ZEG.L agreed to sell a 25% stake in its broadband joint venture with MasOrange to GIC for 1.4 billion euros ($1.62 billion). The investment leaves Zegona with a 17% stake in the full-fibre network that it operates under the Vodafone VOD.L Spain brand.

The Guardian

- UK's Ofwat, the water regulator for England and Wales is scrutinising payments worth 1.3 million pounds ($1.73 million) made to the boss of Yorkshire Water via an offshore parent company, after the Guardian revealed the existence of the extra money.

- The UK will begin detaining people who arrive on small boats and returning some to France "within days" after the EU gave the green light to a deal agreed with the French president, Emmanuel Macron.

The Telegraph

- Baidu 9888.HK , the Chinese internet search giant, confirmed on Monday that it would be seeking to road test its Apollo Go autonomous cars in the UK and Germany starting in 2026 under a deal with Lyft LYFT.O , a rival to Uber UBER.N.

Sky News

- British supermarket chain Asda is in talks about a £400m deal to offload some of its supermarket real estate assets to a giant investment house as it looks to plough more funding into its turnaround plans.

($1 = 0.8652 euros)

($1 = 0.7530 pounds)

 (Compiled by Bengaluru newsroom)

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