Companies

Image copyright Asda Sales of supermarkets’ premium own-label brands are booming as shoppers decide to treat themselves. Figures from Kantar Worldpanel for the 12 weeks to 4 December show a 13% sales rise for the products, despite sluggish growth overall for food retailers. Sales of Morrisons’ The Best range are …

Image copyright PA A union representing Post Office workers has defended a decision to strike in the week before Christmas. Workers will stage five days of strikes from Monday in a dispute over jobs, pensions and branch closures. The industrial action will affect Crown Post Offices – the larger branches …

Image copyright Getty Images Shares in UniCredit have jumped almost 15% after Italy’s biggest bank said it would raise €13bn (£10.9bn) and cut 14,000 jobs to restore its fortunes. The bank plans to use the record rights issue to help remove almost €18bn of bad debt from its balance sheet …

Image copyright Getty Images HSBC has closed more than a quarter of its UK branches over the last two years, as part of 1,000 bank closures in total, research by Which? has found. The consumer organisation says that HSBC closed 321 branches since January 2015, or 27% of its network. …

Media captionThe incident took 120 firefighters to bring under control but there were no injuries On a chilly Monday afternoon in late November, an email landed in my bulging inbox with information about a “potential safety issue”. “Hi there,” it began. “I wanted to make sure you were aware of …

Media captionSamsung Galaxy Note 7: What went wrong? You know your product’s got problems when it becomes the subject of jokes on late-night television. In the US, the comedian Stephen Colbert leant into the camera on the Late Show recently and said: “I have a special message for anyone watching …

Image copyright AP Image caption Samsung has a battle on its hands to restore its reputation A company disaster on the scale of the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 crisis is like rolling thunder – it doesn’t just end with a plummeting share price, a quarterly profits warning, and a product …

Image copyright PA Image caption Both the French and the Germans have played a role in the creation of what is seen as a quintessentially British product Panic spread across the UK as it emerged that the much-loved yeast extract Marmite was at risk of being removed from the nation’s …

Image copyright PA We’ve all heard the phrase hedging your bets – but do you know what it actually means? “Hedge” has been used as a verb meaning to “avoid commitment” since at least the 16th century; it’s used in Shakespeare’s Merry Wives of Windsor, for example. It started being …

“Hanjin is like a family,” says the first officer, slowly choosing his words. “But now,” he hesitates, “it looks like we’ve lost our family.” We are standing on board one of Hanjin’s vessels. It’s a huge ship, and the officer is second-in-command. He stares past me, for a moment lost …