By DebbieH 15 Jun 2018 7 min read

In the news this week: Trump, Rolls-Royce and 21st Century Fox

Trump has been all over the headlines this week after the meeting with Kim Jong-un, however, it’s Trump’s tariffs that are the main business news this week. Also in the news, Rolls-Royce has announced a restructuring that will result in thousands of job losses. Jobs are also at risk on the high street as Poundworld goes into administration. Rupert Murdoch has received another offer for his media empire 21st Century Fox and the spell of good weather last month resulted in an increase in retail figures.

Donald Trump has approved tariffs on $50bn in imports from China, increasing the likelihood of a trade war. This follows the recent decision to start levying tariffs on certain imports from the EU, Japan and Canada.  

Rolls-Royce has announced a major business restructure, cutting 4,600 jobs worldwide. Around 3,000 of the jobs affected will be in the UK and will be middle management jobs and engineers working on early-stage design. This will be the company’s biggest round of redundancies since 2001.

Poundworld is the high street’s latest casualty, going into administration this week and putting more than 5,000 jobs at risk. Deloitte has been called in and says that stores will remain open with no job losses for the moment.  

Rupert Murdoch’s 21st Century Fox, which is currently negotiating a merger with Disney, has received an all-cash $65bn offer from Comcast. The offer is about 19% higher than Disney’s and could be the start of a bidding war.

May’s retail figures rose 1.3% in store and online in April. The Office for National Statistics put this down to the warm weather and the royal wedding celebrations.

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