Behind closed doors at the fund's Washington headquarters, Mr Osborne challenged Olivier Blanchard, IMF chief economist, about the Frenchman's comments that Britain was �playing with fire� over its austerity drive, setting up a battle over the impending IMF ...

As the power supplier announced a 5.6pc rise in annual profits to �1.4bn, Ian Marchant lashed out at critics in Westminster and said that the company suffered because of the �big numbers� in its results.

U.S. stocks slid, dragging benchmark indexes to their worst drop in three weeks, and Treasuries and gold tumbled on concern the Federal Reserve will scale back stimulus efforts if the labor market improves.

Nationwide has increased its share of the British mortgage market to a record level, helped by government-funded programmes to support housebuyers, such as the Bank of England's Funding for Lending Scheme.

The British government holds an 81 percent stake in the Royal Bank of Scotland. Toby Melville/ReutersThe British government holds an 81 percent stake in the Royal Bank of Scotland.

Wm Morrison was under pressure on word that a large, unidentified, investor had offloaded a �288m stake in the supermarket group, less than a week after the company agreed its controversial tie-up with online grocer Ocado to kick-start its internet ...

The amount of food bought by Britons has dropped to its lowest in nearly ten years as shoppers shun the high street amid cold weather and the uncertain economy, according to official figures.

Britvic is to cut up to 400 jobs - 15 per cent of its workforce - as part of efforts to bolster its fortunes as a standalone company should competition authorities squash its proposed tie-up with Scottish peer AG Barr.

Investments in shale gas drilling could yield an industry worth nearly �4bn a year to the UK economy and create more than 70,000 jobs, according to a new report from the Institute of Directors (IoD), becoming a "new North Sea" energy business in the process ...

The world's rich have hidden at least US$18.5 trillion in tax havens around the globe, causing the loss of more than US$156 billion in tax revenue, according to Oxfam.