Marissa Mayer, chief executive of Yahoo, has made her first big bet to jump-start growth at the stalled web portal company with the $1.1bn purchase of New York start-up Tumblr.

In the tech/corporate world, Yahoo! just confirmed that it has agreed to pay $1.1bn for Tumblr, and promised not to "screw it up".

LONDON | Mon May 20, 2013 12:50pm BST. LONDON (Reuters) - British retailer Marks & Spencer is expected to report its lowest annual profit in four years on Tuesday as a struggling general merchandise division drags on the growth in food sales.

Retail sales increased at their fastest pace since December 2009 in a surprisingly upbeat set of data from the British Retail Consortium helped by sales of electronic items.

The Ernst & Young Item Club, which makes economic forecasts using the Treasury's own methods, says inflation has cost the UK �10bn over the last three years alone.