Business news live: Inheritance tax numbers rise and FTSE 100 latest as Rolls Royce and Next profits surge

Good morning and welcome to our rolling live blog coverage for everything business, companies, stock markets and personal finance.

Coming up today we’ve got the Nationwide House Price Index, financial results for the likes of Rolls Royce and the London Stock Exchange Group, plus plenty more.

First up today, let’s catch you up with the main headlines from yesterday’s business and money news:

It’s been a big week of financials among the FTSE 100 firms and that theme continues today.

We’ll hear very shortly about the likes of Rolls Royce, Shell, Unilever and the London Stock Exchange Group among others.

Speaking before Unilever’s reveal – currently going on right now – Diana Radu, equity analyst at Morningstar, pointed out that the consumer products firm’s results will be a bellweather of sorts for the overall spending power of the people.

“The results are likely to give us a good insight into the health of the global consumer,” she said.

“We expect that, following a prolonged period of high inflation, with rising market share for private label goods and persistent macroeconomic and geopolitical uncertainty across regions, consumer spending will remain cautious, and Unilever’s volume growth will be subdued, falling short of the company’s midterm ambitions.”

Worth noting that we’ll also bring some commentary and updates on some of the biggest names from the US stock market this morning too.

Meta and Microsoft both reported the financials last night, with Amazon and Apple following suit tonight.

More on them shortly but they are key in terms of jobs and expenditure on a global scale right now, particularly with AI taking so much focus on both fronts – as well as in the stock market.

Let’s start getting around the FTSE 100 firms for the morning then, starting with Shell.

The energy giant has posted $4.3bn (£3.2bn) adjusted earnings, which despite being 24 per cent down from last year, has actually beaten analyst expectations.

As a result, another $3.5bn share buyback has been announced – their 15th consecutive quarter-year of spending at least $3bn on their own shares.

Shell CEO Wael Sawan said Shell’s “continued focus on performance, discipline and simplification helped deliver $3.9 billion of structural cost reductions since 2022” and cited a first cargo shipment of LNG from Canada, plus focus in Nigeria and Brazil as being key operations.

Strong demand for financial services data has pushed London Stock Exchange Group’s (LSEG) profits higher than expected.

Total income was just under £4.5bn for the first half of the year, with AI products and subscriptions both increasing.

“The first half was marked by a consistent cadence of new product launches, which we expect to continue in (the second half of the year),” said CEO David Schwimmer.

LSEG also announced a share buyback programme of up to £1bn and raised the interim dividend around 15 per cent higher than last year.

Asia-focused bank Standard Chartered have recorded profits of almost $4.4bn (£3.3bn) for the first half of the year, after growing across each sector of banking, trading and wealth.

A first dividend payment of the year was announced and a $1.3bn share buyback programme given the green light.

However, the concern of global tariffs was highlighted as a potential issue this year.

High street retailer Next have reported full price sales surging 10 per cent and ahead of guidance – partly due to the digital hack earlier this year at rival Marks & Spencer.

A statement from Next said: “In the UK, we believe that the over-performance was largely due to better than expected weather and trading disruption at a major competitor.”

M&S said earlier this year they expected to take a £300m hit all told from the hack, which set them back months in terms of online and app sales.

Richard Hunter, head of markets at interactive investor, provided some analysis.

“The Next naysayers who eschew the UK retail sector have been dealt another blow, as the group continues to fire on all cylinders,” he said.

“Next now has the reputation of a company which under-promises and then over-delivers and this update is no exception.”

Rolls Royce shares jumped more than 10 per cent this morning after profits of around £1.7bn were announced – more than half a billion larger than this time last year.

Profit guidance for the full year has been raised and the share price hit an all-time high today as a result.

Rolls-Royce CEO Tufan Erginbilgic said: “Our multi-year transformation continues to deliver. Our actions led to strong first half year results, despite the challenges of the supply chain and tariffs.

“We are continuing to expand the earnings and cash potential of Rolls-Royce.”

Chris Beauchamp, chief market analyst at IG, said: “Rolls-Royce’s near tenfold rally since early 2023 reflects strong execution, rising profits and growing cash returns. Civil Aerospace is delivering, Power Systems is expanding fast, and Defence remains a steady contributor.

“With SMRs offering long-term upside and cash delivery on track, the re-rating may still have legs.”