Athena, the poster retailer that decorated a generation of British bedrooms and gave the world the Tennis Girl, is up for sale, offering entrepreneurs and investors a rare chance to buy one of the high street’s most recognisable names outright.

BPI Asset Advisory, a RICS regulated team of surveyors and business advisors specialising in valuation and asset disposal, has been instructed to market the trademarks owned by Athena Licensing Ltd. The package comprises two recently renewed UK trademarks, covering the name and stylised logo, together with a recently renewed EU trademark.

For anyone who grew up in the 1980s or 1990s, Athena needs little introduction. Founded in 1964, the chain grew to more than 160 stores nationwide at its peak, selling the posters, prints and gifts that shaped the visual identity of teenage bedrooms, student houses and first flats across the country.

Monochrome New York skylines, jazz photography, fantasy artwork and surreal imagery all passed through its tills. Its most famous image, the Tennis Girl poster of 1976, remains globally recognised half a century on, alongside landmark pieces including L’Enfant, Beyond City Limits and Jimmy Cauty’s 1976 Lord of the Rings artwork.

Andrew Cromack, director at BPI Asset Advisory, said: “Athena is a name that immediately resonates with generations of people across the UK. Brands with this level of recognition and cultural connection rarely come to market, making this a unique opportunity to acquire a genuine piece of British retail history.”

For SME owners, the sale is a useful reminder that a brand can outlive the business that built it. Athena joins a long list of high street names that have disappeared from Britain’s town centres, yet its trademarks, kept renewed and in good order, remain a marketable asset decades after the last store closed its doors.

That is no accident. A registered trademark can be licensed, sold or even used as loan collateral, which is why advisers urge founders to think carefully about whether to trade mark a business name, logo or both early on. Athena’s owners renewed both UK marks and the EU registration before bringing them to market, keeping the asset clean for a buyer. Anyone curious about what is protected can check the UK trade mark register held by the Intellectual Property Office.

The commercial logic for a buyer is equally clear. Heritage names carry ready-made recognition that would cost millions to build from scratch, and nostalgia marketing has proven pulling power, with research suggesting consumers loosen their purse strings when reminded of happier times. Athena’s continued presence in popular culture, most recently referenced in Alan Carr’s television series Changing Ends, suggests the affection has not faded.

The obvious route for a new owner is licensing the intellectual property rather than reopening shops: putting the Athena name on prints, homeware or publishing through partners who carry the manufacturing risk while the brand owner collects royalties.

BPI says the sale will suit investors, brand owners, licensing businesses and media groups seeking an established intellectual property asset with strong historic recognition and ongoing cultural relevance.

Whoever buys it will acquire more than two logos and a word mark. They will own a shorthand for an entire era of British youth, and in a crowded market, that kind of instant recognition rarely comes up for sale.

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INGLEWOOD, Calif. — Spain will look to keep alive its bid for a second World Cup title when it faces Belgium on Friday in a World Cup quarterfinal at SoFi Stadium, a matchup that pits the tournament’s stingiest defense against a Belgian side that has turned into one of the competition’s most dangerous attacking forces.

Kickoff is set for 3 p.m. ET, with the winner advancing to a semifinal against France, which meets Morocco in the tournament’s other quarterfinal on the same day.

Spain enters the match unbeaten and still searching for its first goal conceded of the tournament. Manager Luis de la Fuente’s team has won all of its knockout matches so far, following up a group stage in which it topped Group H with a straight-sets run through the round of 32 and round of 16. Spain eliminated Austria before grinding out a 1-0 win over rival Portugal in the round of 16, a result settled by a stoppage-time goal from substitute Mikel Merino.

That victory extended Spain’s shutout streak to six straight matches, a run that has now stretched beyond 600 minutes without conceding, according to tournament statistics. Goalkeeper Unai Simón has anchored that effort, and the defensive record has been paired with a midfield built around Ballon d’Or winner Rodri and Pedri, who have combined to control possession and limit opposing chances throughout the tournament.

Spain’s attack has leaned heavily on wide players Lamine Yamal and Alex Baena, along with forward Mikel Oyarzabal, who leads the team with four tournament goals. Yamal, the 19-year-old Barcelona winger, has dealt with minor fitness issues during the tournament but remains one of Spain’s most productive players internationally, with 18 goal involvements in 30 caps for the national team.

Belgium’s path to the quarterfinals has been far less tidy. Rudi Garcia’s team opened the tournament with draws against Egypt and Iran before a 5-1 rout of New Zealand carried it out of the group stage atop Group G. In the round of 32, Belgium needed a dramatic turnaround to beat Senegal 3-2, a match in which captain Youri Tielemans scored in stoppage time.

The Red Devils then delivered their most complete performance of the tournament in the round of 16, defeating co-host United States 4-1 in Seattle. Charles De Ketelaere scored twice, Hans Vanaken added a third, and Romelu Lukaku came off the bench to score for a third straight match. Garcia made the decision to start that match without Kevin De Bruyne, Jeremy Doku and Lukaku, and Belgium’s performance without its most experienced attacking players has raised questions about the team’s best lineup heading into the quarterfinal.

Belgium will be without midfielder Amadou Onana for the remainder of the tournament after he suffered an anterior cruciate ligament injury, a significant loss for a team that will likely need to defend for long stretches against Spain’s possession-based approach. Defender Zeno Debast is also a doubt for Friday’s match.

De Bruyne’s status looms over Belgium’s preparations. The 34-year-old playmaker has struggled with fitness following an injury-plagued club season and has not been on the field for either of Belgium’s past two wins. Whether Garcia starts him against Spain, and which version of Belgium shows up as a result, is one of the central questions of the match.

Statistically, the gap between the two sides is stark. Spain has allowed just 1.5 expected goals across five matches, the lowest total in the tournament, while Belgium has conceded five goals and 6.2 expected goals over the same stretch. Spain has also allowed only five shots on target from 29 total attempts faced. Belgium, despite a similarly low shot volume allowed, has managed only one clean sheet.

The two nations have met 22 times across all competitions, with Spain winning 12, Belgium five and five ending in draws, dating back to 1921. History also favors Spain in the tournament’s biggest stage: they have won nine of their last 11 meetings with Belgium, though the sides have split their two prior World Cup encounters. Belgium advanced on penalties after a 1-1 draw in the 1986 quarterfinal, while Spain won 2-1 when the teams met in the 1990 group stage. Their most recent meeting came in a September 2016 friendly, won by Spain 2-0.

Spain is projected to name an unchanged starting lineup from its win over Portugal, with Simón in goal behind a back line of Pedro Porro, Pau Cubarsí, Aymeric Laporte and Marc Cucurella. Rodri and Pedri are expected to start in midfield, with Yamal, Dani Olmo and Baena supporting Oyarzabal up front.

Belgium is expected to line up with Thibaut Courtois in goal, protected by a back four of Timothy Castagne, Zeno Mechele, Christian Ngoy and Maxim De Cuyper. Vanaken and Tielemans are projected to start centrally, with Leandro Trossard, De Bruyne and Doku behind De Ketelaere up top, assuming De Bruyne is deemed fit enough to start.

Betting markets have installed Spain as a clear favorite to advance, reflecting both the team’s defensive record and the questions still surrounding Belgium’s best available lineup. Still, Belgium’s attacking output over its last three matches, in which it has scored 12 goals, suggests the Red Devils are capable of testing even the tournament’s most disciplined defense if they can find the same rhythm that carried them past Senegal and the United States.

The match will be played indoors at SoFi Stadium, meaning weather is not expected to be a factor. The winner will await the result of the France-Morocco quarterfinal to learn its semifinal opponent later in the tournament.

If you read the press releases from the United States Central Command, you would know that Iran does not control the Strait of Hormuz. Let me quote: “since early May, U.S. forces have helped facilitate the successful transit of more than 800 commercial vessels and 380 million barrels of crude oil through the vital international trade corridor.”

Let me repeat those numbers. Actually it’s 825 commercial vessels and 380 million barrels of crude oil just since early May. That’s why oil prices have fallen nearly 40 percent. West Texas crude is priced at $71. About the same as it was one year ago, way before the Iran conflict. Stock markets are no longer dancing to the Iranian-Hormuz oil threat tune. Of course profits are breaking records. And profits are the mothers’ milk of stocks.

Yet there’s more to the story. There may be an oil production war developing with the weakening of OPEC. The United Arab Emirates wants to move from around 2 million barrels a day to as much as 5 million. 

How about Iraq? Remember Iraq? Well they’re going to move from just over a million barrels per day to somewhere around 4 million to 5 million barrels per day. The Saudis are diverting oil exports through their East-West pipeline to the Red Sea. The UAE and other countries have shifted their tankers to the Southern Hormuz channel adjacent to Oman’s coastline. This is killing the Iranian strategy of bottling up the world economy.  

The United States, meanwhile, is moving toward 14 million barrels per day. And the Energy Information Administration is now forecasting that worldwide crude production and other trade flows will rebound to near pre-conflict levels by the end of the year.

Hundreds of oil tankers are still sitting in the upper part of the Arabian Gulf. And they are filled to the brim with oil that will soon hit world markets. And meanwhile, while oil supplies are rapidly recovering, Chinese oil demand has plunged as a result of their continued economic slump. All of this shows how Iran’s supposed Hormuz oil weapon has been neutered.

‘This will have a significant impact on the local economy by bringing further new jobs and inward investment’

A County Durham brownfield site is set to be transformed into a landmark development on the back of a £2.5m funding package. Developers Priority Space have sealed the significant support package to aid the completion of the commercial development at Hutton Court on Consett Business Park in Durham.

The company is converting the historic brownfield site into a hub with 14 commercial units for small and medium-sized enterprises to set up base and grow. The Hutton Court development in Consett Business Park development is a scheme of new build units on the site of a former working colliery.

The new hub has been specifically designed to meet the growing demand for new build units in the North East. Sheffield-based commercial property developer Priority Space has led the scheme, adding to its national portfolio of regeneration projects that aim to serve up excellent workspaces for micro and SMEs.

Funding to support the development has been provided using a £2m loan provided by FW Capital under the North East Commercial Property Investment Fund, which is managed by FW Capital and backed by The North East Mayor Kim McGuinness.

An incentive of £500,000 has also been provided by The North East Mayoral Strategic Authority to address the financial viability gap. The inward investment scheme will support new jobs and contribute to local economic growth.

The units are set to be completed this month, offering features such as 5.7 metre eaves, electrically operated insulated sectional overhead doors with protection bollards, electric car charging ports, solar reflective double glazing, shared forecourts and services yards with designated car parking and visitor spaces.

The scheme is based near to the Number One Industrial Estate, which consists of 790,000 sq ft of industrial space providing accommodation to over 106 businesses, including Legrand Electric, CAV Aerospace, Howden Joinery and Wolseley Group.

Lee Buchanan, director at Priority Space, said: “This investment has enabled us to kickstart the Hutton Court development in Consett Business Park and regenerate a previous brownfield site that had been a working colliery in the past. Prior to receiving the funding, we had been struggling to get the site moving, needing a significant working capital injection to support our ambitions.

“Chris and the team at FW Capital have been fantastic to work with. As we near completion, we are already in discussions with SMEs looking to lease or purchase space in this prime location. We also have plans to look at further developments across the North East and hope to work with FW Capital on these too.”

Chris Dixon, fund manager at FW Capital, added: “Priority Space is bringing to Consett quality new industrial units which can be used by a diverse range of businesses. This will have a significant impact on the local economy by bringing further new jobs and inward investment. It’s also fantastic to be able to combine funds with The North East Mayoral Strategic Authority to help get this development started and come to fruition.”

The North East Commercial Property Investment Fund is a £35m fund which provides loans of up to £7m to support both non speculative and speculative developments for new build or refurbished commercial projects.

Like this story? For more news from the commercial property scene around the regions, visit our dedicated section here for the latest news and analysis within the sector.

LONDON — Shares of Vodafone Group jumped as much as 13% on Friday after Emirates Telecommunications Group, known as e&, agreed to sell its entire 16.2% stake in the British telecommunications company to Vega, an investment vehicle owned by the family of French billionaire Xavier Niel.

Vodafone’s American depositary shares were trading at $14.81 in New York on Friday morning, up $1.73, or 13.18%, according to Yahoo Finance data. In London, the stock touched an intraday high near 111 pence and closed the session at 110.10 pence, its strongest finish since mid-June, outperforming a broader FTSE 100 index that was little changed on the day.

The deal, valued at approximately $5.95 billion, or roughly £4.4 billion, will see Vega acquire e&’s full holding of about 3.94 billion Vodafone ordinary shares, representing 16.21% of the company’s issued share capital and 17.13% of its total voting rights. The agreed price of 112.5 pence per share includes about 110.5 pence in cash plus Vodafone’s final fiscal 2026 dividend of 2.02 pence per share, which e& is set to receive on July 30. That price represents a premium of roughly 13% to 15% over Thursday’s closing price of 97.76 pence.

Once regulatory approvals are secured, Niel will become Vodafone’s largest individual shareholder, replacing e&, which had built its stake since first investing $4.4 billion for a 9.8% position in 2022. The shares will be transferred through simultaneous off-market block trades to three financial institutions, with e&’s holding placed in trust pending clearance.

As part of the transaction, e& has terminated its relationship agreement with Vodafone, and its board representative, Hatem Dowidar, has stepped down from his role as a non-executive director with immediate effect. e& described the divestiture as representing the “natural evolution” of its strategic priorities, as it moves to concentrate on its core operations while realizing a return on its investment.

Vega, which is fully owned by the Niel family group, said it has no intention of launching a full takeover offer for Vodafone and characterized the purchase as a long-term, strategic minority holding. Under the UK Takeover Code, the company said it plans to engage with the British government regarding the transaction.

Niel is the founder of French telecommunications company Iliad and one of Europe’s most prominent telecom investors. Through companies controlled by his family group, he holds telecom assets spanning 26 countries across Europe and Latin America, serving approximately 139 million subscribers and employing roughly 45,000 people. The portfolio, which includes Iliad, Salt, Monaco Telecom, Eir, Tele2 and Millicom, generates around €24 billion in annual revenue and more than €9 billion in adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, after lease costs.

Niel has previously sought a foothold in Vodafone’s operations directly, having made two unsuccessful attempts to acquire the company’s Italian business, both of which were rejected.

Analysts said the scale of the premium Niel agreed to pay, combined with his industry track record, fueled investor optimism that Vodafone’s public market valuation may have been understating the company’s underlying worth. Morgan Stanley analysts said Niel’s telecommunications experience and limited operational overlap with Vodafone’s existing footprint could make him a stable, long-term backer, with market attention now shifting toward the performance of Vodafone’s German business, where the company continues to trail market leader Deutsche Telekom.

AJ Bell analyst Dan Coatsworth said investors reacted positively to the size of Niel’s commitment. “The market has responded favourably to Niel’s latest move, with certain investors possibly believing he might want to buy the whole of Vodafone in time,” Coatsworth said. “That might not be the case, but it won’t stop market speculation.”

Kester Mann, an analyst at CCS Insight, described e&’s exit as an unexpected reversal for the Abu Dhabi-based operator, which had previously positioned itself as a company expanding its global telecommunications footprint through international stakes such as its Vodafone investment.

Friday’s rally pushed Vodafone shares decisively above their 200-day moving average, a threshold that traders often use to gauge whether a stock has broken out of a long-term downtrend. Technical analysts said the stock would need to hold above the 105-pence level, where the recent breakout gap and its 50-day moving average both provide support, for the bullish move to be sustained. A push above resistance near 117 to 122 pence was cited as the next test for the shares, while some technical indicators, including the Relative Strength Index, flagged the stock as overbought following the sharp one-day gain.

Vodafone, incorporated in 1984 and based in Newbury, England, provides mobile and fixed telecommunications services, cloud and edge computing, and financial technology products including its M-PESA mobile money platform in Africa, serving customers across Europe, Africa and other international markets.

The broader London market was little changed Friday. The FTSE 100 rose about 0.1% at midday, while the FTSE 250 and the AIM All-Share index posted modest gains. The British pound strengthened against both the U.S. dollar and the euro during the session. In New York, U.S. stock futures pointed to a mixed open, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average called modestly higher and the Nasdaq Composite indicated lower.

Vodafone did not immediately issue additional public comment beyond confirming the terms of the transaction and the departure of e&’s board representative. The deal remains subject to customary regulatory approvals before Vega’s stake formally transfers.

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Mumbai: SBI Funds Management has raised ₹1,655 crore through a pre-IPO share sale to a clutch of institutional investors and individuals ahead of the launch of its initial public offering (IPO) next week. The country’s largest asset manager’s ₹11,693 crore IPO is the largest public issue so far in 2026.

ET reported on July 4 that SBI Funds Management was looking to raise up to ₹2,000 crore from institutional investors before the public issue.

The fund house sold about 2.88 crore shares to 30 investors. Among the largest investors were PI Opportunities Fund-II and Enam’s Akash Manek Bhanshali, who invested about ₹200 crore each. 3P India Equity Fund I, led by investor Prashant Jain, also participated with an investment of around ₹150 crore.

Other investors in the placement include Bennett Coleman & Co, Malabar India Fund, Tata AIG General Insurance, Go Digit General Insurance, Anand Rathi Global Finance, Capri Global Ventures and Clarus Capital, among others.

According to SBI’s exchange filing, the bank signed agreements on July 9 to sell a 1.42% stake in SBI Funds Management at ₹574 per share, the upper end of the IPO price band. The transaction is expected to be completed on July 10.

Around 7,210 fish and chip shops operate across the UK, according to industry body Seafish.

In Dorset, Jon operates a couple of those premises as well as working on a tuna fishing boat.

His grandfather and father were both in the industry; “I swore I never would be involved in fish and chips, but of course it’s in your blood.

“We’ve diversified partly because of my passion and love for fishing, but also because of the way the economic circumstances are, you’ve got to have a few strings to your bow.”

Long charges £11.70 for a regular-sized portion of cod and chips.

“Let’s call it £12.” he said as he explained that around £2 of that goes straight to the government in VAT.

The cost of the food itself is typically about 35% of the price, or around £3.50 to £4, depending on the type of fish being used.

Labour costs are about 40% so £4 goes on staffing.

Once food, staff wages, packaging, gas and electricity are paid for, there is around £2 left.

That remaining £2 is not simply profit. It helps pay for reinvestment in the business, future improvements and provides Long with his own income.

Some eBay shoppers and sellers said Friday they were having trouble reaching the online marketplace, with scattered complaints surfacing on social media even as most automated monitoring services showed the platform largely functioning.

Posts on the social platform X referenced possible disruptions affecting eBay users, including in the United Kingdom, though the scale and cause of any problem remained unclear Friday morning. The reports come amid a pattern of intermittent, localized issues that outage-tracking services say eBay has experienced periodically in recent months.

Independent monitoring site StatusGator said its most recent check of eBay’s systems found the service operational, though it logged 44 user-submitted reports of outages in the prior 24 hours. A separate check by the same tracker on eBay’s selling tools similarly found the platform operational, with 34 user-submitted reports in the past day, including at least one complaint describing eBay.com destinations returning a “server not found” error for part of an afternoon.

UptimeRobot, which pings eBay’s servers every five minutes from multiple global locations, reported no anomalies in its latest automated check, saying it detected no unusual response times or error codes as of its most recent scan. The service says it only flags eBay as down after three separate confirmation checks from different global locations all detect a problem, a method designed to filter out issues tied to a single user’s device or internet connection rather than the platform itself.

Other outage trackers described a similar picture of intermittent, low-level complaints rather than a confirmed widespread failure. VeePN’s live tracker, which combines automated checks with crowdsourced user reports, characterizes report volume on a sliding scale, distinguishing a “baseline” of essentially zero reports in a 30-minute window from an “outage signal” that requires eleven or more reports in the same window. The company notes that when reports surge and multiple regions register failures at once, that combination points to a genuine outage rather than a problem isolated to one household or network.

eBay’s own official status page offers only general information and directs users with specific problems to contact customer service, without a live incident log visible to the public. The company had not issued a public statement addressing outage reports as of Friday.

Complaints about the platform are not new. On eBay’s own community forums, sellers have used recent threads to describe unresolved technical issues, including one user who said in a post earlier this week that three separate support tickets had been opened over an ongoing problem, with no clear indication that any progress had been made. That user added that support representatives had told them there was no way to contact IT staff directly, even after a ticket had gone unresolved for two months.

Other recent forum posts flagged unrelated technical complaints, including a request that eBay fix a reports and downloads window that cannot be scrolled, making it difficult for users on laptops or small screens to reach the on-screen buttons.

On the crowdsourced complaint site IsTheServiceDown, recent posts tagged to eBay covered a range of issues beyond a straightforward outage, including at least one user describing a seller account and chargeback dispute that they said had received conflicting information from support staff. The mix of complaints underscores a broader challenge in confirming outage reports in real time: distinguishing a platform-wide technical failure from routine account-specific problems, regional connectivity trouble, or normal customer-service friction.

Consumers who suspect an outage is affecting them specifically, rather than eBay broadly, are typically advised by monitoring services to rule out simpler explanations first. VeePN’s tracker suggests users experiencing trouble try switching between Wi-Fi and mobile data, updating their app, or checking whether the issue appears on multiple devices and networks before concluding eBay itself is down. UptimeRobot offers similar guidance, recommending users try a different browser, device or network, disable any active VPN, clear their DNS cache or restart their router before assuming a confirmed platform-wide outage is underway, noting that if the site loads normally elsewhere, the problem is more likely local than a broad eBay failure.

Even confirmed eBay outages in the past several months appear to have been short-lived. One outage tracker noted that over a recent 90-day period, eBay experienced three incidents with a median duration of roughly eight hours and 50 minutes.

As of Friday, no major outage-tracking service had escalated eBay’s status to a confirmed, large-scale disruption, and the company’s status page did not reflect an active incident. The situation illustrates how quickly reports of technical trouble can spread on social media even when the underlying evidence remains mixed or inconclusive.

eBay did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Users experiencing persistent issues are encouraged to check eBay’s official status page and the company’s customer service channels for updates, as any confirmed disruption would typically be reflected there once acknowledged.

This is a developing situation, and further details may emerge as eBay or independent monitoring services provide updates.

Mumbai: A glitch at Groww, India’s largest brokerage, prevented clients from withdrawing their funds from their accounts during equity market trading on Friday. Some users took to social media, claiming they were also unable to deposit money into the account.

In response to an email query, a Groww spokesperson said the issue was caused by an “incident” at its cloud service provider, Google Cloud Platform. “We experienced a temporary disruption that prevented a very small fraction of our customers from making withdrawals. However, the incident was promptly resolved, and customers were able to withdraw their funds before market close,” the spokesperson said. An email sent to Google went unanswered till the time of going to print.