Business
What Harry and Meghan’s Return to the UK Could Look Like After Years of Royal Family Drama Unfolds Now
LONDON — Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, the Duchess of Sussex, surprised the world this week with news that they plan to move back to the United Kingdom more than six years after stepping away from their senior royal roles and settling in Montecito, California.
According to the BBC, the decision was made relatively recently, with King Charles III only informed of the couple’s plans on Sunday, Aug. 16. A source familiar with the matter told NBC News that Charles “welcomes the opportunity” to see more of the Sussex family in a private and personal capacity. According to The Telegraph, which first reported the move, the couple’s children, 7-year-old Archie and 5-year-old Lilibet, are set to begin the school year in the U.K. this September.
The location of the family’s new home is being closely guarded, though multiple outlets, including ABC News and CNN, report the family intends to settle in a private, non-royal residence outside London rather than returning to any official royal property. NewsNation similarly reported the family will be staying in a non-royal home, with its precise location undisclosed.
Crucially, the move does not signal any return to official royal duties. A source told ABC News that Charles has made clear there will be no alteration to Harry and Meghan’s status as private individuals and non-working royals, consistent with the arrangement the couple themselves requested when they stepped back in 2020. CNN reported the same assurance, noting the king has been explicit that the Sussexes will remain non-working members of the family. The couple will reportedly continue their professional ventures from the U.K., including Harry and Meghan’s production work through Archewell and Meghan’s separate lifestyle brand.
The announcement follows a significant family reunion earlier this summer. Charles and Camilla, Queen Consort, met with Harry, Meghan, Archie and Lilibet during a visit to the U.K. in July, according to a royal source who confirmed the meeting to ABC News. That gathering marked the first time Charles and Camilla were known to have seen Meghan and their grandchildren since 2022. Notably, the Sussexes were not known to have seen Prince William, Catherine, the Princess of Wales, or their three children during that visit. According to The Telegraph, as cited by NBC News’ Today, Harry and Meghan’s decision to relocate was not actually discussed during that July visit itself, meaning the substance of the move appears to have been finalized separately and communicated to the king only days before this week’s public announcement.
Sky News royal reporter Laura Bundock told Variety that the July trip appeared to represent a meaningful turning point in the family’s relationships. “I think they had a really good trip here in the summer,” Bundock said, noting that the visit had also included time with relatives connected to Harry’s late mother, Princess Diana, some of whom Archie and Lilibet were meeting for the first time.
The relationship between Harry and his brother, William, remains a considerably more complicated matter. According to Variety, the bond between the two brothers has been described as severely damaged following the 2023 publication of Harry’s memoir, “Spare,” and the couple’s bombshell 2021 interview with Oprah Winfrey, in which they leveled allegations of racism and mistreatment against unnamed members of the royal family. Bundock offered a cautious assessment of what the move back to Britain might mean for that specific relationship. “Their friendship circles and acquaintances overlap to some extent,” she said, “but I think to say that this is a moment of great reconciliation between those feuding brothers is far from reality.” A royal insider separately told NewsNation weeks earlier that William has “no interest at all” in speaking to his brother.
Harry’s efforts to rebuild his relationship specifically with his father have followed a somewhat different trajectory. King Charles announced his cancer diagnosis in February 2024, a development that has periodically factored into discussions about reconciliation between father and son. In September 2025, the two reunited for the first time in 19 months. Harry addressed his hopes for reconciliation directly in a May 2025 interview with the BBC. “I would love reconciliation with my family,” Harry said at the time. “There’s no point in continuing to fight. Life is precious. I don’t know how much longer my father has. It would be nice to reconcile.”
Following the family’s July trip, Meghan shared photographs from their time overseas, including images from a visit to Princess Diana’s childhood home, offering a rare public glimpse into the family’s time together during what has since been described by royal watchers as a pivotal visit ahead of this week’s relocation announcement.
The couple’s return marks a striking reversal from the circumstances of their original 2020 departure, an exit that became widely known as “Megxit.” At the time, Harry and Meghan announced in a statement described as “a personal message from the Duke and Duchess of Sussex” that they intended to step back as senior royals and work toward financial independence, while continuing to support Queen Elizabeth II. That original announcement caught even some within the royal household by surprise; a follow-up statement from Buckingham Palace at the time noted that discussions with the couple were “at an early stage,” adding, “We understand their desire to take a different approach, but these are complicated issues that will take time to work through.” As part of that earlier transition, the couple relinquished their use of HRH titles, agreed to no longer represent the monarch in an official capacity, and pledged to repay the roughly $3.1 million in Sovereign Grant funds spent renovating Frogmore Cottage, their former U.K. residence.
As Harry and Meghan now prepare to reestablish a life in Britain more than six years later, questions remain about how the wider family, particularly William and Catherine, will navigate the couple’s return, and whether the warmth shown during July’s reunion with King Charles will extend more broadly across a family relationship that has remained publicly strained since 2020. Neither Buckingham Palace nor representatives for the Duke and Duchess of Sussex have released a detailed public statement addressing how the family’s day-to-day dynamics might evolve once Harry, Meghan and their children are settled back in the U.K. later this month.
The ASEAN Digital Economy Framework Agreement (DEFA), finalized in May 2026, aims to harmonize digital trade, e-commerce, data governance, and cybersecurity across 11 diverse nations. Once signed and implemented, DEFA could significantly boost the region’s $2 trillion digital economy by simplifying cross-border transactions and reducing compliance costs, particularly for small businesses. The pact future-proofs by including emerging technologies like AI. DEFA’s success hinges on inclusive implementation and national legislation, with the potential to make ASEAN a unified digital market and a global “digital lighthouse” for responsible digital policy.
ASEAN is building a $2 trillion economy with more than 680 million consumers, but its digital market remains fragmented. DEFA is an attempt to turn ASEAN’s 11 national markets into something closer to one regional digitally-savvy market. Uniquely, it was negotiated by members ranging from Singapore’s advanced economy to Vietnam’s one-party system, making it a compelling test of inclusive governance.
Building consensus and ensuring inclusion
Consensus has been built into the region’s DNA since the ASEAN Charter, signed in November 2007, codified the region’s diplomatic rules and listed the key principles and purposes of the group. But members can also opt out of certain commitments – ASEAN minus X – which allows countries to operate at different readiness levels. This flexibility may be criticized by some as a weakness, but it allows progress among countries with very different starting points.
Participants in DEFA negotiations may or may not use the ASEAN minus X formula, but its availability provides room for nations that need support and time. Consultative discussions and capacity-building are particularly important for smaller businesses seeking to reap DEFA’s benefits.
The Empire State Building, the Chrysler Building and One Vanderbilt are seen among other buildings in midtown Manhattan in New York, Jan. 11, 2024.
Angela Weiss | Afp | Getty Images
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It should come as no surprise that the number of artificial intelligence-specific tech workers is growing rapidly, and the effect of this growth on regional office markets is substantial. For the first time, New York’s office market is home to the most tech workers, thanks in large part to AI, according to a new report from CBRE.
New York’s 394,300 tech talent jobs edged out the San Francisco Bay Area’s 375,730 jobs, CBRE found. The report analyzes tech-specific workers in 75 metropolitan markets in the U.S. and Canada. It’s the first time New York has taken the lead in the 13 years of this analysis.
“The story there is that there’s been cuts in the Bay Area, so the tech industry has contracted the size of the tech talent workforce, and the finance sector [in New York] has hired a lot of tech talent and a lot of AI workers,” said Colin Yasukochi, executive director of CBRE’s Tech Insights Center in San Francisco.
For both the U.S. and Canada, AI tech roles grew by 45% in the past year, with San Francisco and New York each adding more than 20,000 AI-specific jobs since mid-2025, according to CBRE.
As of June, there were 751,000 AI-related workers across the two countries, the report found. Those include both new jobs and conversions from existing jobs. AI-related roles now account for nearly one-third of all tech-talent job listings in the U.S., per the findings.
By market, 37% of AI jobs in the U.S. are in the San Francisco Bay Area, New York, Seattle and Washington. While New York leads in overall tech talent, San Francisco still leads in AI, specifically.
In Canada, there is greater concentration of AI employment, with 60% of those jobs based in Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver.
Office leasing is rising accordingly in those markets where AI workers are most in demand.
In San Francisco, AI companies made up 58% of all leasing in the first half of this year and have accounted for 30% of leasing activity, totaling about 10 million square feet, since 2023, according to CBRE.
While overall tech drove the Bay Area’s office market over the past few decades, the pandemic pushed many of those workers to remote jobs. AI, however, has a more office-centric culture and is now fueling the market’s recovery.
“It’s more of the sort of startup innovation culture that we’ve seen, where people are in the office [a] minimum of four, but usually like five or six days a week,” said Yasukochi. “Through this whole innovation process, being together and working in person is just much more efficient and innovative.”
In addition to San Francisco, AI leasing activity is concentrated most in Manhattan, Boston and Seattle, according to CBRE.
There was concern that AI would reduce head counts, and consequently the need for office space, but in the short term, at least, that has not been the case.
“It basically changes jobs and creates new jobs, more so than it eliminates,” said Yasukochi, pointing specifically to the finance sector.
Harald Fotland
Chief Executive Officer
Good morning to all of you, and welcome to Odfjell’s presentation of our second quarter results. We will follow an agenda, which should be well known to all of you. I will take you through the highlights, and then my colleague, Terje Iversen, will present our financial performance. And finally, I will conclude this presentation with an operational review, market update and the prospects going forward.
So if we then turn to the highlights, we start with safety. We have seen a very volatile environment this quarter, but I’m still very satisfied to report that our strong safety performance continued throughout the quarter. I’m equally happy to say that our 4 Odfjell vessels that were trapped inside the Middle East Gulf have all safely left the region. And this is due to a fantastic cooperation between the people on board our ships and also onshore on different locations. We are presently not considering to send vessels through the Strait of Hormuz.
If we then turn to our financial performance, we delivered time charter earnings of USD 195 million. This is up from USD 167 million in the previous quarter. Our average time charter earnings per day was USD 29,486. This is also up from USD 27,232 in the first quarter. And this reflects the stronger spot market that we have observed during the quarter. Our EBIT was USD 69 million. This compares to USD 46 million. The net result contribution from Odfjell Terminals was USD 1.8 million, which compares to USD 2.3 million in the previous quarter.
And summarized, this concludes a net result of USD 54 million in
Takeshi Sano
Representative Executive Officer, President, Director & Global CEO
Good morning, and good afternoon. This is Takeshi speaking. Thank you for joining Dentsu’s Fiscal Year 2026 Second Quarter Earnings Call. Today, Shigeki, our Global CFO, and I will be giving the presentation. I will begin with a business and strategic update, followed by an overview of our consolidated financial results by Shigeki. Then I will provide an update on our midterm management plan before opening the floor for Q&A. Please refer to our English website for today’s materials.
I will explain our performance for the 3 months of the second quarter. As we anticipated in February, consolidated organic growth was broadly flat, while operating margin was 11.9%, slightly above expectations.
By region, Japan exceeded expectations, delivering strong organic growth of 5.4%, making its 13th consecutive quarter of solid growth. Notably, net revenue reached a record high. Americas was slightly below expectations with an organic decline of 6.9%. Creative continued to be significantly affected by client loss in the previous year. However, with SG&A expense control in place, operating margin was as expected.
EMEA was in line with expectations, recording flat organic growth, while Media maintained positive growth.
Operating margin improved year-on-year to 13.2%. APAC was also in line with expectations. The second quarter’s organic growth improved to broadly flat from an organic
O’Connor noticed the impact on his father and brother when the family made the switch from beef to dairy farming two years ago.
“It is a lot different – it’s rigid – you start milking in the morning, you have to milk in the evening. There’s not as much flexibility,” he said.
He also became more conscious of the paperwork and level of compliance involved in running a dairy operation.
Farmers in Northern Ireland work an average of 65 hours a week.
O’Connor said there was “a whole side of farming that the general public don’t see”, where farmers have late nights alone, completing jobs on the farm or filling in paperwork.
The app was developed with the idea of giving farmers more time with their families by making the business more manageable.
A campaign – the Empty Table – has been launched with the app to raise awareness of the effort that goes into producing food.
“I love to solve problems,” O’Connor said.
“So I wanted to set up FarmFlow to sort of solve problems on our own farm and try and make it more efficient.
“I love keeping things on time and stuff.”
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UK retail sales fell 0.5 per cent in July as shoppers cut back during record temperatures, according to the Office for National Statistics, reversing the rise recorded in June at the start of the warm summer and the Fifa men’s World Cup.
The monthly fall was in line with expectations from economists polled by Reuters. June’s increase was revised down from 1 per cent to 0.7 per cent, and July’s drop wiped out that gain.
Over a rolling three-month period, sales volumes are up 1.1 per cent, the ONS said.
Spending on clothing, footwear and household goods all fell in July. Excluding petrol and diesel, sales volumes recorded a larger 0.9 per cent monthly contraction. Pump prices rose in July after the end of a US-Iran ceasefire pushed up global oil costs.
Grant Fitzner, chief economist at the ONS, said British consumers had ramped up spending on sports merchandise, fans and outdoor products.
Rob Wood, chief UK economist at Pantheon, a consultancy, said consumer spending would be squeezed in the coming months as energy costs drove inflation towards 3 per cent. Annual consumer prices rose by 2.9 per cent in July, up from 2.6 per cent in June.
Sandra Prince, head of consumer at Lloyds, said the warm weather meant more spending had been directed to retail parks and online shopping rather than the high street.
“After an extended spell of warm weather across large parts of the UK, many households will already have bought what they need for the season, while lines of popular summer products come to an end. The boost from the World Cup that came to an end in the first half of July also meant fewer opportunities to capitalise on the warmer conditions,” Prince said.
“For retailers, as the summer peak slows down, attention is now turning to the opportunities the autumn could bring to keep consumers engaged.”
Amy Ingham
Amy Ingham is a reporter at Business Matters, covering UK business news with a focus on breaking news, business policy, late payments and insolvency. She joined the magazine in 2026 after completing the NCTJ Diploma in Journalism at Harlow College’s journalism school. Her recent reporting includes British Steel’s nationalisation and its impact on SME suppliers, the decline in late payments by large firms, and Insolvency Service director disqualifications. Reach her at aingham@cbmeg.co.uk.
Business
Did Goodluck India shares really crash 66% in just one day? Here’s how the bonus math works
Goodluck India shares opened at Rs 493.20 apiece on the NSE on Friday, compared with Thursday’s closing price of Rs 1,439.40. On an adjusted basis, however, the stock was down only around 4%, trading at about Rs 471 apiece.
All about Goodluck India’s bonus issue
Goodluck India in July announced its maiden bonus issue in a 2:1 ratio. Under the proposal, eligible shareholders will receive two bonus equity shares of a face value of Rs 2 each for every one equity share held as of the record date, which will be announced separately.
A bonus issue consists of free shares distributed by a company from its reserves and is often seen as a sign of strong financial health and growth prospects. While the issue of bonus shares increases the total number of outstanding shares, it does not change the company’s market capitalisation. However, it can improve liquidity and affordability, allowing more investors to add shares of the company to their portfolio.
Can you buy Goodluck India shares today and be eligible for bonus issue?
Only shareholders who hold Goodluck India shares in their demat accounts on the record date will be eligible for the bonus shares. Under India’s T+1 settlement cycle, shares bought one trading day before the record date are generally settled in the investor’s demat account in time to qualify for the corporate action.
Therefore, if Friday is the record date, Thursday was the last day to buy Goodluck India shares and still be eligible for the bonus issue. Buying the shares on Friday would not make an investor eligible for the bonus shares.
Also read | Bonus issue alert! Last day to buy Goodluck India shares for 2:1 bonus reward
How will dividend payout be impacted?
Goodluck India in May had announced a final dividend of Rs 3 per share for the financial year ended March 31, 2026, subject to shareholders’ approval. In view of the 2:1 bonus issue, the company announced that its board has now adjusted the final dividend amount to Re 1 per share.
The company has declared 27 dividends since March 2003 and has a dividend yield of 0.51% at the current market price, according to data on Trendlyne.
Goodluck India share price
Goodluck India shares have gained around 7% over the past week but declined 9% in the last month. The stock is up more than 33% so far in 2026.
Over the longer term, the stock has delivered returns of 29% in one year, 148% in three years and 422% over five years.
Also read | Stock split alert! Last day to buy multibagger TD Power Systems shares to be eligible for 1:2 split
(Disclaimer: Recommendations, suggestions, views and opinions given by the experts are their own. These do not represent the views of The Economic Times)
Tom Zaunmayr speaks to Gary Adshead, Claire Tyrrell, Jack McGinn and Isabel Vieira about news and politics of the week.
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