Security staff at Aberdeen Airport have announced 14 days of strike action in a row over pay.

The union said it was left with no option as negotiations with ICTS HBS Security, through the conciliation service Acas, failed to produce a breakthrough.

The strikes, involving baggage screening staff, are set to begin on Monday.

The Unite union is warning of significant delays if the strikes go ahead and is urging the company to return to the negotiating table.

The development comes after summer strikes at Glasgow and Edinburgh airports were averted after new deals were struck.

Unite members unanimously supported industrial action at Aberdeen.

Union officials said there would be significant delays as its members in ICTS make up the majority of the baggage screening team at the airport.

The Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) celebrates Visa’s 2026 study, ranking Thailand among top Asian-Pacific destinations. Emphasizing familiarity and unique experiences, TAT supports quality tourism, digital payments, and flexible travel.

Thailand’s Popularity Among Asia Pacific Travelers

Bangkok, 2 July 2026 – The Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) is celebrating Thailand’s recognition in Visa’s 2026 Global Travel Intentions study. This study highlights Thailand as one of the top five destinations for Asia Pacific travellers, showcasing a strong demand for convenient and enriching experiences. With over 47,000 respondents, including more than 17,000 from the Asia Pacific region, the study reveals a shift towards intentional travel planning, emphasizing familiarity and practical choices.

Shifts in Travel Planning and Payment Trends

The study shows 63% of Asia-Pacific respondents prefer regional travel, ranking Thailand alongside popular destinations like Japan and Australia. Notably, 37% of travelers prioritize local experiences such as food and culture, surpassing the global average. The use of AI in planning is growing, with travelers seeking detailed information on accommodations and travel requirements. Digital payments are pivotal, with 73% of respondents carrying cards or mobile wallets, aligning with Thailand’s “Pay Like a Local” initiative for seamless tourist experiences.

Enhancing Thailand’s Travel Experience

Visa’s findings support TAT’s vision of quality-led tourism, focusing on providing meaningful and culturally rich experiences. The emphasis is on wellness, gastronomy, and local connections, aligning with the “Healing is the New Luxury” concept. TAT is enhancing its approach through targeted communication, digital convenience, and promoting lesser-known destinations. As travelers value flexibility, opportunities abound for inspiring spending on local dining and unique experiences, reinforcing Thailand’s appeal as a trusted, well-rounded travel destination.

Source : Thailand ranks among Asia Pacific travellers’ top five destinations in Visa study

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According to a CNBC-TV18 report, the deal, involving 2.37% of the company’s equity capital and valued at up to Rs 1,740 crore, was executed at a floor price of Rs 1,601 per share. The floor price represented a discount of nearly 5% to Thursday’s closing price of Rs 1,682.10.

The transaction is in line with a proposed block deal reported on Thursday, under which Singapore-based Macritchie Investments Pte was expected to sell up to 1.19 crore shares, or about 2.6% of PB Fintech, for approximately Rs 1,909 crore.

MacRitchie is a Singapore investment holding company linked to the city’s state investment company, Temasek.

LSEG data as of Thursday showed MacRitchie owned 6.48% or 29.9 million shares in PB Fintech.

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This is the second such block deal in PB Fintech in a little over a month. In May, the company’s co-founders, Yashish Dahiya and Alok Bansal, sold stakes to a group of domestic and foreign institutional investors.
According to exchange data, On May 29 a total of 38 lakh shares changed hands at Rs 1,751 apiece, translating into a transaction value of about Rs 665 crore.PB Fintech Chairman and Group CEO Yashish Dahiya sold 26 lakh shares, while Vice Chairman Alok Bansal offloaded 12 lakh shares.

On the buy side, the shares were picked up by a diverse set of institutional investors, including National Pension System Trust, Tata Mutual Fund, Morgan Stanley Asia Singapore, Goldman Sachs Bank Europe, BNP Paribas Financial Markets, and funds managed by Wasatch Advisors.

PB Fintech operates digital platforms Policybazaar and Paisabazaar, which are among the country’s largest online insurance and lending marketplaces.

(Disclaimer: Recommendations, suggestions, views and opinions given by the experts are their own. These do not represent the views of The Economic Times)

Shares of White Mountains Insurance Group surged more than 5% Wednesday, closing at $2,173.81, as investors warmed to a quietly exceptional holding company that has consistently grown book value per share at rates that rival the best-managed insurance businesses in the country, while trading at a discount to that underlying value for most of its recent history.

The $109.77 gain in a single session reflected renewed institutional attention to the Bermuda-based holding company, which operates across a diversified portfolio of insurance, reinsurance and financial services subsidiaries. The closing price was notably close to the company’s most recently reported book value per share of $2,170, disclosed in company filings as of March 31, 2026, making Wednesday’s close one of the rare moments in recent history when White Mountains has traded at or near intrinsic value rather than at a discount to it.

That relationship between stock price and book value is central to how sophisticated investors analyze White Mountains, a company that has long positioned itself as a holding company in the mold of Berkshire Hathaway, deploying capital into insurance-related businesses and financial services ventures where it believes it can generate above-average returns over long periods of time. Book value per share is the metric most closely watched by the company’s management and its long-term shareholders, as it reflects the per-share value of the company’s net assets and provides the clearest picture of wealth created or destroyed in any given period.

White Mountains reported book value per share of $2,188 as of December 31, 2025, representing an 18% increase for the full year 2024, according to a February 2026 press release. That annualized growth rate is considerably above the typical performance of publicly traded insurance and financial holding companies and reflects a year of strong results across the company’s primary business segments: Ark, its Lloyd’s of London-based specialty insurance and reinsurance platform, and Outrigger Re, its insurance-linked securities sidecar arrangement.

Total assets stood at approximately $13.0 billion and common shareholders’ equity at $5.4 billion as of March 31, 2026, reflecting the accumulated capital deployment and value creation across a portfolio of businesses that White Mountains has built over more than two decades of disciplined investment.

White Mountains’ most significant operating unit, Ark Insurance Holdings, operates as a Lloyd’s of London managing agent and insurer with a specialty focus across property, specialty, marine and energy, casualty, and accident and health lines. Ark’s underwriting operations have benefited from what has been a favorable several years for specialty and reinsurance pricing following a prolonged period of underpriced catastrophe risk across the global insurance market. Property catastrophe reinsurance, in particular, has seen pricing improvements of 20 to 40 percent or more across successive renewal cycles since 2022, driven by the frequency and severity of natural catastrophe losses that forced Lloyd’s and international reinsurers to reprice their books.

Beyond Ark and Outrigger, White Mountains operates HG Global, a financial guarantee reinsurance business that provides credit enhancement for municipal bonds, which has continued to generate predictable, low-volatility earnings contributions. The company’s Kudu Investment Management subsidiary takes minority equity stakes in independent asset management firms, a niche that has grown into a meaningful earnings contributor as independent asset managers have sought strategic capital partners without giving up majority control to larger financial institutions.

Most recently, White Mountains announced that its White Mountains Partners operating company, which invests in smaller, often founder-led businesses in insurance and adjacent financial services, completed a majority acquisition of BaseSix Systems LLC in April, an information technology services company focused on the insurance distribution space. In May, White Mountains Partners announced that its portfolio company Enterprise Electric, doing business as Enterprise Solutions, had reached a significant operational milestone, further demonstrating the breadth of the holding company’s deployment of capital into niche businesses that fit its long-term ownership model.

White Mountains has also been active in returning capital to shareholders. In December 2025, the company completed a modified Dutch auction tender offer, through which it repurchased shares from shareholders at a predetermined price range, a capital return mechanism frequently used by holding companies with more cash than near-term investment opportunities at attractive prices. Share repurchases and the tender offer reduced the diluted share count, which has the mathematical effect of increasing book value per share even in periods when the investment portfolio generates modest returns.

The company’s revenue for fiscal 2025 reached $3.74 billion, an increase of 58.65% from $2.35 billion in the prior year, with earnings of $1.09 billion, a 379% increase from the prior year’s figure. Those headline numbers reflect the scale of Ark’s premium growth alongside the improvement in investment income across the broader portfolio as interest rates have risen from historically low levels to more normalized territory over the past three years.

White Mountains is something of an institutional investor’s insider secret, a company rarely mentioned in mainstream financial media despite consistently delivering strong results for patient, long-term shareholders. Its shares are priced in the thousands of dollars per share, a deliberate choice that mirrors Berkshire Hathaway’s approach to maintaining a high per-share price as a way of attracting long-term oriented institutional investors rather than short-term traders. The company has not split its shares despite the high nominal price, reflecting a management philosophy that prioritizes owner-operator alignment over accessibility to retail investors who might trade the stock speculatively.

Wednesday’s strong session reflects a market beginning to recognize the gap between White Mountains’ current trading price and its demonstrable, consistently growing intrinsic value. Whether the catalyst was renewed interest from institutional investors, favorable insurance market conditions or simply a broader rotation into quality financial holding companies ahead of a period of economic uncertainty, the day’s gains pushed the stock into rare territory where it trades close enough to book value that even conservative analysts can make a straightforward case for owning it.