The Health and Safety Executive has informed the utilities firm of its plan to prosecute

Wessex Water is set to face criminal charges nearly six years after a tragedy that killed four workers at its Avonmouth treatment site near Bristol.

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) is to prosecute the water company over the deaths of Luke Wheaton, 16, Ray White, 57, Brian Vickery, 63, and Mike James, 64, who died in December 2020.

The four workers, one of whom was an apprentice, were carrying out welding on the roof of an anaerobic digester silo and a spark ignited the gas inside.

Avon & Somerset police initially led a criminal investigation into the blast, but it was dropped in July 2024 because they said at the time the evidence they had gathered did “not reach the extremely high threshold to prosecute” anyone at Wessex Water, or the company itself, for corporate manslaughter.

The HSE took over the investigation and has now confirmed it will be bringing charges against Wessex Water in relation to the explosion.

A spokesperson for the HSE confirmed charges would be brought.

“Following an investigation by the Health and Safety Executive into an incident at Avonmouth on 3 December 2020, which resulted in the deaths of four workers, our Legal Services Division has taken the decision to authorise criminal charges against Wessex Water, for offences under the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act,” a spokesperson said.

Wessex Water, a company owned by Malaysian firm YTL, confirmed it had been told the firm would be charged.

A Wessex Water spokesperson said: “The HSE has informed us of its decision to prosecute. We will always remember Brian Vickery, Ray White, Luke Wheaton and Mike James. Our thoughts are with their families, friends and colleagues.”

In the aftermath of the blast, the grieving families of the four who died paid tribute to their loved ones, asked for respect for their privacy and have made no further comments publicly about the ongoing investigation.

Instead, many of the relatives have got involved in fundraising and other projects to honour their loved ones and create a lasting legacy for them.

The FTSE 250 investment trust is preparing to use a windfall from a string of acquisitions in its portfolio to launch a buying spree of shares in Games Workshop, the Warhammer owner

Nick Train’s Finsbury Income and Growth fund is gearing up to boost its holdings in Games Workshop following a windfall from a series of takeovers within its portfolio.

The FTSE 250 investment trust – whose heritage stretches back more than a century – revealed intentions to deploy both borrowing and proceeds from the buyouts of Schroders and Intertek, where it held stakes, to fund a purchasing campaign targeting the “fantastic” Warhammer owner.

At the closed-end fund’s most recent shareholder briefing, co-manager Madeline Wright highlighted Games Workshop’s robust margins and significant American market expansion as catalysts for a renewed growth trajectory at the company, notwithstanding the fact its share price has already more than tripled over the past four years.

“The appetite for this kind of content is huge,” she told investors, adding: “We’re currently building the position, and we’re going to continue to do that with the increased gearing and – depending on the timing – perhaps the cash from the M&A [mergers and acquisitions] as well.”

The decision represents an unusual instance of portfolio reshuffling at Finsbury, amongst the UK’s largest investment trusts, following the departure of two long-held investments from the public markets this year. Investment manager Schroders and Intertek have both accepted offers from Nuveen and EQT respectively, providing celebrated stockpicker Train with proceeds running into tens of millions of pounds, as reported by City AM.

Earlier this year, the trust also unveiled plans to take on more debt in an attempt to boost returns and demonstrate its “conviction” in a portfolio that has delivered several successive years of lacklustre performance. Finsbury more than tripled its gearing – the term used to describe the amount of debt rolled into a fund or investment – from £29.9m to £100m, leaving the FTSE 250 vehicle with a substantial war chest to deploy into a “collection of outstanding, in most cases world class, UK-listed companies” in the months ahead, it said.

Wright revealed that alongside increasing its stake in Games Workshop, in which the trust first invested in autumn last year, Finsbury would deploy the funds to bolster its positions in flagship holdings such as the London Stock Exchange Group, Sage and Relx. The group would also establish positions in new stocks, she added.

In a separate development, Wright delivered a scathing assessment of Rathbones’ recent clash with the Financial Conduct Authority, which saw the FTSE 100 giant compelled to suspend £900m worth of inflows.

In what were her fund’s first public remarks since the fiasco, she said: “It’s very disappointing that this has happened. From our perspective, there’s going to be an overhang on the shares and the business.

“It’s probably important to note that the management team in place now was not the management team that was in place when this happened,” she added. “And that’s important because if that was not the case, we would probably have been speaking to the board about whether new pairs of eyes were needed.”

The new offer values the Teesside-based chain at about £232m on a fully diluted basis

The US-based buyer of high street pawnbroking chain Ramsdens has increased its offer for the business.

Investors on the London Stock Exchange were told that FirstCash has revised its bid for Ramsdens following shareholder talks. It now values the Teesside-based firm, which also specialises in jewellery sales and foreign exchange, at about £232m on a fully diluted basis.

The offer represents a 49% premium to Ramsdens share price on June 22, the last trading day before announcement of FirstCash’s original offer. It will see Ramsdens taken off the AIM market, nearly 10 years since its launch on the London Stock Exchange.

FirstCash is an international pawnbroker with around 3,300 sites across the US, South America and the UK, and is listed on the US’s Nasdaq stock market index. It intends to use funding from its US revolving credit facility to finance the acquisition.

Separately, Ramsdens gave a trading update in which it boosted full year profit expectations. The firm now expects pre-tax profits of between £33m-£35m.

It pointed to continued high gold prices – though down 20% since the peak in January this year – and robust demand for pawnbroking loans with June proving to be another record month. In six weeks since reporting the May 2026 loan book figure of £14.5m, the loan book has increased to £15.5m. Bosses also said England and Scotland’s World Cup run had helped boost the foreign exchange business.

Chief executive Peter Kenyon said: “The foundations of the group are strong. We are continuing to trade well, maximising the opportunity of trading with a favourably high gold price but knowing that our diversified financial services are all contributing to the Group’s ongoing success.

“The investment in our new store opening program is going well. Hereford and Skegness have recently opened, Newark and Peterborough are in shop fit and we have completed the lease formalities in Corby and St Helens with shop fitting to start shortly.”

The Nasdaq Composite fell sharply Thursday, dropping 265.61 points, or 1.01%, to close at 26,003.62, as semiconductor stocks extended a multi-day slide even after Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing reported blowout quarterly earnings, underscoring growing investor skittishness over lofty valuations in the artificial intelligence trade.

The decline marked a sharp reversal from Wednesday’s session, when the tech-heavy index climbed 0.62% to settle at 26,269.23 on the back of cooling inflation data and strength in Big Tech names including Apple, Amazon, Alphabet and Microsoft. Thursday’s pullback erased much of that momentum, as chip stocks — which have powered much of this year’s broader market rally — came under renewed pressure for a second straight day.

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing, the world’s largest contract chipmaker, reported a 77% annual earnings gain and posted record second-quarter revenue, while lifting its full-year capital expenditure outlook to a range of $60 billion to $64 billion, up from prior guidance of $52 billion to $56 billion. Despite the strong results, TSM shares fell in early trading, with the stock declining as investors focused instead on the company’s warning about rising prices and questioned whether even robust earnings could justify current valuations across the sector. The stumble in TSM shares rippled through the broader chip complex, dragging down the VanEck Semiconductor ETF and contributing to declines in Arm Holdings, which fell around 5%.

Memory chip names bore some of the heaviest losses. Western Digital shares fell more than 8%, and SanDisk dropped nearly 8%, while South Korea’s SK Hynix fell 7% in U.S. trading, adding to a bruising stretch for the memory sector that has seen sharp single-day swings in both directions over the past several weeks. The selling pressure followed a similar pattern to Wednesday’s session, when SK Hynix sank nearly 11%, SanDisk tumbled more than 12%, Western Digital fell almost 8% and Micron Technology dropped more than 7%, as investors took profits following a run-up in memory stocks tied to enterprise customers shifting spending toward servers, storage and memory hardware.

The weakness spread overseas as well. Shares of Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix fell sharply in Seoul trading, dragging South Korea’s benchmark Kospi index lower and contributing to broader declines across Asian chip stocks, including Japan’s Advantest, SoftBank Group, Tokyo Electron and Renesas Electronics. Europe’s chip sector also felt the pressure, with STMicroelectronics, ASML and Infineon Technologies among the decliners tracking the global selloff in semiconductor shares.

Not all of Thursday’s session was negative. The Dow Jones Industrial Average bucked the broader trend, rising modestly as a more than 6% jump in UnitedHealth Group helped offset weakness elsewhere. UnitedHealth’s results easily topped Wall Street’s expectations, and the company raised its full-year outlook, citing more favorable trends in medical costs during the first half of the year. GE Aerospace also reported an earnings beat before the opening bell, while Abbott Laboratories rose nearly 4% after slightly beating estimates and raising its 2026 earnings guidance. Trucking company J.B. Hunt Transport Services jumped 7.5% after handily beating analyst estimates on the strength of increased intermodal shipping volumes.

Not every earnings report drew a positive reaction. United Airlines shares fell nearly 3% after the company issued cautious third-quarter guidance tied to rising fuel costs, even though its second-quarter earnings beat estimates and revenue matched consensus forecasts. The airline’s chief executive told CNBC that overall demand remained strong despite the guidance concerns. Netflix was scheduled to report its second-quarter results after Thursday’s closing bell, capping a week of earnings that had broadly exceeded expectations, though the streaming company’s shares had fallen following each of its last four quarterly reports.

Broader economic data released Thursday added to the day’s uncertain tone. June retail sales rose 0.2% from the prior month, falling short of the 0.3% consensus estimate, even as some underlying components of the report were viewed more favorably by economists. The modest miss came alongside continued concern over geopolitical tensions in the Middle East, as the United States continued launching strikes against Iran and crude oil prices remained elevated near recent highs. Treasury yields rose Thursday morning as investors weighed the combination of persistent Gulf tensions and mixed economic signals.

The volatility in chip stocks has become a recurring theme throughout July, with the sector swinging sharply in both directions as investors debate whether current spending and valuation levels tied to the AI buildout are sustainable. JPMorgan analysts have characterized the recent weakness as a reflection of crowded investor positioning within the sector rather than a sign that the broader AI investment cycle is faltering, drawing comparisons to similar bouts of chip-sector selling in past months that were later followed by recoveries.

SpaceX shares also remained under pressure this week, falling below their $135 initial public offering price for the first time since the company’s record-setting Nasdaq debut in June, amid investor concerns over increased competition from Chinese launch providers and a coming increase in the number of shares available to trade on the exchange.

Thursday’s divergence between the Dow’s modest gain and the sharp declines in the Nasdaq and S&P 500 highlighted the extent to which chip and technology stocks continue to dictate the direction of the broader market, even as strength in healthcare, industrials and select consumer names offered some counterbalance. With Netflix’s earnings due after the close and geopolitical tensions in the Middle East showing no signs of easing, investors said they expect volatility in technology shares to persist in the sessions ahead as markets continue to grapple with high expectations heading into the heart of the second-quarter earnings season.

Small firms that reward staff with share options are set to lose one of their more tedious HMRC chores, after the government published draft legislation scrapping the requirement to notify the taxman separately every time an Enterprise Management Incentive option is granted.

Under proposals included in the draft Finance Bill 2026-27, published on 13 July, companies operating EMI schemes would report new option grants through their existing annual EMI return rather than filing a standalone notification for each grant.

For the thousands of growing businesses that use EMI to compete for talent against deeper-pocketed rivals, the change removes a compliance trap that has caught out many an otherwise well-run company. Miss a notification and the tax advantages that make the scheme worthwhile can be put at risk.

Cam Wright, a Senior Associate at audit, tax and business advisory firm Blick Rothenberg, said: “As part of the draft Finance Bill 2026-27, HMRC have published proposals to simplify the grant reporting process. Reducing the reporting burden should make EMI more appealing to businesses.”

He added: “The proposals remove the requirement for companies to separately notify HMRC about EMI option grants. Instead, options granted on or after 6 April 2027 would be reported through the existing annual EMI return.”

EMI is widely regarded as the most generous of the government’s tax-advantaged share schemes, and a mainstay for SMEs incentivising staff through an employee share scheme rather than cash bonuses alone. Qualifying companies can grant options worth up to £250,000 per employee over a three-year period, normally free of Income Tax and National Insurance for the recipient.

Wright said: “EMI options are a tax-advantaged share option scheme approved by the Government. They are designed to help small to medium-sized businesses recruit and retain key talent. EMIs remain one of the UK’s most valuable tax-advantaged share incentive arrangements available for qualifying companies.”

The reform will be particularly welcome to founders who see employee ownership as central to their recruitment pitch but have long complained that the compliance burden on entrepreneurs keeps growing even as ministers talk up simplification.

He added: “The proposed changes will also consolidate reporting through the annual EMI return, reduce the administrative requirements for companies operating EMI schemes and simplify the process of granting EMI options while maintaining HMRC reporting requirements through the existing annual filing framework. While this change was originally announced at Budget 2025, the publication of draft legislation represents a significant step towards implementation.”

The draft clauses are open for technical consultation until 7 September 2026, with the final contents of the Bill subject to the Chancellor’s decision.

Wright said: “The proposal forms part of a broader trend towards modernisation and simplification across the UK’s shares and incentives landscape.”

Until the new rules take effect, companies granting EMI options must continue to notify HMRC under the current framework. Business owners planning grants around the April 2027 changeover should take advice on timing, and on keeping their annual returns in good order, since that single filing will soon carry all the weight.

Jamie Young

Jamie Young is Senior Reporter at Business Matters, covering SME finance, employment law and Westminster policy since 2016. He has reported on every Budget and Autumn Statement since 2018, helped make sense of the ‘covid era’ and the bounce-back loan scheme from launch through the fraud investigations, and broke the magazine’s coverage of the 2024 late-payment reforms. He joined Business Matters straight from completing his BA in Administration from Exeter University and is NCTJ-qualified. Reach him at jyoung@cbmeg.co.uk

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