Business
Romesh Ranganathan ‘Gutted’ as Coughlans Bakery Collapses After 89 Years
An 89-year-old family bakery has become the latest high-street casualty of Britain’s mounting cost crisis, closing its doors for good and taking with it one of the more unlikely celebrity business partnerships of recent years.
Coughlans Bakery, which ran a chain of shops across Kent, Surrey, West Sussex and south London, ceased trading on Tuesday after slipping into voluntary liquidation. The comedian Romesh Ranganathan, who became a co-owner in 2024 and once billed the tie-up as “the partnership of the century”, said he was “gutted” by the collapse.
The Crawley-born presenter, known for his deadpan stage style, reposted a video from managing director Sean Coughlan to his 1.4 million followers with the caption: “Gutted isn’t the word.” Ranganathan, who is vegan, had first thrown his weight behind the business because of its range of plant-based products.
For Coughlan, whose family firm first opened its ovens in 1937, the arithmetic simply stopped adding up. He laid much of the blame on the government’s decision to lift employers’ National Insurance contributions in April last year, a move that raised the headline rate to 15 per cent and lowered the threshold at which employers start paying, alongside a business-rates bill he said had “absolutely smashed local business”. The change, set out in the National Insurance Contributions (Secondary Class 1 Contributions) Act 2025, has landed hardest on labour-intensive trades such as retail and hospitality, where wage bills dominate the cost base.
Those pressures were then compounded by a spike in fuel prices following the recent conflict in the Middle East, which Coughlan estimated had cost the company an extra £20,000 a week. The summer heatwaves that pushed the South East towards 35C proved, in his words, the “nail in the coffin”. With shoppers staying at home, weekly takings roughly halved while the outgoings, he noted, “remained exactly the same”.
Coughlan was unsparing about the human cost, and generous towards his celebrity backer. “I feel like we’ve absolutely let him down,” he said. “Everything he’s done, it’s been from the heart.” Ranganathan, he added, had been “amazing”.
The affection was mutual among customers. When the comedian appeared behind the counter of the Dorking High Street branch last year, a large queue quickly formed down the pavement. Josie Smith, who works near the Crawley shop, told BBC Radio Sussex she was “really sad” to see it go. “It brings a lot of people together. It is a massive shame.” Her colleague Kaitlin Stinton praised staff who were “dedicated to their jobs, always making you happy”.
Coughlan said the firm had chosen the orderly route of voluntary liquidation specifically so that it could still pay suppliers and employees, a decision that speaks to a proprietor trying to do right by his people even as the shutters came down. “It’s heartbreaking,” he said.
Coughlans is far from alone. Industry data shows three pubs, bars and restaurants now shutting every day as tax and cost rises bite, while the £28bn National Insurance shock has run well ahead of Treasury forecasts. Trade press, too, has tracked the toll, with The Caterer among those charting a wave of closures across food and drink. With high-street closures set to surge as the business-rates burden grows, the loss of a beloved 89-year-old baker is unlikely to be the last story of its kind this year.
Business
Tourism WA managing director Anneke Brown steps down
Tourism WA’s managing director Anneke Brown has resigned after 18 months in the role.
Business
Affirm: Investor Day Bolsters Confidence That Growth Is Just Getting Started (NASDAQ:AFRM)
Investing wisely does not have to be rocket science. It is about discipline and running the numbers. You don’t have to be like a grandmaster chess player playing the game twenty moves ahead of your opponent, you just need to understand how the pieces work.
Analyst’s Disclosure: I/we have no stock, option or similar derivative position in any of the companies mentioned, and no plans to initiate any such positions within the next 72 hours. I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it (other than from Seeking Alpha). I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article.
Seeking Alpha’s Disclosure: Past performance is no guarantee of future results. No recommendation or advice is being given as to whether any investment is suitable for a particular investor. Any views or opinions expressed above may not reflect those of Seeking Alpha as a whole. Seeking Alpha is not a licensed securities dealer, broker or US investment adviser or investment bank. Our analysts are third party authors that include both professional investors and individual investors who may not be licensed or certified by any institute or regulatory body.
Business
ADP report June 2026: Private sector adds 98,000 jobs
Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan joins ‘Mornings with Maria’ to warn stablecoin legislation could hurt small business lending while discussing America 250 initiatives and the outlook for the U.S. economy.
Companies in the private sector added 98,000 jobs in June, payroll processing firm ADP said in its latest report on Wednesday.
The figure is below economists’ estimates of a gain of 118,000 jobs and down from the prior month’s unrevised 122,000 payrolls figure.
Which industries are hiring the most workers, according to the ADP report?
Education and health services added 48,000 positions, leading job creation in June. Trade, transportation and utilities added 15,000, financial activities gained 14,000 and other services added 8,000.
BLS TOOK STEPS TO FIX DATA RELEASE FAILURES BUT WATCHDOG SAYS MORE SAFEGUARDS ARE NEEDED

Education and health services led hiring in the month of June, according to ADP. (iStock)
Information added 7,000 jobs, while manufacturing added 5,000. Leisure and hospitality, professional and business services and construction each added 2,000 jobs.
HOW AI EXPOSURE IS RESHAPING JOBS IN CREATIVE FIELDS
On the negative side, natural resources and mining lost 5,000 jobs.
People staying in their roles saw their pay climb 4.4% from the prior year, while pay gains for those changing their jobs accelerated to 6.6%.

U.S. private payrolls climbed by 98,000 in June, ADP said on Wednesday. (Robyn Beck/AFP via Getty Images)
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What experts are saying about the June 2026 ADP National Employment Report
“The pace of hiring is telling a story of both supply and demand,” said ADP chief economist Nela Richardson. “We know it’s taking people longer to find work, but there also are signs of labor supply constraints in certain industries. For now, the overall effect is a slowdown in job creation.”
Business
Silicon Valley elite drop record cash to build Florida’s tech capital
Blanca Commercial Real Estate CEO Tere Blanca and DaGrosa Capital Partners Chair Joe DaGrosa speak to Fox News Digital about how a California commercial exodus has followed a residential one to the Sunshine State.
Billionaire venture capitalist Peter Thiel planted a record-setting flag in Miami’s financial core, signing a historic $250-per-square-foot office lease that experts say marks a transition of the West Coast tech exodus from what began as a residential trend into a broader corporate takeover.
As multibillion-dollar liquidity events loom for companies like SpaceX, OpenAI and Anthropic, tech creators and founders are no longer just buying beachfront homes — they are anchoring corporate operations in a booming South Florida commercial ecosystem that insiders describe as “on fire.”
“Peter Thiel in signing that lease, marking a milestone of $250 square foot, absolutely incredible,” DaGrosa Capital Partners founder and chair Joe DaGrosa told Fox News Digital. “With the signing of that lease, it’d probably take a year or two for a build out. Once that build-out occurs, not just Peter, but his entire team will be coming to Miami, and that entire team will be buyers of homes or renters of homes. So you can see how that has a virtuous-cycle effect of going from commercial to residential.”
“The entire region is just on fire,” Blanca Commercial Real Estate founder, chair and CEO Tere Blanca also told Fox Digital. “With billionaires like Larry Page and Peter Thiel and Sergey Brin and others that have taken residency here, what we expect is that they will continue to grow their footprints in the region, as has always been the case, when people migrate to Miami.”
CALIFORNIA EXODUS 2.0: HOW SPACEX, TECH IPOs COULD TRIGGER THE NEXT MASSIVE WEALTH FLIGHT TO FLORIDA
The migration of California companies to South Florida has followed a residential wealth exodus, according to DaGrosa and Blanca. Miami’s 55-story office tower 830 Brickell, which will welcome Thiel’s family office, houses companies including Citadel, Microsoft and Thoma Bravo.

The building, left, that houses the Thoma Bravo, Citadel and soon Peter Thiel’s family office at 830 Brickell Plaza in Miami, Florida, on March 5, 2025. (Getty Images)
Prior to the post-pandemic boom, Class A office space in Brickell typically leased for about $40 to $60 per square foot, DaGrosa noted. Thiel’s reported $250-per-square-foot lease set a local record, competing directly with top-tier rates in markets such as Manhattan and San Francisco.
“Office space is just like anything else. [It] will be priced based on how much supply and how much demand exists,” Blanca said. “And so with the flight to quality that we’ve experienced in office, even before the pandemic, there is a lot of competition to acquire the best-in-class office space, the best located buildings in areas that feel very familiar to these companies and their executives that are moving here from major cities around the country.”
With California officially putting a billionaire wealth tax on the ballot, tech founders and institutional leaders are looking at the quantitative numbers, as Florida provides a defensive shelter where capital can be deployed without aggressive state intervention.
Ft. Lauderdale DDA CEO Jenni Morejon, DaGrosa Capital Partners founder Joe DaGrosa and Naftali Group CEO Miki Naftali speak to Fox News Digital about how SpaceX, OpenAI and Anthropic IPOs could trigger another exodus to Florida.
“It’s both a quantitative and a qualitative discussion, and those two points go hand in hand. From a quantitative point of view, there’s a significant tax savings opportunity at the state-level by moving to Miami,” DaGrosa said.
“The concern, certainly on the part of a lot of Californians, it’s a wonderful lifestyle out there. Would they be sacrificing lifestyle, the qualitative side of things, for the benefits of the quantitative side? I think they’ve come to realize that they can have the best of both,” he continued, “tax savings and a great quality of life here that rivals, and I would argue surpasses, many parts of California.”
“Companies like Palantir that announced headquarters moved to Miami, Peter Thiel being here, is a… statement to other states about the business practices that make Florida so attractive that they’re not seeing in the places where they were residing,” Blanca added.
“With that influx in capital, states can do more, the county and the city can do more to help their constituents. So I view it as a big positive. It’s just more money to go around to improve the quality of life for everyone who’s living here.”
Critics have argued that Florida lacks the deep engineering talent of Silicon Valley. However, the experts believe local tech hubs are actively shifting. The Miami-Dade Beacon Council reports that tech employment across the county has grown about 25% over the last few years, making it one of the top metro areas for tech job growth in America.
PETER THIEL DONATES $3M TO GROUP FIGHTING PROPOSED CALIFORNIA BILLIONAIRE TAX
There’s also notable case studies like Iru — the AI-powered IT and security management firm formerly known as Kandji — a San Francisco-born tech firm that tripled its Miami physical footprint post-pandemic.
Employees at SpaceX’s facility in Hawthorne, California, share their thoughts on the company’s initial public offering. (Splash News for Fox News Digital)
“I think that the technology business in Miami should not be compared to, ‘Oh, this is the next Silicon Valley?’” Blanca said. “Miami has its own dynamic and its own opportunity to become a place for founders and entrepreneurs to succeed… And, to protect companies trying to rebuild that in-person culture, Miami is the place to make it happen, right? We have the highest return to office in the country, I think only second to Manhattan. So it really feels like a vibrant and dynamic community for them to attract the right talent and to cultivate the right talents here.”
“I think the rank and file [employees] have to follow the executives, ultimately. If for no other reason, you need face time with your boss to prove your worth,” DaGrosa said. “So I think you’re going to see a lot of folks following these tech giants. And as evidenced by the increased costs in commercial space, it’s being driven up by the fact that these guys want to bring in their teams.”
Rapid growth brings local challenges, including rising housing costs, supply bottlenecks and heavier traffic. However, leaders in Florida’s public and private sectors say they’re working together to address those challenges as corporate investment continues.
Khosla Ventures founder Vinod Khosla and Scaled Cognition CEO Dan Roth open up about the partnership on ‘The Claman Countdown.’
“The city’s doing a good job of expediting permitting,” DaGrosa applauded. “That was a big problem for a long time, but that’s changed quite a bit under former Mayor Francis Suarez and the commissioners from Miami-Dade County… Miami has adapted to the needs of the folks who are coming in here.”
“Live Local [Act] that was passed by the legislature about three or four years ago is continuing to evolve to provide that relief that we need in terms of facilitating the development of projects that address workforce housing,” Blanca said. “But more importantly, I think that we have a community that is very aware of the challenges that we can have and is very proactive at coming up with solutions with government support to address these challenges.”
“When those projects deliver, we will see that we’ll be in a much better place to check the box as a place where, yes, we have billionaires, and we have great global companies moving here; and yes, you can also bring your employees and your executives here because there is a solution to accommodate all of them at various price points,” she continued.
Fox News contributor Francis Suarez talks government regulation of artificial intelligence as technology giants attend the G7 summit on ‘The Bottom Line.’
As traditional zones like Brickell face massive premium constraints, corporate wealth is decentralizing to the north and south. With multi-million square foot Class A projects delivering across the tri-county Gold Coast corridor, the two insiders say Florida is on a path toward global market dominance.
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“With that influx in capital, states can do more, the county and the city can do more to help their constituents. So I view it as a big positive. It’s just more money to go around to improve the quality of life for everyone who’s living here,” DaGrosa said.
“It’s a natural evolution of what we have seen, even before COVID, where the Sun Belt in general is just experiencing a migration that is phenomenal,” Blanca added. “And there’s opportunity for all cities in the Sun Belt, major cities across the Sun Belt, and for cities around the country to continue to thrive irrespective of what is happening here.”
Business
Why is KakakuCom stock rallying today?

Why is KakakuCom stock rallying today?
Business
Crane Company Stock: Solid Fundamentals, Premium Valuation Warrants Hold (NYSE:CR)
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Analyst’s Disclosure: I/we have no stock, option or similar derivative position in any of the companies mentioned, and no plans to initiate any such positions within the next 72 hours. I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it (other than from Seeking Alpha). I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article.
Seeking Alpha’s Disclosure: Past performance is no guarantee of future results. No recommendation or advice is being given as to whether any investment is suitable for a particular investor. Any views or opinions expressed above may not reflect those of Seeking Alpha as a whole. Seeking Alpha is not a licensed securities dealer, broker or US investment adviser or investment bank. Our analysts are third party authors that include both professional investors and individual investors who may not be licensed or certified by any institute or regulatory body.
Business
Taiwan needs a ’hornet’s nest’ of drones to deter conflict, US diplomat says

Taiwan needs a ’hornet’s nest’ of drones to deter conflict, US diplomat says
Business
Dave Portnoy slams Zohran Mamdani over New York City economic vision
Barstool Sports founder and President Dave Portnoy blasted New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s socialist agenda, warning the city is headed in a dangerous direction and saying some progressive politicians ‘hate America.’
Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy is keeping the door open to a potential run for New York City mayor as he ramps up criticism of Mayor Zohran Mamdani, arguing the candidate’s economic message and political alliances are cause for concern.
He joined FOX Business’ Stuart Varney on “Varney & Co.” to discuss New York City politics, the state of the Democratic Party and why he believes voters should pay close attention to the views of candidates seeking public office.

Barstool founder and CEO Dave Portnoy (Michael Hickey / Getty Images)
After Varney asked if he would challenge Mamdani in a run for NYC Mayor, Portnoy responded, “It depends what day you wake me up.”
“You show me a clip like that, Stuart, my blood starts to boil.” Portnoy said responding to a clip of Mamdani defending his economic agenda, arguing that raising taxes on wealthy New Yorkers and embracing socialist principles would help address the city’s financial challenges.
Rep. Mike Lawler, R-N.Y., joins ‘Varney & Co.’ to warn Zohran Mamdani’s rent freeze and socialist agenda are worsening New York City’s housing crisis while defending free-market solutions.
Portnoy went on to criticize Mamdani’s comments about balancing the city’ finances.
“This guys’ unbelievable. You didn’t balance anything. You just took money, you robbed Peter to pay Paul. Like what are we doing here?” Portnoy said.
Portnoy also left the door open to a potential political run in a recent interview with Fox News Digital. When asked whether he would consider running against Mamdani, Portnoy said, “maybe I’m the guy to do it.”
Rep. Nicole Malliotakis, R-N.Y., joins ‘Varney & Co.’ to discuss Speaker Mike Johnson’s warning on rising socialism, Democrats’ leftward shift and concerns over anti-Semitism in New York City.
In addition, he pointed to several progressive political figures and argued voters should take candidates at their word when evaluating past statements and policy positions before Election Day.
KEN GRIFFIN FIRES BACK AT MAMDANI, SAYS BUSINESS LEADERS MUST ‘FIGHT FOR THEIR CITY’
“These are anti-American, they hate America,” Portnoy said. “I trust what people say a lot before they’re elected. When they get elected, a lot of these people are deleting their tweets… It’s garbage, and it’s scary.”
‘The Big Money Show’ panel reacts to President Donald Trump’s warning about Democratic Socialists, debating the movement’s growing influence, appeal to younger voters and what it means for the Democratic Party.
Although Portnoy acknowledged he has floated the idea of entering politics himself, he said he understands the personal costs that come with seeking office.
“I’d hate to get into politics because it’s the worst people, it’s the worst life, you can’t enjoy your life,” he said. “I don’t know what’s going on in this country and if somebody isn’t gonna step up… It’s a very scary place where we’re going.”
Business
Parkeston support in Kal power plan
The state government could use privately-owned Parkeston power plant near Kalgoorlie to support the city’s grid, three years after knocking back a bid by its owners to do just that.
Business
SoftBank gains as report says it revives $10 billion OpenAI-backed loan talks

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