That included tackling what Beckham admitted was “mindblowing” waste, including “flying chairs from one side of the world to another” and spending what NEO’s David Belhassen said was “70,000 a year” on office plants.

In a statement on Monday, Belhassen, who is chairman of Victoria Beckham Holdings, said: “With two complementary growth engines in fashion and beauty, an increasingly international customer base and a focused operating model, the business is powerfully positioned for its next phase of profitable growth.”

CEO Sybille Darricarrère Lunel said: “Achieving our first operating profit is a landmark moment for Victoria Beckham and reflects several years of disciplined execution and strategic investment.

“Delivering this result against a more challenging luxury market and macro backdrop makes it an even more significant milestone for the business.”

The Georgian pools were closed after flood damage just four months after a multi-million pound restoration

The charity working to reopen an historic lido in Bath that was forced to shut due to flood damage say they have “regained control” of the site following the collapse of its operator.

Cleveland Pools in Bathwick is owned by Bath and North East Somerset Council and held on a long-term lease by local heritage charity Cleveland Pools Trust.

The trust was formed in 2004 and has raised millions of pounds in the last two decades to restore and reopen the Georgian lido, which dates back to 1815 and was used for public swimming until 1984.

The site was later used as a trout farm before being saved from the threat of demolition in the early Noughties after a local campaign. The pools finally reopened in 2023, but closed again just four months later after flooding from the River Avon caused extensive damage.

At the time, the lido was sublet to a company called Fusion Lifestyle – a leisure operator with sites around the UK – but the company collapsed into administration in April this year causing a “complex legal situation” for the trust.

But the charity says it has now regained control of the site and is once again looking at ways to reopen the lido.

“Our focus is on the route to reopening the pools,” it said. “We’ve provided periodic updates on the Cleveland Pools website but we know that recently, we haven’t engaged enough in direct communication with the long list of supporters, volunteers, fundraisers and wider community who are interested in the site. We intend to provide more regular information going forward.”

The trust also announced plans to invite members of the public to meet the volunteers and trustees on a Cleveland Pools Open Day – part of Bath’s Heritage Open Days – in a bid to “kick start the conversation” on the future re-opening of the pool.

The event, on September 13, will take place between 10.30am and 4pm. People interested in attending are being asked to register their interest on the Cleveland Pools website.

Octopus Energy has acquired BD Energy, a Danish startup whose algorithms buy and sell electricity almost entirely without human traders, as the British group looks to deepen the technology behind its power trading operation.

The deal, announced on Tuesday, brings the Aarhus-based company into Octopus Energy Trading, the division of Octopus Energy Group that buys and sells electricity and helps manage the changing supply of renewable power. The transaction takes effect immediately, with BD Energy’s founding team, leadership and staff continuing to operate from Denmark.

Founded in 2022, BD Energy concentrates exclusively on short-term power markets, the window running from 24 hours ahead of delivery down to the moment electricity flows into the grid. Its platform crunches large volumes of data, from electricity prices and supply and demand to weather forecasts, and uses machine learning to spot opportunities and make trades automatically. Around 99 per cent of its trades are algorithmic.

That approach has carried the 31-person company a long way in four years. Since launching in Denmark it has grown rapidly and now operates across 25 electricity pricing zones in 15 countries, including Germany, the Netherlands and the United States.

Under its new owner, BD Energy will draw on Octopus’s capital and technology to increase the amount of electricity it trades and expand into new markets around the world.

Frederik Vinkler, co-founder of BD Energy, said the business was built on the idea that technology should be the core of an energy trading company rather than an accessory to it. “We founded BD Energy with the ambition of building a new generation of energy trading company, one where technology is the foundation of the business, rather than simply a tool used by traders,” he said.

“What made Octopus the ideal partner for us was our shared green mindset, coupled with their entrepreneurial culture and scale. With Octopus’s backing, we can deploy our proprietary algorithms across larger volumes and bring our automated trading infrastructure to new markets worldwide.”

Matt Bunney, managing director at Octopus Energy Trading, said: “What BD Energy has achieved in just a few years is remarkable. By bringing their tech under the Octopus Energy Trading umbrella, we’re combining two highly entrepreneurial, tech-first teams.

“Their capabilities in short-term markets will significantly boost our power trading infrastructure and supercharge how we optimise flexibility in key markets worldwide.”

The purchase is the latest in a series of technology-led moves by the London-based group, which was named Britain’s Most Admired Company in 2025, the youngest business ever to take the title. Octopus recently spun out its Kraken software arm as an independent company at an $8.65 billion valuation, and its trading business has been expanding overseas, including through a joint venture to trade renewable electricity in China’s spot power markets that aims to handle 140 TWh a year by 2030.

For Octopus Energy Trading, the appeal of BD Energy lies in those final hours before delivery, where the output of wind and solar can shift quickly and trading decisions have to be made at speed. Bunney said the Danish team’s short-term capabilities would strengthen how the group optimises flexibility in its key markets, while Vinkler pointed to the scale Octopus brings as the platform moves into larger volumes and new territories.

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LONDON — Six years after stepping back from royal life, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have returned to Britain, but their relationship with Prince William and Catherine, Princess of Wales, is believed to remain strained, with William and Catherine said to be keen to avoid any public drama surrounding the couple’s homecoming.

Harry and Meghan arrived back in Britain last week and are reported to have found a private, non-royal home outside London, with their children, Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet, already enrolled in school and set to begin classes in the coming weeks. The couple had been based in Montecito, California, since stepping back from senior royal duties in 2020, a period during which they produced the Netflix series “Harry & Meghan” and Harry published his memoir “Spare,” in which he alleged he had been knocked into a dog bowl by William during an argument over his relationship with Meghan. The couple also gave a series of high-profile television interviews during their time in the U.S. detailing their experiences within the monarchy.

Relations between the brothers are reported to have been tense well before the Sussexes’ 2020 departure, and William and Catherine are said to be determined to avoid any drama surrounding the family’s return to the UK. According to sources cited by the Daily Star, friends of the Prince and Princess of Wales say that while the couple “cannot forgive” Harry and Meghan for the allegations made against the royal family during their years in America, they remain determined to “look forward to the future.” William and his father, King Charles, are believed to have been informed of Harry and Meghan’s return plans simultaneously and remain in “complete agreement” that there can be no “half in, half out” arrangement for the Duke of Sussex, who is not expected to resume any official royal duties.

The roots of the strain between the brothers have been traced in detail by Mirror royal editor Russell Myers in his book “William and Catherine: The Intimate Inside Story,” which reports that tensions escalated significantly following Harry’s 2018 marriage to Meghan. A source who knew both couples at the time told Myers that William and Catherine believed the Sussexes’ behavior stemmed from something more than simple difficulty adjusting to royal life. “They definitely thought the Sussexes’ behaviour stemmed from something more than being difficult. The whole atmosphere between them was pretty toxic,” the source said, according to Myers’ book.

The same source described a broader dynamic within the relationship at the time, saying, “Meghan was being bullish, Kate found her abrasive. There was definitely a hope from her side [Catherine’s] that William could try and talk to Harry and settle things but that didn’t exactly happen… and at the end of the day, she had three young children, who were her focus and if anything she saw the inevitability of the parting of ways, although perhaps not to the extent of what eventually happened.”

Myers’ book also details William’s reaction to Harry and Meghan’s 2019 documentary interview with filmmaker Tom Bradby, during which Meghan publicly acknowledged she had been struggling, and Harry said he and his brother were on “different paths.” According to Myers, that interview crystallized for William just how much had changed in his relationship with Harry, and William reportedly came to feel his brother had grown “paranoid” despite William’s own efforts to support him. A source close to the future king told Myers, “He [William] felt as though somewhere down the line, perhaps it is impossible to even say when, that he lost his brother. He became paranoid, angry, obsessive and firmly rooted in the past. There’s no doubt, at that time at least, there was a lot of love and support available for Harry.”

Myers’ reporting also revisits William’s early caution toward Meghan, noting that William had reportedly urged Harry to take things slowly with her when the relationship began, a fact Harry has himself acknowledged publicly. Still, an insider told Myers that William’s initial feelings toward Meghan were more positive than later strain would suggest. “It’s easy to forget now, given everything that has gone on,” the insider said. “But William did find Meghan quite refreshing at first. He was genuinely happy for Harry and only wanted the best for him.”

According to Myers, it was ultimately Catherine, long regarded as a steadying influence during the brothers’ disagreements, who reached a breaking point. “Catherine has always favoured reason over conflict. It was how she had been brought up, in a household that resolved differences with dialogue rather than by bearing grudges,” a source told Myers, adding that Catherine had initially viewed the brothers’ conflicts as rooted in mutual immaturity or stubbornness, before Harry and Meghan’s treatment of palace staff, whom both she and William cared about, ultimately set the two couples on what the source described as “an entirely different course.”

Neither Kensington Palace nor representatives for the Duke and Duchess of Sussex have issued public comment on the current state of the relationship between the two couples following Harry and Meghan’s return to Britain.

The first minister said he had been “appalled” by the number of cases involving violence against women and girls over the summer months.

“This has been a long-running issue within Scottish society,” he said.

“The government has taken many measures to tackle this, but I think events over the summer have said to me that I’ve got to exercise the strongest possible personal leadership as first minister to make sure that we tackle these issues.”

He said violence against women and girls could not be tolerated “in any way, shape or form in our society” and added that “making sure that we change the behaviour of men and boys in our society will be central to that programme”.

One of the government’s proposals to tackle the cost of living issue was to introduce a price cap on some food and drink items in large supermarkets.

Twenty-three organisations have since written a joint letter to Swinney urging him to scrap the plan.

Signatories include groups representing retail, food and drink production, manufacturing and distribution businesses in Scotland.

In response, Swinney said: “Many members of the public are struggling with the price of their shopping and I want to try to do something practical to address that and that’s about bringing forward a proposal for an affordable price cap on a limited number of items within our supermarkets.

“We’ve got to consult about this and make sure the legislation can have the effect that we want it to have and that’s exactly what the government is going to do.”

Shares of one of India’s largest conglomerates, ITC, rallied as much as 5% to their day’s high of Rs 267 on the BSE on Tuesday after its wholly owned subsidiary ITC Infotech said it will acquire Bengaluru-based listed software services firm Happiest Minds Technologies. On the flip side, Happiest Minds’ stock price declined by over 8% to Rs 373 per share.

As per a stock exchange filing, ITC Infotech will first acquire a 22.1% stake in Happiest Minds from founder and promoter Ashok Soota for Rs 1,330 crore, with the purchase split across two tranches. The initial transaction will then be followed by a share swap between the two companies, under which shareholders will receive 25 ITC Infotech shares for every 81 Happiest Minds shares held.

Following the completion of the merger, ITC Infotech will be listed on the stock exchanges through a backdoor listing. ITC Ltd will hold a 73.4% stake in the merged entity, while Soota and his promoter entities will own 7.6%. Public shareholders will hold the remaining 19%.

Happiest Minds has been assigned an equity value of Rs 6,167 crore for the transaction, while ITC Infotech has been valued at Rs 11,920 crore. Together, the two companies have a combined valuation of more than Rs 18,000 crore.

Ashok Soota, who founded Happiest Minds in 2011, said he was delighted that, after the completion of the legal formalities, the company would become an important part of a larger organisation through its amalgamation with ITC Infotech. He said the two organisations were aligned in their values and shared vision for the future, while their business portfolios had significant complementarity that would ensure synergies.

ITC and ITC Infotech chairman Sanjiv Puri said the combination of the companies’ complementary strengths, deep domain expertise and future-ready capabilities would further strengthen their ability to deliver cutting-edge solutions across geographies.
ET had first reported on March 20 that ITC Infotech could potentially acquire a stake in Happiest Minds. On August 29, ET reported details of the proposed transaction, including the merger through a share swap that would effectively result in the backdoor listing of ITC Infotech.According to Happiest Minds, the combined company will bring together its capabilities in AI, digital engineering, cloud, data, analytics and cybersecurity with ITC Infotech’s expertise in enterprise transformation, SAP, product lifecycle management (PLM), cloud, Industry 4.0 and industry-specific technology solutions.

The company said the transaction would make the merged entity India’s 11th-largest IT services company, with aggregate annual revenue of Rs 7,033 crore in fiscal 2026.

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

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