The Queen’s bank, Coutts & Co, and the Coal Pensions Board have joined a group of investors backing a resolution calling for Sainsbury’s to pay the independently set living wage for all staff and contracted workers. The vote at the UK’s second-largest supermarket’s annual shareholder meeting on 7 July will be the first on a resolution committing a UK company board to pay the living wage. ShareAction, the responsible investment campaign group, said the resolution would be a “litmus test for investors’ social commitments amid the cost-of-living crisis”. – Guardian
Britain’s army of more than a million small and medium-sized businesses are stockpiling raw materials and ordering components six months ahead to overcome supply shortages that prevent them from meeting customer demands. With construction costs reaching fresh record highs and import prices surging following a fall in the pound, businesses reported that much of their cash was tied up in securing the basic raw materials and components needed to supply customers. – Guardian
The world is on the “tipping point” of falling into a period of runaway inflation in which soaring prices become embedded and difficult to control, the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) has warned. In its annual economic report, the BIS said leading economies faced entering a world in which soaring prices become embedded and difficult to control. – Telegraph
Britain’s biggest microchip factory is likely to be closed and production shifted to Shanghai if ministers allow a Chinese takeover of the business to go ahead, a report has warned. Researchers at the Policy Exchange think tank claimed there was a “strong possibility” that Newport Wafer Fab’s new owner, Nexperia, will in future seek to move the company’s facilities out of South Wales. – Telegraph
By the time the City regulator introduced new rules for the once promising peer-to-peer lending sector in late 2019, the game was all but up. Platforms with a quarter of a billion pounds in active loans collapsed in chaotic fashion, while many remaining players were in the process of leaving the market or were soon to do so. – The Times
