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Music streaming service SoundCloud tunes up for sale

The owners of SoundCloud, one of the world's largest music streaming services, are preparing for a sale that could fetch in excess of $1bn. Sky News has learnt that Raine Group and Temasek Holdings, the Singaporean state investment fund, have begun interviewing investment banks about a prospective auction of the company. Founded in 2007, SoundCloud provides artists with the tools to build their careers by providing them with an online home to publish their work. In total, more than 40 million artists have released 320 million tracks on the platform. A sale of SoundCloud would underline the scale of its turnaround in recent years,…

Earnings playbook: Your guide to the biggest reports this week, including…

The earnings season kicks off in earnest this week, with some of the country's biggest banks slated to report. JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, Wells Fargo and Bank of America are all slated to post their fourth-quarter results. UnitedHealth and Delta Airlines numbers are also on deck. Overall, S & P 500 earnings are expected to have grown by 1.3% during the fourth quarter on a year-over-year basis, according to FactSet senior earnings analyst John Butters. That would be the second straight quarter of earnings expansion. However, Butters noted that analysts made "larger cuts than average" to earnings per share estimates heading into this…

Forget Labour’s ‘tax bombshell’. It’s Tory policy that needs a watchful eye |…

T he contours of the election campaign are becoming clear. Do the Conservatives deserve five more years of trying to improve Britain’s lot, despite the abject failure of the past 14? Can Labour under Keir Starmer be trusted to do better? At the start of yet another crunch year in British politics, Rishi Sunak will be hoping the latter question resonates with voters, as the Tory election machine revs up to cast “Slippery Starmer” as an untrustworthy, high tax-and-spend Labour leader who would bankrupt Britain. It’s a familiar ploy. Ever since Labour’s 1992 defeat to John Major, the Tories have recycled versions of their “tax…

The 2023 U.S. economy, in a dozen charts

A pedestrian holds an umbrella as they walk along a street in the rain in Times Square, New York, on Sept. 26, 2023. Ed Jones | AFP | Getty Images The state of the U.S. economy may be a chief concern among Americans , but 2023 wound up as a pretty good year for the macroenvironment. Spending remained high, markets posted big gains and the Federal Reserve's battle against inflation showed signs of cooling — without freezing. Then there's the almost logic-defying resilience of the job market . The U.S. labor market ended the year strong, creating more than 200,000 jobs in December, according to figures released Friday by the U.S…

Pub giant with 811 boozers to shut another location TODAY as fans cry about …

A POPULAR branch of Wetherspoons is closing today for good, with dozens more still at risk. The Percy Shaw in Halifax will open its doors to punters for the last time today after the venue was sold to a new owner. 1 The Percy Shaw in Halifax will be calling last orders for the last time today Credit: Gary Stone The chain - with over 800 pubs across the UK - announced last September that several of its pubs will be up for sale. Unfortunately for the locals in Halifax, The Percy Shaw was among the venues up for sale. Locals took to social media to express their disappointment over the pub's closure. "What?! Why?" one Facebook user…