Business

Businesses have handed back more than £1 billion claimed through the Government’s furlough scheme, the Treasury has said. In the past three months alone, firms returned £300,000 because the funds had been overclaimed or they no longer needed the cash. It takes the total returned to HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) since July 2020 to £1.3 billion. With the furlough scheme due to close at the end of the month, Chancellor Rishi Sunak said it was “heartening” that so much had been paid back. “This Government stepped in to help when people needed it most, supporting 12 million jobs through furlough,” he said. “This worked. Nearly two million fewer people are now expected to be out of work in the UK than previously feared. “Now with our recovery under way it is heartening to see that £1.3 billion in furlough grants have been returned as the economy recovers.” But while £1.3 billion has been returned by businesses, it is just a small proportion of the mammoth £68.5 …

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There have never been so many $1-million houses. No longer limited to Santa Monica, the Hollywood Hills or the beach towns of Orange County, the $1-million house is popping up across Southern California, spurred by demand for bigger spaces during the pandemic and the resulting surge in home prices. In 55 cities and unincorporated areas in Los Angeles and Orange counties, the typical house is now valued at $1 million or more, according to Zillow, which defines typical as the average of roughly the middle one-third of home values in a given area. Seventeen of those places — including Altadena, Torrance and Fountain Valley — surpassed $1 million since March 2020, when COVID-19 began to grip the United States. In the city of Los Angeles, the neighborhoods that crossed the $1-million threshold for the first time are largely in three areas: northeast Los Angeles, South Los Angeles and the San Fernando Valley. Advertisement Business For Subscribers …

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Over the course of the pandemic, 15 L.A. neighborhoods joined the million-dollar club, in which the majority of homes are valued at more than $1 million. Depending on where you’re looking, that sum can buy a four-bedroom spot with 3,000 square feet or a two-bedroom bungalow with only one bathroom. Business For Subscribers How the pandemic helped scatter $1-million homes across L.A. COVID-19 unleashed new demand for homes, made the well-off wealthier, and fueled extreme bidding wars. The result? The $1-million home is everywhere. Take a look at what $1 million buys right now in six L.A. neighborhoods. Van Nuys Advertisement As the San Fernando Valley’s most populous neighborhood, Van Nuys always has plenty of homes on the market. There’s also plenty of deals; older properties sell for as low as $600,000, but newly renovated spots, such as the home below, will usually hit $1 million. The house: Sold as a fixer-upper earlier …

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A judge formally approved a plan to turn OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma into a new company no longer owned by members of the Sackler family and with its profit going to fight the opioid epidemic. U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Robert Drain officially confirmed the reorganization Friday, more than two weeks after he announced he would do so pending two largely technical changes to the plan presented by the company and hashed out with lawyers representing those with claims against the company. His confirmation took more than six hours to read in court earlier this month, and the written version is 159 pages long, full of reasoning that appeals courts can consider later. Several states among other parties have already appealed the decision. The deal resolves some 3,000 lawsuits filed by state and local governments, Native American tribes, unions, hospitals and others who claimed the company’s marketing of prescription opioids helped spark and continue an overdose epidemic linked to more …

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It’s hard to feel lonely working from home when you get called every day about your car warranty. You know what I’m talking about. The robocall — it’s always a recording — warns that your vehicle warranty is expired or about to expire. By pressing “one” on your keypad, you can fix things by signing up for an extended warranty. Spoiler alert: That extended warranty is either nonexistent or not worth the paper it’s printed on. “Usually those so-called warranties aren’t really warranties,” said Rosemary Shahan, president of the Sacramento-based advocacy group Consumers for Auto Reliability and Safety. Advertisement “They’re cleverly worded service contracts that are obscenely overpriced and full of loopholes and exclusions,” she told me. RoboKiller, maker of a robocall-blocking app, estimated in a recent report that Americans will receive about 13 billion car-warranty calls this year, making the calls the single most ubiquitous phone scam. “It’s statistically …

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Shares of China Evergrande, the troubled real estate giant whose fate has contributed to jitters in global markets, fell again on Tuesday amid a new prediction that it would soon default. The company’s chairman, Xu Jiayin, told employees in a letter quoted in Chinese media that Evergrande would surmount its problems, which include $300 billion in debt, plunging sales of apartments and a payment due Thursday. “I firmly believe that Evergrande will walk out of its darkest moment and resume full-speed work and production,” he said in the letter, which was confirmed by a company spokesman. But a dire forecast about the company’s fate arrived on Tuesday for investors in Asia, this one from S&P Global Ratings. “We believe Beijing would only be compelled to step in if there is a far-reaching contagion causing multiple major developers to fail and posing systemic risks to the economy,” said the report, which was dated Monday. Both the company’s shares and its bonds fell on …

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The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development said on Tuesday that a global economic recovery from the pandemic was finally taking hold, but it inched back its forecast for worldwide economic growth and warned that the rebound was benefiting wealthier countries more than the developing world as vaccine distribution occurs at an uneven pace. Countries that have made big strides toward vaccinating most of their populations are bouncing back much more quickly than those that are still struggling to obtain shots, the O.E.C.D. said, raising a host of related economic problems that are affecting global supply chains and pose a risk for the future. “The global shock that pushed the world to the worst recession in a century is now fading, and we’re now projecting the recovery will bring growth back to its pre-crisis trend,” Laurence Boone, the organization’s chief economist, said in a news briefing. But vaccination rates remain varied, and many low-income countries and …

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Evergrande is only part of the story The global stock market drop yesterday — the S&P 500 recorded its biggest one-day plunge since May — was seemingly induced by the troubled Chinese real estate firm Evergrande. And when a single, large, teetering firm with extensive debt rattles the entire market, some reach for the “L” word: Lehman Brothers. With markets regaining ground today , worries that one firm’s collapse could lead to a full-blown financial crisis appear to have waned. But Evergrande’s travails are far from over, and there are plenty of other concerns hanging over the market. First, about that Chinese property developer with $300 billion in debt … What would an Evergrande default look like? The impact of the developer’s potential collapse — it doesn’t seem to have the cash for interest payments due this week — depends on how China’s leadership responds . Although Beijing hasn’t moved conclusively toward a bailout, it has ways to stop a financial disaster, …

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Angry home buyers are waiting on as many as 1.6 million apartments. Suppliers that sold cement, paint, rebar and copper pipes are owed more than $100 billion in payments. Employees who were strong-armed into lending are panicking now that the company cannot repay them on time. China’s Evergrande Group, the embattled property developer whose towering debt has set off panic in global markets, is buckling under the weight of more than $300 billion in debt. The company’s billionaire chairman told employees on Tuesday that they would “walk out of darkness as soon as possible.” But the question for many is whether the company can stumble out of its current crisis on its own without being led by Beijing. And experts are making increasingly grim predictions about Evergrande’s ability to hold on without a government bailout, and the consequences of a possible collapse. A dire forecast about the company’s fate arrived on Tuesday for investors in Asia, this one from S&P Global …

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Fortune on Tuesday named Alyson Shontell as its new editor in chief, the first woman to hold the role in its 92-year history. Ms. Shontell, 35, joins from the digital media company Insider, where she was a co-editor in chief of the business section. She will start on Oct. 6. Alan Murray, the chief executive of Fortune, said in an email newsletter that Ms. Shontell would be in charge of content across Fortune’s magazine and website, as well as its conferences, newsletters, videos, podcasts and the Fortune Connect platform, an online community for executives. “Alyson is the perfect person to position Fortune for its second century,” he wrote, citing Ms. Shontell’s love of journalism and her digital chops. “As employee number six at Business Insider, she helped shape and build the most successful pure play digital business journalism franchise of our time.” She replaces Clifton Leaf, who stepped down from the editor in chief job in June. Brian O’Keefe has been the acting …

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