Key events
Virgin Media O2 to cut thousands of jobs as it plans £800m cost savings
Mark Sweney
Virgin Media O2 is to cut thousands of UK jobs in an £800m cost-cutting drive as the telecommunications company aims to tackle its £22bn debt pile.
VMO2, which is jointly owned by the British-Dutch-American telecoms company Liberty Global and Spain’s Telefónica, said £300m of the savings target will come from job cuts that will reduce the company’s employee wage bill by 30% over the next two years.
The company did not specify how many jobs this will equate to, but it could be as many as 25% of its 16,000 workforce.
The company, which said that most of the job losses will come from non-customer facing roles, said it intends to increase the use of AI tools in areas including customer service, network planning and fault management.
The VMO2 chief executive, Lutz Schüler, said:
While we will give a fuller update on the new strategic plan in the coming months, we are already progressing and making difficult decisions to prioritise investments and reduce costs which includes the size of our workforce.
Standing still and doing what we’ve always done is not an option and while many of these decisions are tough, they are necessary for our future success and growth. Virgin Media O2 must evolve, and the action needed to make that happen starts now.
Introduction: Saudi state oil company reports jump in profits despite attacks; Australian central bank lifts rates
Good morning, and welcome to our rolling coverage of business, the financial markets and the world economy.
The Saudi state oil company Saudi Aramco has reported that profits rose by more than a third in the latest quarter despite attacks on its facilities.
The world’s top oil exporter posted a net profit of $3.25bn in the three months to September, compared with $26.9bn a year earlier.
The US-Israeli war on Iran has reduced Aramco’s output, but this has been offset by higher oil prices.
This morning, Brent crude climbed $2.38 a barrel to $107.15 a barrel, a 2.2% gain, after the US reportedly launched limited strikes on Iran’s Qeshm Island late on Monday. (Before the war, which started on 28 February, Brent traded around $72 a barrel.)
However on Monday, the global oil benchmark plunged 11% to $103.28 a barrel after Donald Trump reportedly said he was willing to give diplomacy more time.
Amin H. Nasser, Aramco’s president and chief executive, said:
Geopolitical uncertainty and attacks on key energy facilities continued to amplify the global energy supply crisis in the third quarter of 2026, with serious implications for global energy security. Despite challenges, the unwavering dedication of our workforce, our operational excellence, the flexibility of our system, and the strength of a supply network built over decades enabled us to continue delivering reliably to our customers through this extraordinary period.
We continue to explore additional overseas storage capacity and alternative export routes to further strengthen our global supply network, and our robust operational and financial performance during this volatile period demonstrates the value of our resilience.
This means that the world’s biggest oil companies are on track for combined profits of around $100bn between July and September.
Australia’s central bank has lifted interest rates for the fifth time this year, taking them to the highest level in 18 years.
The Reserve Bank of Australia’s board raised its cash rate by 25 basis points to 4.85% and said it will continue to do what it considers necessary to bring inflation to target. However, it dropped its previous guidance that it would raise the cash rate further if needed.
And a surprisingly narrow 6-3 vote indicated policymakers may be getting to the end of their rate hikes.
Michele Bullock, the governor, said it was “not the news that many Australians want to hear”, but it would prevent “even worse pain down the track”.
She said it was unclear what the next move in rates will be, adding that the three dissenting members stressed downside risks such as the weakening housing market and rising unemployment.
After five rate hikes this year, she said it is an appropriate time to pause and assess how the economy is responding to the rate rises, but cautioned that
there is still a bit of a skew on the upside to inflation risks, and we need to be alert to those materialising.
Updated forecasts from the central bank show headline inflation hitting 4.5% in the fourth quarter, before easing back to the target range of 2% to 3% in the second half of next year. Unemployment is forecast to rise above 5% in the next couple of years.
Ipek Ozkardeskaya, senior analyst at Swissquote, said:
Higher energy prices… would strengthen the case for further monetary policy tightening by the Federal Reserve (Fed) and other major central banks. The Reserve Bank of Australia delivered a 25bp hike today, as expected, while the Bank of England (BoE) is widely expected to announce a 25bp hike on Thursday, following a rather uneventful budget announcement last week that allows the BoE to go on with its life — and take care of its inflation problem.
The Big Picture
Overall, if we take a step back and look at the bigger picture, the latest monetary policy decisions have brought either rate hikes or the prospect of tighter monetary policy to fight inflation fuelled by elevated global energy prices. On top of that, many developed-market bond yields face upward pressure from intensifying fiscal concerns, while large bond issuance by technology companies to finance their massive AI buildout could add to that pressure.
The cryptocurrency exchange Binance said hourly deposits exceeded withdrawals this morning, suggesting flows are stabilising after its hack last week. This resulted in $6.3bn of assets being stolen from customer accounts.
It has been described as the biggest heist in history; experts identified North Korea as the probable culprit.
The Agenda
Source: https://www.theguardian.com/business/live/2026/nov/03/saudi-oil-company-profits-australian-central-bank-rates-brent-crude-crypto-hack-energy-prices-latest-news-updates
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