FTI Consulting News Bytes – 28 November 2025

FTI Consulting News Bytes

The UK Government finally unveiled its Autumn Budget, with Chancellor Rachel Reeves setting out measures focused on growth, fiscal discipline and easing living costs, including extended tax threshold freezes, higher council tax on £2mn+ homes and incentives for UK listings. Netflix is reportedly weighing a bid for future Premier League broadcasting rights, potentially shaking up both domestic and US sports media markets. In finance, Visa and Mastercard are accelerating their push into stablecoin payments as they brace for competition from major retailers exploring their own digital currencies. A government-commissioned review has labelled the UK the world’s most expensive place to build nuclear plants, calling for a radical regulatory overhaul to revive the sector. Meanwhile, the Budget’s stamp duty relief for listings drew praise from Revolut’s chair, who warned that sluggish retail equity participation remains a structural challenge for UK markets.

This week’s news

UK Budget (finally) delivered

After weeks of speculation, the UK Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rachel Reeves, delivered the 2025 Autumn Budget to the House of Commons on Wednesday. Reeves outlined a series of measures framed around securing growth, cutting “reckless borrowing”, cutting waiting lists and cutting the cost of living, as covered by the Financial Times. Among the headlines; extending the freezes to personal tax and national insurance thresholds for a further three years, a council tax surcharge on properties worth more than £2mn and UK listings relief, with a three-year exemption from stamp duty reserve tax for companies that choose to list in the UK. Reeves stated that Labour will make this possible through “investment, stability and reform”, and implicitly not austerity.  The policies outlined by the Chancellor represent a continuation of the objective to keep “rebuilding” the economy and fill the fiscal gap, breaking the “cycle of decline”. Reeves stated this is a task which “is built patiently and stubbornly by people who take risks”, making it clear that the Government’s growth mission is one that will be hard fought, and requires “everyone” to contribute.

Premier League coming to Netflix?

The Times reports Netflix will consider bidding for some Premier League TV rights after narrowly losing out on deals to show matches in UEFA’s club competitions. It would mean competition for Sky and TNT Sports for the domestic Premier League deals, and also for NBC for the American rights to the English top flight. The latest domestic deals run until 2029 but the US agreement with NBC – the Premier League’s biggest overseas contract, worth £2billion over six years – expires in 2028 and bids for the next packages are expected during next year.

Traditional finance looks for its edge

Visa and Mastercard are moving quickly to embrace cryptocurrencies for payments. The Information reasons that the companies are aiming to take advantage of the rising popularity of stablecoins in developing countries and fend off competition from merchants trying to circumvent their networks. Both have ramped up their crypto payments business overseas and have been looking for acquisitions or investments. Visa wants to invest in stablecoin startups, especially in infrastructure that can help scale its network of banks and increase the number of use cases for crypto payments, Cuy Sheffield, head of crypto at Visa, said. Meanwhile, Mastercard is in talks to buy Zerohash, which provides infrastructure supporting stablecoin payments and crypto trading, for at least $1.5 billion. The catalyst, the Information suggests, came in spring when Amazon and Walmart were reportedly exploring launching stablecoins. The news sent Visa’s and Mastercard’s shares tumbling.

Let’s get clear on Nuclear

The UK has become the “most expensive place in the world” to build nuclear power plants, according to a government review which criticises “overly complex” bureaucracy around the sector. The report commission by Keir Starmer has called for a “one stop shop” for nuclear decisions, the BBC reports. A “radical reset” of the rules around nuclear power could save Britain “tens of billions” in costs and reverse the industry’s “decline” in recent years, the Nuclear Regulatory Taskforce said. Taskforce chair John Fingleton said: “Our solutions are radical, but necessary. By simplifying regulation, we can maintain or enhance safety standards while finally delivering nuclear capacity safely, quickly, and affordably.” The government is expected to address the report’s findings later this month in the Budget.

Stamp relief, cultural revolutions remains

Measures in the UK budget to attract more companies to the London Stock Exchange will help the bourse compete against the Nasdaq for financial technology listings, the chair of Revolut said. Martin Gilbert told Bloomberg Television “we are heading in the right direction with the stamp duty holiday for three years.” “The automatic place you go to list as a fintech is Nasdaq, it has deeper liquidity and they don’t have stamp duty – at least one of those things has been taken away.” Gilbert also pointed to low levels of retail participation in UK equities as one of the challenges facing the country’s stock market. “There are more crypto holders than stock holders now in the UK, which is not what we want to see,” he said. His views echo that of Revolut CEO Nik Storonsky on the 20VC podcast last year, when he said choosing a listing in the UK over the US is “not rational” due to liquidity and stamp duty. Chancellor Rachel Reeves in her budget announced policies to encourage savers to allocate more funds to stocks and shares by reducing the amount of cash that can be held in tax-efficient Cash ISA savings accounts.

Top Tweets of the Week

• Lionel Barber, Ex-Editor of the Financial Times: “BBC chair Samir Shah rightly identifies need to beef up BBC board and strengthen journalistic heft through new deputy director general. Outgoing DG Tim Davie was overstretched. Ps What is the difference between “institutional bias” and “systemic bias”?
• Mark Kleinman, Sky News City Editor: “Confirmation of my scoop that DMGT is in exclusive talks to buy the Daily and Sunday Telegraph, a deal that will unite two of Britain’s most influential national newspaper publishers and fulfil a long-held ambition of Daily Mail proprietor Lord Rothermere.”
• VentureBeat: “Anthropic’s Claude Opus 4.5 is here: cheaper AI, infinite chats, and coding skills that beat humans”

Number of the week

 £10bn The estimated value of capital injected into London’s economy from a new tower in Canary Wharf, announced by JPMorgan Chase, according to The Independent.