Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation is in advanced talks to take a stake in a London-listed marketing specialist backed by Lord Ashcroft, the former Conservative Party treasurer.

Sky News has learnt that the media tycoon’s British subsidiary, News UK, is close to agreeing a deal to combine its influencer marketing division – which is called The Fifth – with Brave Bison, an acquisitive group run by brothers Oli and Theo Green.

Sources said the deal could be announced as early as Thursday morning.

News UK publishes The Sun and The Times, among other media assets.

If completed, the transaction would involve Brave Bison acquiring The Fifth with a combination of cash and shares that would result in News UK becoming one of its largest shareholders.

The purchase price is said to be in the region of £8m.

The Fifth has worked with the television host and model Maya Jama on a campaign for the energy drink Lucozade, and Amelia Dimoldenberg, the YouTube star.

Its other clients include Samsung and Tommee Tippee.

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The deal will be the third struck by Brave Bison this year, with the previous transactions including the purchase of Engage Digital, a key digital partner to sporting properties including the Men’s T20 Cricket World Cup.

The Green brothers took over the Brave Bison in 2020, and have overseen a sharp strategic realignment and improvement in its performance.

In 2023, it bought the podcaster and entrepreneur Steven Bartlett’s social media and influencer agency, SocialChain.

In total, the company has struck six takeover deals since the Greens assumed control.

At Wednesday’s stock market close, Brave Bison had a market capitalisation of about £31m.

News UK and Brave Bison declined to comment.

Is there method to the madness? Donald Trump and his acolytes would have you believe so. 

The US president is standing firm among all the market chaos.

Just this weekend, after US stock markets suffered their sharpest falls since the onset of the pandemic, Trump reposted a video on his social media platform Truth Social. This was its title: “Trump is purposefully CRASHING the market.”

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The video claimed the president was engineering a flight to US government bonds, also known as treasuries – a safe haven in turbulent times. The video suggested Trump was deliberately throwing the stock market into chaos so investors would take their money out and buy bonds instead.

Why? Because demand for treasuries pushes up the price of the bonds, and that, in turn, lowers the yield on those bonds.

The yield is the interest rate on the debt, so a lower yield pushes down government borrowing costs. That would provide some relief for a government that has $9.2trn of government debt to refinance this year. Consumers also stand to benefit as the US Federal Reserve, the US central bank, would likely follow suit, feeling the pressure to cut interest rates.

Trump and his treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, have made it a key policy priority to lower yields. For a while, it looked like the plan was working. As stock markets tumbled in response to Trump’s tariffs agenda, investors ploughed their money into bonds instead.

However, Trump may have spoken too soon. On Monday, the markets had a change of heart and rapidly started selling government bonds. Thirty-year treasury yields hit 4.92% on Wednesday, their biggest three-day jump since 1982. That means government borrowing costs are rising – and not just in the US. The sell-off has spiralled to government bonds worldwide.

Rachel Reeves will be watching anxiously.­ Yields on ­Britain’s 30-year government bonds, also known as gilts, hit their highest level since May 1998. They registered a 27 basis point jump to 5.642% today – that’s on track to be the largest one-day move since the aftermath of former prime minister Liz Truss’ “mini-budget” in October 2022.

This is a big deal. It is the sharpest sell-off in the US bond market since the pandemic. Back then, investors also rushed into bonds before dumping them and the motivations, on one level, are similar.

In 2020, investors sold bonds because they had to cover losses elsewhere in their portfolios. When markets fall, as they have done over the past few days, lenders can demand that an investor who has borrowed money stump up more cash against the value of their loan because the collateral against those loans has fallen in value. This is known as a “margin call”. Government bonds are easy to sell as investors “dash for cash”.

There are signs that this may be happening again and central banks, which had to step in last time, are alert.

The Bank of England warned today of the growing risks to financial stability. “A sharp increase in government bond yields could crystallise relatively quickly,” it said.

There are other forces weighing on government bonds. With policy uncertainty unfolding in the US, investors could also be signalling that US debt isn’t the safe haven it once was. That loss of confidence also seems to have hurt the dollar, one of the world’s safest places to park your money. It’s had a turbulent journey but is down 1.15% against a basket of safe haven currencies since Trump announced widespread tariffs on 2 April.

Some are even wondering if China could be behind some of this, dumping US government debt as a revenge tactic to hurt a president who has explicitly said he wants bond yields to come down. The country holds $761bn of US government bonds, second only to Japan. If this is the case, then the US-China trade war could rapidly be evolving into a financial war.

Unilever, the FTSE-100 consumer goods giant behind Marmite and Lynx, is facing an investor backlash over its new chief executive’s multimillion pound pay package.

Sky News has learnt that ISS, a leading proxy adviser, has recommended that shareholders vote against Unilever’s remuneration report at its annual meeting later this month.

Sources familiar with ISS’s report on Unilever’s AGM resolutions say the agency objects to the discount of just €50,000 that the Ben & Jerry’s owner has applied to the base salary of Fernando Fernandez, compared to Hein Schumacher, his predecessor.

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Unilever surprised the City in February when it announced Mr Schumacher would leave after just two years in the job, amid frustration in its boardroom about the pace of growth.

In an accompanying statement, Unilever said Mr Fernandez – previously the chief financial officer – would be paid a basic salary of €1.8m, modestly lower than Mr Schumacher’s €1.85m.

In a summary of ISS’s report, the proxy adviser said Mr Fernandez’s “base salary as new CEO is significant and represents a small discount to the former CEO Hein Schumacher’s base salary”.

“The company does not appear to have sufficiently accounted previously raised shareholder concerns on the CEO role’s pay arrangement when setting Mr Fernandez’s remuneration.”

Unilever had also “disapplied time pro-rating” in respect of former executive directors’ long-term share awards, meaning that the company could have legitimately decided to award them smaller amounts of stock than it did.

On Wednesday afternoon, shares in Unilever were trading at around £44.79, giving the maker of Magnum ice cream and Persil washing-up liquid a valuation of close to £115bn.

Unilever did not respond to a request for comment.