The London-listed investment group ICG is closing in on a £200m deal to buy three of Britain’s biggest regional airports.

Sky News has learnt that ICG is expected to sign a formal agreement to buy Bournemouth, Exeter and Norwich airports later this month.

The trio of sites collectively serve just over 2 million passengers annually.

ICG is buying the airports from Rigby Group, a privately owned conglomerate which has interests in the hotels, software and technology sectors.

Exeter acted as the hub for Flybe, the regional carrier which collapsed in the aftermath of the pandemic.

The deal will come amid a frenzy of activity involving Britain’s major airports as infrastructure investors seek to exploit a recovery in their valuations.

AviAlliance, which is owned by the Canadian pension fund PSP Investments, agreed to buy the parent company of Aberdeen, Glasgow and Southampton airports for £1.55bn last year.

London City Airport’s shareholder base has just been shaken up with a deal which saw Australia’s Macquarie take a large stake.

French investor Ardian has increased its investment in Heathrow Airport as the UK’s biggest aviation hub proposes an expansion that will cost tens of billions of pounds.

ICG and Rigby Group declined to comment .

Some of the world’s leading tech companies are betting big on very small innovations.

Last week, Samsung released its Galaxy Z Fold 7 which – when open – has a thickness of just 4.2mm, one of the slimmest folding phones ever to hit the market.

And Honor, a spin-off from Chinese smartphone company Huawei, will soon ship its latest foldable – the slimmest in the world. Its new Honor Magic V5 model is only 8.8mm thick when folded, and a mere 4.1mm when open.

Apple is also expected to release a foldable in the second half of next year, according to a note by analysts at JPMorgan published this week.

The race to miniaturise technology is speeding up, the ultimate prize being the next evolution in consumer devices.

Whether it be wearable devices, such as smartglasses, watches, rings or foldables – there is enormous market potential for any manufacturer that can make its products small enough.

Despite being thinner than its predecessor, Honor claims its Magic V5 also offers significant improvements to battery life, processing power, and camera capabilities.

Hope Cao, a product expert at Honor told Sky News the progress was “due largely to our silicon carbon battery technology”. These batteries are a next-generation breakthrough that offers higher energy density compared to traditional lithium-ion batteries, and are becoming more common in consumer devices.

Honor also told Sky News it had used its own AI model “to precisely test and find the optimum design, which was both the slimmest, as well as, the most durable.”

However, research and development into miniaturisation goes well beyond just folding phones.

A company that’s been at the forefront of developing augmented reality (AR) glasses, Xreal, was one of the first to release a viable pair to the consumer market.

Xreal’s Ralph Jodice told Sky News “one of our biggest engineering challenges is shrinking powerful augmented reality technology into a form factor that looks and feels like everyday sunglasses”.

Xreal’s specs can display images on the lenses like something out of a sci-fi movie – allowing the wearer to connect most USB-C compatible devices such as phones, laptops and handheld consoles to an IMAX-sized screen anywhere they go.

Experts at The Metaverse Society suggest prices of these wearable devices could be lowered by shifting the burden of computing from the headset to a mobile phone or computer, whose battery and processor would power the glasses via a cable.

However, despite the daunting challenge, companies are doubling down on research and making leaps in the area.

Social media giant Meta is also vying for dominance in the miniature market.

Meta’s Ray-Ban sunglasses (to which they recently added an Oakley range), cannot project images on the lenses like the pair from Xreal – instead they can capture photos, footage and sound. When connected to a smartphone they can even use your phone’s 5G connection to ask Meta’s AI what you’re looking at, and ask how to save a particular type of houseplant for example.

Gareth Sutcliffe, a tech and media analyst at Enders Analysis, tells Sky News wearables “are a green field opportunity for Meta and Google” to capture a market of “hundreds of millions of users if these devices sell at similar rates to mobile phones”.

Li-Chen Miller, Meta’s vice president of product and wearables, recently said: “You’d be hard-pressed to find a more interesting engineering problem in the company than the one that’s at the intersection of these two dynamics, building glasses [with onboard technology] that people are comfortable wearing on their faces for extended periods of time … and willing to wear them around friends, family, and others nearby.”

Mr Sutcliffe points out that “Meta’s R&D spend on wearables looks extraordinary in the context of limited sales now, but should the category explode in popularity, it will be seen as a great strategic bet.”

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg’s long-term aim is to combine the abilities of both Xreal and the Ray-Bans into a fully functioning pair of smartglasses, capable of capturing content, as well as display graphics onscreen.

However, despite recently showcasing a prototype model, the company was at pains to point out that it was still far from ready for the consumer market.

This race is a marathon not a sprint – or as Sutcliffe tells Sky News “a decade-long slog” – but 17 years after the release of the first iPhone, people are beginning to wonder what will replace it – and it could well be a pair of glasses.

Donald Trump’s trade war has been difficult to keep up with, to put it mildly.

For all the threats and bluster of the US election campaign last year to the on-off implementation of trade tariffs – and more threats – since he returned to the White House in January, the president‘s protectionist agenda has been haphazard.

Trading partners, export-focused firms, customs agents and even his own trade team have had a lot on their plates as deadlines were imposed – and then retracted – and the tariff numbers tinkered.

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While the UK was the first country to secure a truce of sorts, described as a “deal”, the vast majority of nations have failed to secure any agreement.

Deal or no deal, no country is on better trading terms with the United States than it was when Trump 2.0 began.

Here, we examine what nations and blocs are on the hook for, and the potential consequences, as Mr Trump’s suspended “reciprocal” tariffs prepare to take effect. That will now not happen until 7 August.

Why was 1 August such an important date?

To understand the present day, we must first wind the clock back to early April.

Then, Mr Trump proudly showed off a board in the White House Rose Garden containing a list of countries and the tariffs they would immediately face in retaliation for the rates they impose on US-made goods. He called it “liberation day”.

The tariff numbers were big and financial markets took fright.

Just days later, the president announced a 90-day pause in those rates for all countries except China, to allow for negotiations.

The initial deadline of 9 July was then extended again to 1 August. Late on 31 July, Mr Trump signed the executive order but said that the tariff rates would not kick in for seven additional days to allow for the orders to be fully communicated.

Since April, only eight countries or trading blocs have agreed “deals” to limit the reciprocal tariffs and – in some cases – sectoral tariffs already in place.

Who has agreed a deal over the past 120 days?

The UK, Japan, Indonesia, the European Union and South Korea are among the eight to be facing lower rates than had been threatened back in April.

China has not really done a deal but it is no longer facing punitive tariffs above 100%.

Its decision to retaliate against US levies prompted a truce level to be agreed between the pair, pending further talks.

There’s a backlash against the EU over its deal, with many national leaders accusing the European Commission of giving in too easily. A broad 15% rate is to apply, down from the threatened 30%, while the bloc has also committed to US investment and to pay for US-produced natural gas.

Where does the UK stand?

We’ve already mentioned that the UK was the first to avert the worst of what was threatened.

While a 10% baseline tariff covers the vast majority of the goods we send to the US, aerospace products are exempt.

Our steel sector has not been subjected to Trump’s 50% tariffs and has been facing down a 25% rate. The government announced on Thursday that it would not apply under the terms of a quota system.

UK car exports were on a 25% rate until the end of June when the deal agreed in May took that down to 10% under a similar quota arrangement that exempts the first 100,000 cars from a levy.

Who has not done a deal?

Canada is among the big names facing a 35% baseline tariff rate. That is up from 25% and covers all goods not subject to a US-Mexico-Canada trade agreement that involves rules of origin.

America is its biggest export market and it has long been in Trump’s sights.

Mexico, another country deeply ingrained in the US supply chain, is facing a 30% rate but has been given an extra 90 days to secure a deal.

Brazil is facing a 50% rate. For India, it’s 25%.

What are the consequences?

This is where it all gets a bit woolly – for good reasons.

The trade war is unprecedented in scale, given the global nature of modern business.

It takes time for official statistics to catch up, especially when tariff rates chop and change so much.

Any duties on exports to the United States are a threat to company sales and economic growth alike – in both the US and the rest of the world. Many carmakers, for example, have refused to offer guidance on their outlooks for revenue and profits.

Apple warned on Thursday night that US tariffs would add $1.1bn of costs in the three months to September alone.

Barriers to business are never good but the International Monetary Fund earlier this week raised its forecast for global economic growth this year from 2.8% to 3%.

Some of that increase can be explained by the deals involving major economies, including Japan, the EU and UK.

US growth figures have been skewed by the rush to beat import tariffs.

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The big risk ahead?

It’s a self-inflicted wound.

The elephant in the room is inflation. Countries imposing duties on their imports force the recipient of those goods to foot the additional bill. Do the buyers swallow it or pass it on?

The latest US data contained strong evidence that tariff charges were now making their way down the country’s supply chains, threatening to squeeze American consumers in the months ahead.

It’s why the US central bank has been refusing demands from Mr Trump to cut interest rates. You don’t slow the pace of price rises by making borrowing costs cheaper.

A prolonged period of higher inflation would not go down well with US businesses or voters. It’s why financial markets have followed a recent trend known as TACO, helping stock markets remain at record levels.

The belief is that Trump always chickens out. He may have to back down if inflation takes off.