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A group of technology billionaires including the bosses of Google and Microsoft have triumphed in an auction of the Lords-based London Spirit cricket team in a deal which will set a record benchmark for the sale of a sporting franchise.

Sky News can exclusively reveal that the consortium led by Nikesh Arora, the chief executive of Palo Alto Networks, and including Google’s Sundar Pichai and Microsoft’s Satya Nadella, saw off fierce competition during a live auction conducted by the England and Wales Cricket Board on Friday afternoon.

The deal dwarfs a £123m transaction struck on Thursday for the Oval Invincibles franchise by the ultra-rich Ambani family, and means the ECB will receive proceeds from London Spirit of about £145m.

That will take the total proceeds to the ECB – for distribution throughout the sport – after three of the eight franchise sales to close to £250m.

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The blockbuster price underscores the intensity of the bidding for the most prestigious name in the Hundred tournament, allied to Lords’ enormous sporting heritage.

One source said the deal represented a world record for the price it attached to London Spirit as a multiple of the asset’s five-year forward profit projections.

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Other investors in the winning consortium are said to include Egon Durban, co-chief executive of Silver Lake, the west coast-based private equity backer of New Zealand Rugby and the RAC breakdown recovery service.

The other bidders in the London Spirit process were a vehicle controlled by Todd Boehly, a shareholder in Chelsea Football Club; members of the Manchester United-owning Glazer family; and RPSG Group, the owner of the Indian Premier League team Lucknow Super Giants.

RPSG Group and the tech billionaires are understood to have engaged in a bidding war for nearly three hours before the latter group won, according to insiders.

The ECB’s stake in Birmingham Phoenix was sold to the owners of Birmingham City Football Club, Knighthead Capital, on Thursday in a deal worth over £80m.

Stakes in Northern Superchargers and Southern Brave, among others, will be auctioned next week.

Under the ECB’s plans, it intends to sell its 49% holding in each of the eight teams with the counties left to decide whether they wish to offload any of their 51% stakes.

The price of London Spirit means the ECB’s original financial projections will be blown out of the water, with the three franchises sold to date valued in aggregate at around £500m.

Bidders in auctions with at least three participants are able to submit binding offers at 15-minute intervals, and in increments of at least £3m.

Losing bidders in each franchise may be given the opportunity to participate in the remaining processes, although the mechanics of such a scenario were unclear on Wednesday.

For franchises with only two shortlisted bidders, the auction will involve a straightforward sealed bid shootout.

The proceeds will be distributed between the hosts, non-host counties and the grassroots game.

A bigger-than-expected windfall from the process could offer a financial lifeline to a number of cash-strapped counties, with part of the proceeds likely to be used to pay down debt.

Concerns have been raised, however, that windfalls from the Hundred auction will not deliver a meaningful improvement in counties’ long-term financial sustainability.

The outcome of the Hundred auction is also likely to intensify other searching questions about the future of cricket, as the Test format of the game struggles for international commercial relevance against shorter-length competition.

The Hundred auction is being handled by bankers at Raine Group, the same firm which oversaw the sale of large stakes in both Manchester United and Chelsea in recent years.

The ECB declined to comment.

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Lloyds Banking Group in talks to buy digital wallet provider Curve

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Lloyds Banking Group in talks to buy digital wallet provider Curve

Britain’s biggest high street bank is in talks to buy Curve, the digital wallet provider, amid growing regulatory pressure on Apple to open its payment services to rivals.

Sky News has learnt that Lloyds Banking Group is in advanced discussions to acquire Curve for a price believed to be up to £120m.

City sources said this weekend that if the negotiations were successfully concluded, a deal could be announced by the end of September.

Curve was founded by Shachar Bialick, a former Israeli special forces soldier, in 2016.

Three years later, he told an interviewer: “In 10 years time we are going to be IPOed [listed on the public equity markets]… and hopefully worth around $50bn to $60bn.”

One insider said this weekend that Curve was being advised by KBW, part of the investment bank Stifel, on the discussions with Lloyds.

If a mooted price range of £100m-£120m turns out to be accurate, that would represent a lower valuation than the £133m Curve raised in its Series C funding round, which concluded in 2023.

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That round included backing from Britannia, IDC Ventures, Cercano Management – the venture arm of Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen’s estate – and Outward VC.

It was also reported to have raised more than £40m last year, while reducing employee numbers and suspending its US expansion.

In total, the company has raised more than £200m in equity since it was founded.

Curve has been positioned as a rival to Apple Pay in recent years, having initially launched as an app enabling consumers to combine their debit and credit cards in a single wallet.

One source close to the prospective deal said that Lloyds had identified Curve as a strategically attractive bid target as it pushes deeper into payments infrastructure under chief executive Charlie Nunn.

Lloyds is also said to believe that Curve would be a financially rational asset to own because of the fees Apple charges consumers to use its Apple Pay service.

In March, the Financial Conduct Authority and Payment Systems Regulator began working with the Competition and Markets Authority to examine the implications of the growth of digital wallets owned by Apple and Google.

Lloyds owns stakes in a number of fintechs, including the banking-as-a-service platform ThoughtMachine, but has set expanding its tech capabilities as a key strategic objective.

The group employs more than 70,000 people and operates more than 750 branches across Britain.

Curve is chaired by Lord Fink, the former Man Group chief executive who has become a prolific investor in British technology start-ups.

When he was appointed to the role in January, he said: “Working alongside Curve as an investor, I have had a ringside seat to the company’s unassailable and well-earned rise.

“Beginning as a card which combines all your cards into one, to the all-encompassing digital wallet it has evolved into, Curve offers a transformative financial management experience to its users.

“I am proud to have been part of the journey so far, and welcome the chance to support the company through its next, very significant period of growth.”

IDC Ventures, one of the investors in Curve’s Series C funding round, said at the time of its last major fundraising: “Thanks to their unique technology…they have the capability to intercept the transaction and supercharge the customer experience, with its Double Dip Rewards, [and] eliminating nasty hidden fees.

“And they do it seamlessly, without any need for the customer to change the cards they pay with.”

News of the talks between Lloyds and Curve comes days before Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, is expected to outline plans to bolster Britain’s fintech sector by endorsing a concierge service to match start-ups with investors.

Lord Fink declined to comment when contacted by Sky News on Saturday morning, while Curve did not respond to an enquiry sent by email.

Lloyds also declined to comment, while Stifel KBW could not be reached for comment.

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UK economy figures not as bad as they look despite GDP fall, analysts say

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UK economy figures not as bad as they look despite GDP fall, analysts say

The UK economy unexpectedly shrank in May, even after the worst of Donald Trump’s tariffs were paused, official figures showed.

A standard measure of economic growth, gross domestic product (GDP), contracted 0.1% in May, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

Rather than a fall being anticipated, growth of 0.1% was forecast by economists polled by Reuters as big falls in production and construction were seen.

It followed a 0.3% contraction in April, when Mr Trump announced his country-specific tariffs and sparked a global trade war.

A 90-day pause on these import taxes, which has been extended, allowed more normality to resume.

This was borne out by other figures released by the ONS on Friday.

Exports to the United States rose £300m but “remained relatively low” following a “substantial decrease” in April, the data said.

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Overall, there was a “large rise in goods imports and a fall in goods exports”.

A ‘disappointing’ but mixed picture

It’s “disappointing” news, Chancellor Rachel Reeves said. She and the government as a whole have repeatedly said growing the economy was their number one priority.

“I am determined to kickstart economic growth and deliver on that promise”, she added.

But the picture was not all bad.

Growth recorded in March was revised upwards, further indicating that companies invested to prepare for tariffs. Rather than GDP of 0.2%, the ONS said on Friday the figure was actually 0.4%.

It showed businesses moved forward activity to be ready for the extra taxes. Businesses were hit with higher employer national insurance contributions in April.

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The expansion in March means the economy still grew when the three months are looked at together.

While an interest rate cut in August had already been expected, investors upped their bets of a 0.25 percentage point fall in the Bank of England’s base interest rate.

Such a cut would bring down the rate to 4% and make borrowing cheaper.

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Is Britain going bankrupt?

Analysts from economic research firm Pantheon Macro said the data was not as bad as it looked.

“The size of the manufacturing drop looks erratic to us and should partly unwind… There are signs that GDP growth can rebound in June”, said Pantheon’s chief UK economist, Rob Wood.

Why did the economy shrink?

The drops in manufacturing came mostly due to slowed car-making, less oil and gas extraction and the pharmaceutical industry.

The fall was not larger because the services industry – the largest part of the economy – expanded, with law firms and computer programmers having a good month.

It made up for a “very weak” month for retailers, the ONS said.

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UK economy remains fragile – and there are risks and traps lurking around the corner

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UK economy remains fragile - and there are risks and traps lurking around the corner

Monthly Gross Domestic Product (GDP) figures are volatile and, on their own, don’t tell us much.

However, the picture emerging a year since the election of the Labour government is not hugely comforting.

This is a government that promised to turbocharge economic growth, the key to improving livelihoods and the public finances. Instead, the economy is mainly flatlining.

Output shrank in May by 0.1%. That followed a 0.3% drop in April.

Ministers were celebrating a few months ago as data showed the economy grew by 0.7% in the first quarter.

Hangover from artificial growth

However, the subsequent data has shown us that much of that growth was artificial, with businesses racing to get orders out of the door to beat the possible introduction of tariffs. Property transactions were also brought forward to beat stamp duty changes.

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In April, we experienced the hangover as orders and industrial output dropped. Services also struggled as demand for legal and conveyancing services dropped after the stamp duty changes.

Many of those distortions have now been smoothed out, but the manufacturing sector still struggled in May.

Signs of recovery

Manufacturing output fell by 1% in May, but more up-to-date data suggests the sector is recovering.

“We expect both cars and pharma output to improve as the UK-US trade deal comes into force and the volatility unwinds,” economists at Pantheon Macroeconomics said.

Meanwhile, the services sector eked out growth of 0.1%.

A 2.7% month-to-month fall in retail sales suppressed growth in the sector, but that should improve with hot weather likely to boost demand at restaurants and pubs.

Struggles ahead

It is unlikely, however, to massively shift the dial for the economy, the kind of shift the Labour government has promised and needs in order to give it some breathing room against its fiscal rules.

The economy remains fragile, and there are risks and traps lurking around the corner.

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Is Britain going bankrupt?

Concerns that the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, is considering tax hikes could weigh on consumer confidence, at a time when businesses are already scaling back hiring because of national insurance tax hikes.

Inflation is also expected to climb in the second half of the year, further weighing on consumers and businesses.

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