Here are the business stories making the headlines across Aberdeen, Scotland and the UK this morning.
France's government under pressure after weekend of widespread violence
France's Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu is holding a crisis cabinet meeting on Monday to assess a weekend of violence and looting across the country, in what were some of the worst scenes of public disorder in modern French history.
On Saturday over half a million mainly peaceful protesters demonstrated against rising living costs and dwindling access to decent public services, including a good state education. But the protests turned nasty after groups of black-clad, masked activists and vandals appeared.
An estimated 1,500 shops and businesses were looted and destroyed. Riot police fired tear gas and turned water cannon on crowds. They were seen hitting people with batons in several places. France's interior ministry said about 1,000 police officers were injured on Saturday, seven of them seriously.
Read the BBC article here.
Aberdeen’s Codona’s bounces back with six-figure profits after difficult two years
After two years of sharp falls in profits, Aberdeen’s Codona’s Amusement Park has reversed the trend with a significant increase.
Newly filed accounts for the long-running family business show pre-tax profits rose to £575,300 for the year ending January 31, 2026.
That is in stark contrast to the £36,400 recorded the previous year, following profits of £411,000 in 2024 and £1.4million in 2023.
Read the full story in The P&J.
Inflation and rising national debt loom over first Healey budget
The tough economic backdrop to John Healey’s first budget will be laid bare this week with new data set to show rising inflation, tens of billions of pounds of government borrowing and historic levels of youth joblessness.
A deluge of figures published by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) will show the challenge facing the chancellor and Andy Burnham, the prime minister, as they prepare to hit the economy with more tax increases next week.
The ONS is expected to report on Wednesday that inflation jumped to 3.4 per cent on an annual basis in September, the steepest rate this year and up from 3.1 per cent in the previous month, according to the consensus forecast among City analysts.
Read more in The Times.
SNP transport chief calls out ‘unacceptable’ vandal attacks that saw Dyce buses pulled from P&J Live
SNP transport chief Stephen Flynn says drivers face “profoundly unacceptable” behaviour as he reacted to a decision to temporarily pull buses from the P&J Live after dark.
The Stagecoach 727 service will not operate between 6pm and 11pm until the end of the October holidays in a bid to protect drivers and passengers.
Bus bosses took action on Thursday night following a resurgence of antisocial behaviour blighting vehicles at the complex.
Read more in The Press and Journal.
Andrew Bailey warns of threat from AI agents
The Bank of England governor has said he is worried people could be “misled” about who is responsible when AI agents mishandle financial transactions, as he called for regulators to get a better grip on the concerns.
“You can create what I would call economic agents, you can’t create legal agents, not in most of our systems anyway,” Andrew Bailey said. “The question of responsibility, and therefore liability, and therefore risk management is very, very relevant here. I worry a bit that people can get misled about that.”
He added that regulators have “got to address” what he terms the “agentic issue,” referring to the rapidly increased use of AI agents to oversee things such as payments or moving money between bank accounts.
Find out more in The Times.
Broadband investors warn blocking takeover would undermine UK’s image
Investors at the centre of a £2bn deal that could kickstart consolidation in Britain’s embattled broadband industry have warned that any move to block the takeover would undermine the UK’s reputation as a “reliable home for long-term investment”.
The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) found earlier this month that a proposal by shareholders in Virgin Media O2 to buy Netomnia, the country’s fourth largest broadband operator, could result in a “substantial lessening of competition” in the provision of wholesale broadband services because of the overlap between the two networks.
The finding was a blow to Nexfibre, a joint venture between the owners of Virgin Media O2, the UK’s second largest broadband provider, and InfraVia Capital, the French private equity firm, which has argued that the deal would help build an eight million-home fibre challenger to BT’s Openreach.
Read more in The Times.