Here are the business stories making the headlines across Scotland and the UK this morning.
St Fergus carbon capture remains a pipe dream as £200million on hold
Six months ago, Energy Secretary Ed Miliband put on a hard hat and stood at St Fergus Gas Terminal promising £200million for the long-awaited Acorn carbon capture project with “thousands of jobs” to follow.
Acorn was billed as a cornerstone of Scotland’s energy transition – trapping climate-warning carbon from factories and power plants and burying it safely in old oil and gas fields beneath the North Sea
National Gas – the company tasked with building the crucial pipeline feeding CO2 into St Fergus – has confirmed that not a penny of the money pledged by the UK government has yet been released.
Aberdeen ‘institution’ Atholl Hotel sold to new owners
The Atholl Hotel has been bought over by new owners who have pledged to keep the Aberdeen institution going.
The four-star hotel was first put on the market in July 2023 with a £3.5million price tag, but just last month was reduced to £2.5million.
Richard Nicoll, who became the full owner of the hotel last year, said he’s leaving “knowing it’s in good hands” with the new buyers Andy Booth and Rob Gibson.
Just Eat boss steps down after £3.6bilion takeover by Prosus
The chief executive of Just Eat Takeaway is stepping down from the food-delivery group he founded as a student, after a quarter of a century marked by rapid growth and strategic misfires.
Jitse Groen’s departure comes after Prosus, the global technology investor majority-owned by South Africa’s Naspers, completed its £3.6billion takeover of the business in October.
He will be succeeded on January 1 by Roberto Gandolfo, chairman of the Just Eat supervisory board and head of Prosus Europe, subject to regulatory approval.
AI bubble is fuelled by debt, Bank of England warns
The threat posed by a potential AI bubble is being deepened by the use of debt to help underpin $5trillion of investment in the technology over the next five years, the Bank of England has warned.
In a sign of its mounting concerns about artificial intelligence, the Bank said vast spending plans unveiled by technology companies in recent months were entwining the sector ever more closely with the credit markets.
This could prove dangerous if investor sentiment towards AI changes and the sector is hit by a sell-off.