Friday newspaper round-up: Shadow banking sector, Soho House, X

9th Jan 2026 07:20

(Sharecast News) - The UK Treasury has a "limited grasp" of concerns linked to the booming shadow banking sector and may not be prepared for risks the unregulated industry poses to financial stability, peers have said. While a lack of data makes it hard to say whether the $16tn (£12tn) non-bank financial sector could bring the wider financial system to its knees, officials do not seem to be alive to the potential risks, according to a Lords financial services regulation committee report. - Guardian

The software company belonging to the Tory donor Frank Hester, a major contractor to the NHS, has paid a £50m dividend after sales and profits surged. TPP Group, which was founded by Hester in 1997 as The Phoenix Partnership, specialises in healthcare technology and provides its SystmOne software to the NHS. The company says it is used by 7,800 NHS organisations, including more than 2,600 GP practices and a third of acute mental health trusts, with 61m electronic health records stored in its database. It has also expanded abroad, including to China, the Middle East and the Caribbean. - Guardian

Soho House's $1.8bn (£1.3bn) takeover deal has been thrown into jeopardy after a key backer revealed it was struggling to fund the purchase. The private members' club revealed on Thursday that US hotel giant MCR Hotels - which is leading a consortium to buy the group - was unable to fully fund its pledge to pay $200m towards the deal. MCR is the third-largest hotel operator in the US and its portfolio includes the famous 1960s-themed TWA Hotel at JFK Airport and BT Tower in London. - Telegraph

Britain could ban Elon Musk's X amid a row over its AI undressing women and children in photographs. Sir Keir Starmer said yesterday that he had asked media regulator Ofcom for "all options to be on the table" after it emerged that child sexual abuse images had been generated using X's AI chatbot, Grok. No 10 sources pointed to the full powers of the Online Safety Act, which include fines of billions of pounds or even blocking access to X in Britain. The social media site has around 650 million users worldwide including 20 million in the UK. - Telegraph

Terry Smith has stood by his faltering investment strategy even after his main £16 billion fund underperformed the stock market for a fifth year in a row. His Fundsmith Equity portfolio returned just 0.8 per cent last year, lagging far behind the 12.8 per cent delivered by the MSCI World Index. - The Times