Business

The growing use of weight-loss injections could dent demand for sausage rolls and pastries at Greggs, potentially depriving the bakery chain of some of its most lucrative customers, according to City analysts.

The warning comes as Greggs continues to grapple with slower sales growth since mid-2024, a period that has prompted investor speculation over whether the UK has reached “peak Greggs”. The company has attributed its softer performance to fragile consumer confidence and last summer’s unusually hot weather, which reduced footfall, while some shareholders have questioned whether its rapid store expansion has begun to cannibalise like-for-like sales.

Analysts at Jefferies have now added another potential headwind: the rising popularity of weight-loss drugs such as Mounjaro and Wegovy. In a note to clients, the broker said the trend could represent an “enduring challenge” for Greggs and weigh on its longer-term growth prospects.

The drugs work by mimicking the GLP-1 hormone, which suppresses appetite and increases feelings of fullness. Jefferies pointed to US research suggesting that users of such treatments tend to cut back particularly on high-calorie, ultra-processed savoury foods, a category that includes many of Greggs’ core products.

The analysts estimate that as many as four million people in the UK may now be using weight-loss jabs, equivalent to around 7.5 per cent of the adult population.

“It may only be 10 per cent of GLP-1 users that would shop at Greggs,” the Jefferies team said. “But that 10 per cent would be high-BMI individuals consuming lots of calories and, we would infer, likely some of Greggs’ best customers. Those customers could go from being among the most valuable to potentially never spending a penny with the business again.”

Roisin Currie, Greggs’ chief executive, acknowledged last month that there was “no doubt” weight-loss injections were having an impact on consumer behaviour. In response, the chain has begun expanding its healthier ranges, including products such as egg pots, to reflect shifting preferences.

Despite those efforts, Jefferies said the spread of weight-loss drugs should be seen as a “structural issue” rather than a passing trend. The broker cut its forecasts for Greggs’ like-for-like sales growth and profit margins and downgraded the stock to “hold” from “buy”, underlining the growing uncertainty facing one of Britain’s most recognisable high-street brands.

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Weight-loss jabs threaten Greggs’ growth, analysts warn

The UK government must overhaul its approach to public sector procurement if it is serious about backing British innovation, according to Justin Megawarne, managing partner at Megaslice, who has accused Whitehall of hiding behind rigid frameworks and “arbitrary scoring systems”.

Megawarne’s comments follow the decision to award Fujitsu a place on a government framework worth up to £984 million, despite the company’s central role in developing and supporting the Post Office Horizon IT system. The system led to the wrongful prosecution of 736 subpostmasters across the UK and has since become one of the most serious miscarriages of justice in modern British history.

Fujitsu had previously written to the government committing not to bid for new public contracts until the public inquiry into the Horizon scandal had concluded. Its inclusion on the framework has reignited debate about how the government selects suppliers — and whether it is doing enough to support genuine domestic innovation.

“If an organisation has performed so badly for its customers that it has become a national scandal and warranted its own TV drama, surely it’s time the government spent its money elsewhere,” Megawarne said.

“With so much public money wasted on technology that isn’t fit for purpose, and in this case fraudulently criminalised people, the budget for real innovation continues to shrink. We are failing to support the next generation of founders who are building genuinely innovative businesses, instead recycling contracts to the same organisations that have failed us before.”

Megawarne argues that government procurement processes are fundamentally flawed, relying too heavily on mechanistic evaluation tools that struggle to identify real value.

“Current approaches to adopting new technology are overcomplicated and painfully slow,” he said. “Scoring sheets don’t capture innovation. If the government actually engaged with businesses instead of keeping them at arm’s length, we could save millions of pounds currently wasted on the wrong solutions.”

Rather than relying on civil servants to assess complex and novel technologies, Megawarne believes the government should enlist independent industry leaders with proven innovation credentials.

“Let experts judge ideas using their experience and judgement, not a spreadsheet,” he said. “Yes, some will say that sounds unfair, but it dramatically increases the chances of finding a genuinely game-changing solution. You simply need to ensure those experts have no conflicts of interest.”

He added that procurement decisions are too often driven by price rather than outcomes. “Spending less on the wrong solution isn’t saving money at all. Much of what’s been invested in so far has failed to solve the day-to-day problems government departments actually face.”

Megawarne also criticised what he sees as the government’s default preference for large, established suppliers, regardless of past performance.

“The mindset is still, ‘no one ever got fired for buying IBM’,” he said. “It’s a way of avoiding responsibility. If something goes wrong, you can always point at the big name.”

In the case of Fujitsu and the Post Office Horizon system, he said the failure was neither minor nor isolated. “This wasn’t a simple error. It destroyed lives. The company apologised only when it was forced to, and repeatedly resisted compensation. Yet here we are again, awarding more public contracts.”

According to Megawarne, the same pattern plays out repeatedly across government IT spending. “Huge consultancies win major contracts, fail spectacularly, and face no real consequences. It’s a cycle of failure with zero accountability.”

At the heart of the problem, Megawarne believes, is an institutional aversion to risk.

“True innovation exists in the UK, and much of it sits with founders who are building solutions that could genuinely transform public services,” he said. “But the government is fundamentally risk-averse.”

He warned that founders are being steered down the wrong path, optimising for procurement scorecards rather than solving real problems. “They chase perfect scores on frameworks that measure the wrong things, while innovation is sidelined in favour of cost-cutting and box-ticking.”

“If the government genuinely wants to unlock British innovation,” Megawarne added, “it needs to stop prioritising spreadsheets over people, and start backing ideas that actually work.”

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UK government must end its boycott of British innovation, says Megaslice

NatWest has agreed a £2.7 billion deal to acquire Evelyn Partners in its largest corporate takeover since the banking group was rescued by taxpayers during the financial crisis, and its most significant acquisition since returning to full private ownership.

The purchase of the wealth manager from private equity firms Permira and Warburg Pincus, combined with NatWest’s existing Coutts franchise, will create the UK’s largest private banking and wealth management business. The enlarged group will oversee £127 billion of assets under management and administration.

The deal, which NatWest said would deliver annual run-rate synergies of around £100 million, raises the prospect of job losses over time, although the Evelyn Partners brand will be retained initially. Around 150,000 affluent UK families will see responsibility for their investments move under the NatWest umbrella.

Edinburgh-based NatWest beat off rival bidders including Barclays and Royal Bank of Canada to secure the acquisition, as Britain’s major lenders step up their focus on wealth management to offset an expected decline in interest income as central bank rates begin to fall. Rivals HSBC and Lloyds have already expanded their presence in the sector.

Paul Thwaite, NatWest’s chief executive, said the transaction would strengthen the bank’s ability to support savers and investors. “At a time when the benefits of saving and investing are increasingly part of the national conversation, we can help customers to make more of their money through a broader range of services, while also helping to drive growth and investment across the economy,” he said.

The acquisition is NatWest’s biggest since its ill-fated joint purchase of ABN Amro in 2008, when the group was still known as Royal Bank of Scotland. That deal contributed to a crisis that culminated in a £45.5 billion taxpayer bailout. NatWest was returned to full private ownership in May last year, after the government sold its remaining shares at an overall loss of £10.5 billion.

Evelyn Partners was put up for sale last August following the spin-out of its professional services arm to Apax Partners. Formed from the 2020 merger of Tilney and Smith & Williamson, the business employed around 2,400 people at the end of 2024 and oversaw £63 billion of client assets. It has been led since 2023 by Paul Geddes, a former Royal Bank of Scotland executive who previously oversaw the stock market listing of Direct Line.

Thwaite, 54, was appointed chief executive in February 2024 after Dame Alison Rose stepped down following a row over the closure of Nigel Farage’s Coutts bank account. He has repeatedly stressed that there is a “very high bar” for acquisitions.

Analysts expressed surprise that NatWest had emerged as the winning bidder. Benjamin Toms of RBC Capital Markets said: “We are somewhat surprised that NatWest has come out on top, given how tightly the chief executive holds the bank’s purse strings. While this may be seen as a bolt-on deal, it is potentially transformational, filling a clear gap in NatWest’s affluent wealth offering.”

Permira has owned Evelyn Partners since 2014, backing its expansion into a major wealth manager. NatWest said the transaction would be funded from existing resources and would reduce its core equity tier one capital ratio by around 130 basis points.

Since taking the helm, Thwaite has already overseen the acquisition of much of Sainsbury’s Bank and the purchase of a £2.5 billion mortgage book from Metro Bank, insisting that any deal must be both financially and strategically compelling.

The transaction comes amid a broader shake-up in the wealth management sector. Royal Bank of Canada acquired Brewin Dolphin for £1.6 billion in 2022, while US firm Raymond James bought Charles Stanley for £279 million. An initial public offering of Evelyn Partners had also been under consideration, raising questions about the health of the UK’s flotations market.

Alongside the deal announcement, NatWest unveiled a new £750 million share buyback ahead of its full-year results later this week. Shares in the bank fell around 3 per cent in early trading as investors weighed the impact of the acquisition on future capital returns.

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NatWest seals £2.7bn Evelyn Partners takeover in biggest deal since bailout

As artificial intelligence continues to redefine how information is created, summarized, and distributed, news organizations face one of the most significant structural challenges in modern media history.

Search engines increasingly rely on AI-generated responses, social platforms prioritize algorithmic summaries, and audiences often encounter journalism through fragments rather than full articles.

At the center of this transformation is Dev Pragad, President, Chief Executive Officer, and co-owner of Newsweek, who has emerged as one of the most outspoken media leaders addressing the long-term implications of AI on journalism. Rather than framing artificial intelligence as a short-term disruption, Pragad has described it as a permanent shift that requires publishers to rethink the foundations of their business models.z

AI and the Changing Economics of Information

For more than two decades, digital publishing operated on a relatively stable formula: create content, rank in search engines, generate page views, and monetize traffic through advertising. Artificial intelligence has begun to destabilize that system.

AI-powered interfaces now summarize news events, answer complex questions, and extract insights directly from publisher content—often without directing users back to the source. This development has intensified concerns across the media industry about declining referral traffic and diminishing visibility.

According to Pragad, this trend signals the end of an era in which traffic alone could serve as the primary indicator of success. Instead, publishers must now prepare for a future in which distribution is increasingly mediated by AI systems rather than traditional search results.

He has noted that while AI tools rely heavily on journalism as a source of information, the value exchange between platforms and publishers remains uncertain. This imbalance has prompted Newsweek to focus on resilience rather than dependency.

From Traffic Optimization to Structural Resilience

Under Dev Pragad’s leadership, Newsweek has gradually shifted its internal priorities away from pure traffic maximization toward what he describes as organizational resilience.

The goal is not to eliminate traffic as a metric, but to ensure that the business remains sustainable even as traffic becomes less predictable.

This philosophy represents a notable departure from earlier digital media strategies that prioritized viral reach and search dominance above all else.

AI as Both Threat and Catalyst

While artificial intelligence presents clear risks to publishers, Pragad has also characterized it as a catalyst for overdue change within the media industry.

In his public commentary, he has emphasized that journalism has long been overly dependent on intermediaries—search engines, social networks, and aggregators—that control distribution but not content creation. AI, in this view, merely accelerates a dynamic that already existed.

Rather than attempting to outcompete AI systems directly, Newsweek’s strategy has been to focus on what AI cannot easily replicate:

original reporting
expert interviews
verified data-driven rankings
long-form analysis
video and visual storytelling

By investing in these areas, the organization aims to preserve relevance even as automated summaries become more prevalent.

Developing AI-Resistant Content Formats

One area of focus under Pragad has been the expansion of editorial formats that resist commoditization.

For example, structured research projects and rankings require proprietary datasets, methodological transparency, and editorial oversight—elements that are difficult for generative systems to reproduce independently. These formats also serve dual purposes: reinforcing editorial authority while supporting diversified revenue streams.

Similarly, Newsweek has increased its investment in video programming, which plays a growing role in how audiences engage with news across platforms. Video interviews, panel discussions, and explainers maintain context and nuance that text-based AI summaries often lack.

In an AI-mediated environment, such formats help anchor content to the originating brand rather than allowing it to dissolve into anonymous information.

Revenue Diversification in the AI Era

A central theme of Newsweek’s AI resilience strategy has been the diversification of revenue sources.

Historically, programmatic advertising accounted for a large share of digital publisher income. However, fluctuating traffic patterns and declining ad yields have exposed the vulnerabilities of that model.

Under Pragad’s leadership, Newsweek has pursued revenue streams that are less sensitive to algorithmic shifts. These initiatives are designed to ensure that financial stability does not depend exclusively on how AI systems choose to surface content.

By broadening its commercial foundation, Newsweek aims to maintain editorial independence even as external platforms evolve.

Brand Identity in an AI-Fragmented Landscape

Another dimension of AI resilience involves brand visibility. As news increasingly appears in partial or summarized form, recognition becomes more difficult.

Pragad has argued that strong brand identity functions as a signal of trust in environments where users may not encounter full articles or traditional layouts. This belief informed Newsweek’s recent redesign, which sought to unify typography, visuals, and editorial tone across formats.

The objective was not aesthetic modernization alone, but strategic clarity: ensuring that when Newsweek content appears within AI-generated environments, social feeds, or multimedia platforms, it remains identifiable.

In an era of fragmentary consumption, brand coherence becomes a form of editorial defense.

Editorial Trust in the Age of Synthetic Content

The proliferation of AI-generated text has intensified concerns around misinformation and authenticity. In response, Pragad has emphasized the importance of transparency, sourcing, and accountability.

As synthetic content becomes easier to produce at scale, established news organizations face renewed responsibility to differentiate verified journalism from automated narratives.

Newsweek’s editorial framework under Pragad stresses the role of human judgment, fact-checking, and institutional oversight—elements that AI systems depend on but cannot independently guarantee.

In this context, trust becomes not only an ethical imperative but a competitive advantage.

Leadership Perspective on AI Regulation and Collaboration

While public debate continues around AI regulation, Pragad has advocated for dialogue between technology companies and publishers rather than unilateral solutions.

He has suggested that sustainable information ecosystems will require clearer frameworks governing attribution, licensing, and value sharing between AI platforms and content creators.

Although no single regulatory model has yet emerged, Pragad has positioned Newsweek to remain adaptable regardless of outcome—another reflection of the organization’s resilience-first mindset.

What Dev Pragad’s Strategy Signals for the Industry

The approach taken by Dev Pragad offers broader insight into how media organizations might navigate AI disruption.

Rather than relying on short-term defensive measures, his strategy emphasizes:

long-term adaptability
diversified economic foundations
brand-centered distribution
editorial credibility as infrastructure

This model does not eliminate the challenges posed by artificial intelligence, but it reduces existential risk by ensuring that journalism’s value extends beyond raw traffic.

Conclusion

As artificial intelligence reshapes the flow of global information, the decisions made by media leaders today will influence the future of journalism for decades.

Through a focus on resilience, diversification, and editorial trust, Dev Pragad has positioned Newsweek to confront these changes with strategic clarity rather than reactionary fear.

In an age when information increasingly travels through automated systems, his approach highlights a central truth: while technology may transform distribution, the enduring value of journalism lies in credibility, context, and human judgment.

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Dev Pragad and Newsweek’s Strategy for Building AI Resilience in Modern Journalism