LORD Alan Sugar has publicly hit out at a credit card company for allegedly refusing to increase his spend limit.
It comes despite the businessman’s reported £1.138 billion net worth and his reputation as a entrepreneurial tycoon.
Taking to his X account on Monday, the billionaire – who has no qualms about speaking his mind – slammed card issuer American Express as he claimed they haven’t allowed him to borrow more money on his credit card.
He wrote: “I spent a hour on the phone with American Express. I was passed to 4 different people.”
“I was asking for an increase in my credit limit.
“Finally I got to speak to a person in the UK at Brighton who knew who I was and my financial status. However my request was refused due to their system.”
In the replies, several users were confused as to why Lord Sugar – who fronts BBC show The Apprentice – would need more money on his credit card.
One wrote: “I’m not sure why anyone worth a billion pounds needs a credit card”.
Another joked: “I have a spare 20 quid I can lend you if you’re struggling to see the month out? Just let me know.”
Responding to users questioning him, Lord Sugar explained he needs a credit card ‘to buy things’ as he ‘doesn’t carry bags of cash’.
He wrote in one response: “DO PRACTICE BEING AN IDIOT. I DON’T WALK AROUND WITH BAGS FULL OF CASH. I NEED A CREDIT CARD TO BUY THINGS .”
“I AM NOT MOANING JUST EXPOSING WHAT A BUNCH OF IDIOTS AMEX ARE,” he said in another tweet.
The Sun has reached out to American Express for comment.
The famous businessman began building his fortune by founding consumer electronics company Amstrad.
He now has a portfolio of companies under his umbrella, as well as his booming TV career on the BBC.
William Orbit, the English musician and producer best known for his work with Madonna on her beloved 1998 album “Ray of Light,” died on July 23. He was 69.
His family announced his death Friday in an Instagram post that said he died at home but didn’t specify a cause. “He will be greatly missed by us and by so many whose lives he touched through his music, friendship and kindness,” the post reads.
Born William Wainwright in London in 1956, Orbit had already established himself in the worlds of dance music and movie soundtracks — he composed the score for the 1986 hockey movie “Youngblood,” with Rob Lowe and Patrick Swayze — when he linked up with Madonna at a moment of deep personal change for the pop superstar, who’d given birth to her first child and immersed herself in a variety of spiritual practices. Together the two developed a lush yet energetic sound that combined guitars, synths and throbbing club beats.
“Ray of Light,” which sold more than 4 million copies in the United States alone, spun off hit singles including “Frozen,” “The Power of Good-Bye” and the exuberant title track; the LP was nominated for album of the year at the Grammy Awards — Madonna’s only nod for that prestigious prize — and won the award for pop vocal album. Orbit won three Grammys in all over the course of his career.
In 2021, Orbit took pains in an interview with the Guardian to share credit for “Ray of Light” with the singer herself. Madonna, he said, is “a fabulous producer. When it says ‘produced by Madonna and William Orbit,’ people don’t always give her the credit for that. But she’s as responsible as me.”
Orbit and Madonna collaborated again for “Beautiful Stranger,” a Grammy-winning single from the soundtrack of 1999’s “Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me,” and for an electro-pop cover of Don McLean’s “American Pie” that featured in the 2000 movie “The Next Best Thing,” in which Madonna starred.
He also worked with Blur, U2, Beth Orton, Pink and All Saints, and he made music under his own name, including a 2000 LP, “Pieces in a Modern Style,” with high-tech interpretations of classical pieces by the likes of Samuel Barber and Erik Satie.
More than three dozen California legislators are calling for Gov. Gavin Newsom to exempt the state’s film and TV production incentive program from a recently approved cap on corporate tax credits, warning that without action it will be “significantly kneecapped.”
Though the state’s budget has already been approved, the legislators say a solution must be devised before the end of the year so that production companies do not lose the “full value of tax credits they earned in exchange for creating middle-class entertainment industry jobs,” according to a letter dated Friday and addressed to Newsom, State Senate President Pro Tempore Monique Limón and Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas.
“Tax credits earned for creating jobs in motion picture and television production are not the same as tax credits provided for research and development,” the letter states. The legislation “creates short-term budget savings by reneging on commitments made to the entertainment industry and the working families who depend upon it for their livelihoods.”
The letter comes shortly after Newsom signed his final state budget as California’s governor, a $351.7-billion spending plan that includes new limitations on corporate tax credits.
The budget includes a provision that restricts the maximum tax credit companies can claim in a given year to $5 million or 50% of a company’s tax state tax liability, whichever is greater.
Hollywood industry representatives had warned the governor’s office that the new restrictions could affect the state’s production incentive program, which was just bolstered last year to an annual cap of $750 million.
The film and TV industry in Southern California has struggled to rebound from the effects of the pandemic, the dual writers’ and actors’ strikes in 2023 and the exodus of production to other states and countries.
Members who voted for the budget bill had believed there was a carve-out for the film and TV tax credit program, said Assemblyman Rick Chavez Zbur (D-Los Angeles), chair of the Assembly Democratic Caucus.
“I don’t think that anyone understood what this cap was, what it did and that it effectively kneecapped and reverses the progress that we made last year,” Zbur, who co-authored last year’s bill, said in an interview. “We need to have people understand that these changes, which I think people believed were minor, are really significant and will result in significant job loss if we don’t fix them.”
The new changes to the state’s film and TV tax credit program, which included expanded eligibility for additional shows and films, came after intense lobbying from studios and industry workers, who argued that more funding was necessary to lure production back from other states and countries.
Last week, the California Film Commission said the expanded tax credit program was set to deliver $6.6 billion in direct production spending in-state and more than 34,000 cast and crew jobs across the 170 total film and TV shows that received production incentives this year.
Pickford made an uncertain start to the World Cup, at fault when he was beaten at his near post when DR Congo took the lead against England in Atlanta before captain Harry Kane’s two late goals saw them through.
In the pressure cooker of the Azteca, however, Pickford had his finest game for England, with two brilliant first-half saves from Mexico striker Raul Jimenez, followed by an outstanding display of penalty-area command in a frantic second period.
“It was a very brave display of goalkeeping,” said Robinson. “I really admired what he did out there in that second half and his two saves in the first half kept England in the game. They could have been out of it by half-time if it wasn’t for him.”
Pickford won widespread praise for the way he took charge of his penalty area, taking the initiative by coming for crosses and corners on a regular basis as England, down to 10 men after Jarell Quansah was sent off early in the second half, came under siege.
“He decided that he was going to stand up. He came for crosses, made decisions to go for balls, making life easier for his defenders because of how good he was.
“The easiest thing as a goalkeeper is to stay on your line because you don’t get criticised. If you stay on your line you can’t make a mistake, but he showed maturity and bravery.
“He showed the way his game has developed by coming off his line, making those decisions, making big bold calls. That’s where you see how much he has evolved.
“Jordan took it upon himself, punched the ball, caught the ball, made life easier for his defenders.
“He doesn’t mind what players are in front of him. It doesn’t faze him. He’s played with a different back four for most games, with the full-backs alternating and a change in central defence.
“The players know him and trust him. I think there is a good relationship there.”
And Pickford’s Mexico masterclass can bolster England’s confidence as they try to overcome the dangerous Norwegians and master striker Erling Haaland, who demonstrated their threat by beating Brazil 2-0 in the last 16.
“I think Jordan Pickford’s confidence will be at an all-time high and the team’s will be as well after their win against Mexico,” added Robinson.
“I questioned them on air when Thomas Tuchel went to a back five after 71 minutes. I was thinking I wasn’t sure they would hang on, and that would have been a stick he would have been beaten with.
“It did go right and Jordan Pickford was a big part of it going right.”
Doucefleur
U.S. consumer credit fell by $0.188B in May, compared with the consensus expecting a $17.5B increase and a $20.82B increase in April (revised from $20.73B), according to data released by the Federal Reserve on Wednesday.
Total consumer credit was essentially
A steep NAV drop and a federal probe trigger a high-level departure at BlackRock.
The private credit market’s roughest stretch in years has claimed its first senior leader at a major asset manager.
BlackRock’s Phil Tseng is in the process of leaving his post as CEO of the firm’s publicly traded business development company, according to Bloomberg News.
The move comes amid a brutal year for BlackRock TCP Capital Corp. The firm marked down its net asset value twice in 2026 — by 19% in January and another 5% in May. Meanwhile, federal prosecutors in Manhattan have been reportedly probing the fund and questioning executives as part of the inquiry.
Tseng, an acqui-hire from BlackRock’s 2018 acquisition of Tennenbaum Capital Partners, remains employed for now with no set departure timeline.
Tseng’s exit echoes a pattern that emerged last fall when two auto-related borrowers collapsed and rattled private lenders. Cleveland-based First Brands filed for Chapter 11 in September after off-balance-sheet financing obscured leverage levels beyond what lenders had underwritten. Founder and CEO Patrick James resigned as the bankruptcy unfolded.
That same month, subprime auto lender Tricolor Holdings began liquidating. Federal prosecutors later indicted founder and CEO Daniel Chu and chief operating officer David Goodgame, alleging the pair systematically misled lenders to keep credit lines open. Goodgame pleaded guilty in June to six counts, including bank fraud and conspiracy, and is now cooperating with prosecutors — a deal that could put him on the stand against Chu, who has pleaded not guilty. Chu had also abruptly resigned from Origin Bancorp’s board days before Tricolor’s implosion.
Industry executives have largely characterized the two collapses as isolated fraud cases rather than evidence of systemic rot. Blue Owl co-president Craig Packer told CNBC in October that the failures “weren’t private credit stories” at all.
BlackRock CEO Larry Fink struck a similarly confident tone. On an April earnings call, he told analysts that institutional demand for private credit was “accelerating.” Still, headlines around the sector aren’t reflecting what the firm’s own client and portfolio data showed.
Redemptions from business development companies, key lenders in the private credit market, are surging. Investors requested $20.8 billion in redemptions in the first quarter alone. In some cases, those redemptions exceeded the 5% cap set by BlackRock and its rivals: Apollo Global Management, Ares Management, Blackstone, Blue Owl Capital, and KKR.
Not all private credit funds appear troubled. Goldman Sachs’ private credit fund, for example, honored all redemption requests in Q2 because it reported relatively modest private credit fund redemption requests (3.2%). The same goes for Nuveen Churchill and Oaktree with withdrawals of 3.1% to 4.5%, respectively.
But with so many of the sector’s players posting losses, Tseng’s departure suggests the reckoning is reaching up the org chart.
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Elon Musk’s space and AI firm secured first-time ratings from Moody’s, Fitch and S&P Global on Thursday, a milestone that places its debt firmly in investment-grade territory and could allow it to borrow more cheaply as it funds a vast expansion.
The endorsements arrive less than a week after the company’s record IPO, which raised around $85.7 billion (€73.8bn) in the largest initial public offering in history.
Moody’s assigned SpaceX a Baa1 long-term issuer rating with a stable outlook. In its report, the agency pointed to the firm’s “exceptional franchise strength” as the world’s leading orbital launch provider and operator of Starlink, the largest low Earth orbit satellite broadband network.
The rating is also slightly higher than Tesla’s Baa3. Reacting to the news in a reply on social media, Elon Musk wrote: “Tesla’s credit rating is ridiculously low to be honest.”
According to Moody’s, Starlink has become SpaceX’s primary cash flow generator, underpinning improving scale, wider margins and a gradual shift away from more cyclical launch revenue.
Moody’s also set out the risks. It said the rating was constrained by the heavy execution and financial demands of SpaceX’s large-scale AI buildout, marked by high capital intensity, sustained negative free cash flow and an uncertain range of returns.
The agency highlighted the company’s dependence on the next-generation Starship V3 vehicle, warning that technical setbacks or delays could pressure long-term growth.
It further pointed to elevated governance risks tied to SpaceX’s controlled structure and concentrated voting power, which it said limit independent board oversight and leave the firm heavily reliant on a single individual, Elon Musk.
However, Moody’s still projects strong revenue and earnings growth through 2028, driven chiefly by Starlink, which counted 12 million subscribers as of early June, alongside an expected turning point in the AI division.
The agency cited recent third-party compute deals with Anthropic and Google worth a combined $75 billion (€65bn) as evidence of that potential.
As for the other credit agencies, Fitch issued a BBB+ long-term issuer default rating, also with a stable outlook, citing the company’s commanding lead in commercial launch, where it has delivered more than 80% of global mass to orbit since 2023.
Meanwhile, S&P Global assigned a BBB rating with a stable outlook, weighing the strength of the launch and connectivity businesses against the risks of the nascent AI segment and the company’s substantial capital needs.
The ratings did little to steady the stock on Thursday.
SpaceX closed at $185, down more than 18% from the high of $225.6 it reached on Tuesday, when its valuation briefly topped $3 trillion (€2.6tn).
The shares fell as low as $172 during the session before paring losses, as investors weighed whether the company’s lofty valuation had run too far.
The retreat has reshuffled SpaceX’s standing among the world’s corporate giants. The company now ranks once again as the sixth most valuable listed firm by market capitalisation, having given back some of the ground it gained earlier in the week.
On Tuesday, it had overtaken Amazon to claim fifth place, and at its intraday peak, it briefly leapfrogged Microsoft into fourth before this week’s slide pushed it back down.
Even after surrendering some of those gains, SpaceX sits among the most valuable companies on the planet just a week into its life as a public firm, and the investment-grade verdict from all three major agencies marks a notable shift in how financial markets judge a business that spent years operating as a privately funded rocket maker.
Credit markets shrug off geopolitical turmoil as investors seek yield, SocGen says
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Financial expert Laura Pomfret explained what the CCJ letters are and what to do about them(Image: BBC)
More than 270,000 people across England, Wales, and Northern Ireland have received letters through the post, according to a BBC expert – and those who ignore them could find themselves facing court action. Viewers of BBC Morning Live were recently warned about the thousands of letters connected to county court judgements that have been dispatched over the past 12 months.
Expert Laura Pomfret explained to viewers that a County Court Judgement (CCJ) is essentially a court order issued in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland when someone fails to repay a debt and the creditor pursues enforcement action. She noted it could come from a council, company, landlord or a private individual – and if left unpaid, it can appear on the person’s credit report.
She said: “I think that’s what a lot of people resonate with that they’ve heard of CCJs can be bad for your credit. They stay on your credit report for six years. It can impact you getting a mortgage, even getting um a rental property. Sometimes credit checks are done, even when getting a mobile phone contract.
“It’s definitely something to avoid if someone can avoid it, and worryingly, in the first quarter of this year, over 270,000 new CCJs were registered, and that’s 17.5% up on last year. So this is obviously showing that people are struggling and in the energy industry is something that you know it’s it’s getting bigger and bigger.” She explained that these are frequently issued to those falling behind on energy bills — with the latest Ofgem figures revealing debt standing at £4.5 billion — while Energy UK puts the figure even higher at £5.5 billion.
She added: “That’s like such a big bill that lots of people are pay and people pay every month clearly struggling with it. And interestingly as well, credit card transactions in February were up 6% versus last February whereas debit transactions were only up 1%. And that also shows, you know, that people are having to rely on credit for even the most basic of bills.”
Ms Pomfret noted that receiving a CCJ typically follows a series of threatening letters, meaning the householder will already be feeling anxious. She said: “Firstly, it is upsetting to receive a formal document like that. If you get that through the post, it’s got a court seal on it it’s very formal. It might have followed you, you know, debt demand letters with red writing all over, which is overwhelming.”
“Firstly don’t be overwhelmed is easy to say but don’t be alarmed like it’s just a formal process it’s essentially a document asking you asking you for money and so it if it comes through the post you it will tell you what you owe it’ll tell you how to pay it and it will also tell you the deadline by which to pay so you have a few options when you receive a CCJ.” She explained that the first option was to repay the debt – and if someone does so within a month, it could be removed from their credit file. She said: “After that, it stays on your report, but it says that you paid it. So, please make sure you prioritise paying it.”
It’s also possible to vary the terms of a CCJ, she noted, which involves approaching the court to attempt to alter the conditions of the judgement. “Another thing that you may be able to do is apply for what’s called breathing space. So this is formerly called in England and Wales the debt respite scheme. “What this does is it gives you space from creditors, including the CCJ, and maybe gives you time to make a plan to pay it back or speak to a debt advisor, which is super helpful. The last thing that you may be able to do is you may actually be able to get the judgment or CCJ set aside. or recalled if you believed um that it’s an error.””
She stressed that there would need to be a legitimate reason to apply for it to be set aside, including submitting evidence, primarily that the individual doesn’t owe the money or that it’s a mistake. She added: “Another reason is that you didn’t receive the original claim form. So before a CCJ is issued or a decree is issued, you will get a claim form put forward and there’s an opportunity to respond.
“So you could have, for example, the wrong address, it could have been sent somewhere else. You may not have received it. Now, the court’s not going to take kindly to just saying, ‘I didn’t receive it.’ It’s kind of like the dog ate my homework sometimes for some people, but you may genuinely not have done. So that could be an option. Ultimately, you’re going to need evidence, you’re going to have to fill in the correct forms. You may have to pay fees to get it set aside, but you know, in the long run, it may be worth doing tha if you don’t want it to damage your credit.”
To find the steps and court forms involved in asking a court to vary the terms of a CCJ or decree, such as requesting to pay in instalments, or even how to get a judgment cancelled, you can click on the links below.
For England, Wales and Northern Ireland you can click here.
For Scotland you can click here., external
There temporary protection from your creditors while you get debt advice and make a plan.
In England and Wales this is called Breathing Space, and you can find information on that by clicking here., external
In Scotland this is called a moratorium, and you can find more information on that here.
