In pictures: Real Madrid legend joins golf stars at Scottish Open
Raúl, who won three Champions League titles with the Spanish giants, played alongside former Celtic captain Scott Brown and ex-Rangers defender Steven Whittaker.Now in its fourth year as a PGA Tour and DP World Tour co-sanctioned event, the Scottish Open boasts a total purse of of $9m (£6.6m) – around $1.5m (£1.1m) of which goes to the winner.More than 76,000 golf fans attended the four-day tournament last year and a recent analysis found it delivered a net economic impact of £19.2m to the Scottish economy.
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BBC News
8 minutes ago
- BBC News
NatWest bank chief predicts upturn for Scottish business
There are signs of growing optimism in Scotland's mid-market firms, according to the boss of the company that handles much of their Bank of Scotland, part of NatWest Group, says travel and tourism are showing notable signs of improvement in their outlook, despite the increased cost of payroll tax and the minimum shaft of brighter sunlight comes from technology and telecoms - but for manufacturing, June brought another month of negative Thwaite, chief executive of the NatWest Group, is referring to the firm's monthly business monitor, which draws on data from its customer base. That includes more than 100,000 Scottish business chief executive is in Scotland for two weeks to hear from those customers and from some of his 11,500 staff north of the border, covering bigger cities and a visit to Orkney. On Friday, he visited the windfarm near Eaglesham built by one of the bank's bigger clients, Scottish Power. At an accelerator unit for business start-ups, overlooking Glasgow's iconic statue of Wellington with traffic cone, he heard from the companies using NatWest facilities and offered advice to take their ideas to the next stage and one such group, all of them agree that they have to go to London for Mahapatra, 21, is fresh out of St Andrews University with an economics degree. For four years, he's been running his company, Augmentum, that links health and wellness firms with influencers. Almost all of his staff have to be in a charge also levelled at NatWest. With its name change from Royal Bank of Scotland, only retaining that brand for Scottish customers, this felt like confirmation that executive power resided in London. Thwaite, 53, is from Liverpool and a graduate of Manchester is married to a Fifer and worked in Edinburgh during his 30s. So he's alert to the risks of seeming too London-centric, reeling off the stats that suggest otherwise."Two million retail customers or households, one in three businesses, almost a third of all of our UK staff," he says. "That gives you a sense of the importance of Scotland to the NatWest Group. We are very committed."That may become more apparent in 2027, when Royal Bank of Scotland marks its 300th anniversary. There's thought already going into telling that story of heritage, while trying to look to the marks two years since he was phoned in the middle of the night with the chairman's invitation to take on the top job. Dame Alison Rose, had been forced to quit, after discussing the personal account of Nigel Farage with the BBC's business unhappy incident is not, says her successor, the reason why he's kept a low public profile, saying little to the media beyond discussion of NatWest's financial reports. His people tell me this is his first broadcast interview other than those quarterly results days. It's for radio and online but he's not for talking on most recent such results day, covering the first half of this year, had a strong set of figures. Pre-tax operating profit was up 18% on last year, to £3.6bn. The bank's share price is looking a lot been paid nearly £5m last year, it could see the chief executive get closer to his bonus-laden potential of £7.8m this guidance to markets that the next set of figures will be better than expected, Thwaite argues that his strategy - disciplined growth, simplification and a focus on risk management - is proving right and paying while he would prefer to talk about the future, the memory of another of his predecessors, Fred Goodwin, is stalking the Edinburgh International Festival as a morality tale and tragedy, borrowing from ancient Greece, of greed, power, pride and nemesis. With screen star Brian Cox in a leading role on stage and in Festival publicity, it's hard to avoid the reminders of the Fred Goodwin story, nearly 17 years on."It was relatively early in my career," Thwaite recalls. He was working in Edinburgh, with UK business customers. "I didn't know Fred personally. The bank had expanded significantly during that time. And the UK bank was actually not dissimilar to what it is now - a very strong retail bank, a very strong business bank."And a very bloated and vulnerable international and investment bank."I was shocked and surprised," he said."What it taught me was how important a role banks play in the economy and for customers, and when things go wrong how impactful that can be on communities, on society and on countries."Those who were young and in financial services at that time, and I include myself, have been shaped by the financial crisis. "The way we think about banking now, how the regulators and government think about banking is very different."Thwaite added: "I feel a great sense of responsibility to ensure that the bank is run in a thoughtful, safe, informed way... to learn the lessons from the past and run the bank really well for our customers and also for our colleagues, because they have been incredibly loyal over the last 16 or 17 years, for which I'm very grateful." Just over a fifth of staff have remained with RBS/NatWest since the crisis. For them, he says, the sale in May of the final tranche of UK government shares, having once held 82% of them, was an important symbolic doesn't change the strategy, but it does give the bank more vulnerability to takeover bids and more freedom to take over others. Recent acquisitions have included parts of Sainsbury's Bank and Metro further mergers and acquisitions 'probable', Thwaite says NatWest's market valuation is a deterrent against opportunities to acquire would be approached carefully and in a disciplined way, and would have to beat the return on internal opportunities to invest, in technology for instance. Branch closures Artificial intelligence carries a threat to finance sector jobs, but the bank boss says it's being used to do routine tasks that free up staff time for talking with customers, while helping to root out fraud and financial crime."For AI, it's still relatively early days," he says. "I see it as complementing our brilliant colleagues, but I think we'll know more over the next five or six years."There's a block on further branch closures, but only until next year. Now down to 68 Scottish branches plus bank vans, Thwaite sounds keen to retain that visibility."The successful banks of the future will combine very strong physical presence and service from bank colleagues at real moments of truth - whether that's buying a home, buying a business, buying new premises, but combined with brilliant digital experience, because our customers want and expect that."I think it's important we play a very active role in communities and I want our people to be visible and effective in them."With that, he's off to Aberdeen and Orkney, to see the islands' flying branch and to listen to the oil and gas tax weighs heavily on his customers, he says, as does the threat of further increases at the next Westminster budget."That's definitely in business owners' minds and at board tables," he says, with a message for Chancellor Rachel Reeves. "The role of business, the role of financial services needs to be at the heart of that growth agenda. "Our role is to ensure that we're supporting businesses who have growth aspirations, and I think it's very important that the policy agenda is supportive of that."
Daily Mail
38 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
Tommy Fleetwood remains 6/4 favourite to win the St. Jude Championship - while Scottie Scheffler is hot on his heels at 7/4
Tommy Fleetwood remains the favourite to claim his maiden career PGA Tour title today - with the Brit 6/4 favourite to reign supreme at the St. Jude Championship. At the time of writing - Fleetwood holds a one-shot lead at 14-under from countryman Justin Rose - and he will look to hold on to that ascendency on the fourth and final day of play in Memphis today. Meanwhile, world No. 1 Scottie Scheffler had a great showing in Round 3 on Saturday - with the American shooting 5-under to improve to third on the leaderboard and now sits just two shots adrift of leader Fleetwood. As a result - Scheffler has shortened considerably in the market - with the four-time major winner a 7/4 second-favourite. The aforementioned Rose is a 9/2 third-favourite with Sky Bet to secure his 12th PGA Tour victory, while J.J. Spaun and Andrew Novak round out the five favourites in the market at 12/1 and 18/1 respectively. Spaun and Novak are tied for fourth on the leaderboard at 11-under. Sky Bet favourites to win the St. Jude Championship: Tommy Fleetwood 6/4 Scottie Scheffler 7/4 Justin Rose 9/2 J.J. Spaun 12/1 Andrew Novak 18/1
BBC News
38 minutes ago
- BBC News
McGinn in fresh Villa contract talks
Scotland midfielder John McGinn has held further contract talks with Aston Villa amid a failed bid by Everton. (Football Scotland, external)Celtic could miss out on transfer target Jakob Breum with Go Ahead Eagles now under no rush to sell the winger following Oliver Antman's transger to Rangers. (Football Insider, external)Aberdeen have agreed a deal with AC Milan for Serboan Marko Lazetic. (Daily Record, external) Rangers could face being without four of their main players over the festive period due to the rescheduled African Cup of Nations. (Glasgow Times, external)Former Celtic and Hibernian forward Anthony Stokes has signed for ex-UFC fighter Conor McGregor's pub team Black Forge FC. (Scottish Sun, external)Rangers midfielder Lyall Cameron has apologised to former club Dundee after comments midweek implied the Dens Park side weren't a full-time club. (The Courier, external)
