Business news live: Klarna shares soar after IPO, Musk regains richest person tag

The buy now pay later firm Klarna had their first day as a publicly traded company on Wednesday, with last night’s closing price more than 14 per cent up to give it a total market capitalisation value of $17.3bn (£12.8bn).

It marks a wildly successful start for the company on the stock market, with the past few years having been tricky to navigate for firms hoping to go public.

The move has also drawn comparisons with payments transfer firm Wise, who have spoken of an intent to move from London to New York.

The John Lewis Partnership (JLP) has posted an £88 million loss for the past half-year after being hit by increases to national insurance contributions and packaging taxes.

However, the employee-owned group, which runs the John Lewis department store chain and Waitrose grocery business, said it is still “well positioned” to deliver profit growth for the full year.

It said pre-tax losses before exceptional items grew to £34 million for the 26 weeks to July 26.

Whether you’re ordering drinks to your table in a pub or want to pay for car parking, QR codes make life simple.

A quick scan of a black-and-white grid on your mobile phone takes you straight to a website to carry out the transaction.

But that harmless-looking square can now hide a cunning scam.

Morning all – another weekend is fast approaching but there’s a lot to get through before then on the business and money side.

Tomorrow in the UK we’ll get GDP figures of course, but today there’s reaction to Klarna’s successful listing as a public company, the UK government getting hammered by both domestic and overseas companies and plenty more besides.