Good morning. Today we're talking about the real life billionaire succession, the demise of a vegan firm and a social media firm goes dark.

Big Stories

Billionaire succession

Billionaire investor George Soros is handing over the reins of his $25bn philanthropic empire to his 37-year-old son Alex, the fourth of the 92-year-old’s five children. Alex will now control his father’s Open Society Foundations, which donates about $1.5bn a year to advance human rights and democratic governments. The younger Soros told the Wall Street Journal that he’s “more political” than his liberal dad and will push to fund projects for gender equity and abortion rights. Soros Senior was born in Hungary but moved to London after the World War Two. He gained notoriety in the UK after making $1bn correctly betting the pound would fall in 1992.

Vegan downfall

Meatless Farm is set to collapse into administration after failing to find new investment to save the plant-based brand. Founded in 2016 the Leeds-based firm produces a range of pea protein meat substitutes and ready meals that it sells in the UK and US. Meatless has accumulated almost £50m in losses in the past three years and rapid sales growth in its early years have now gone into reverse. The collapse follows a weakening of demand in the crowded plant-based category coupled with soaring costs for ingredients, energy, labour and packaging. Last month, sausage producer Heck said it was reducing its range of meat-free options citing a lack of customer appetite.

Social media platform goes dark

Yesterday a major boycott begun on Reddit as thousands of the site’s administrators protested new changes to the social media platform. The online forum known for its viral content, is among the top 20 most popular sites on the web with 430m monthly active users. However this week major subreddits — the message boards on the site devoted to various topics — will lock out users to broadcast their disapproval of Reddit’s plan to charge third-party apps that rely on the site with hefty new fees. Currently developers can tap into Reddit’s wealth of data to build their own apps for free. But Reddit said that this data is valuable and that it doesn’t make business sense to keep giving it away for free. The new fees will bolster Reddit’s revenue stream and could therefore boost its valuation ahead of its listing on the stock market later this year.

Elsewhere...

Cutting back: Waitrose is cutting prices on hundreds of products for the second time in a year in a bid to attract customers.

Settling up: JPMorgan has agreed to pay $290m to settle a lawsuit by Jeffrey Epstein's victims, resolving a large part of litigation over the bank's relationship with the disgraced financier.

Strike postponed: Next weekend's strikes by Heathrow security staff have been postponed as the union Unite considers a pay offer.

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Number Of The Day

£7,300

How much more the average London household is expected to pay in mortgage costs this year as interest rates rise. In total UK homeowners remortgaging over the next two years face paying £9bn more.

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