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The average UK house price has risen above ÂŁ300,000 for the first time, according to Halifax, after prices increased 0.7 per cent in January. The average house price is now ÂŁ300,077, up 1 per cent on a year ago.

“While that’s undoubtedly a milestone figure, and activity levels show a resilient market, affordability remains a challenge for many would-be buyers,” said Amanda Bryden, head of mortgages at Halifax.

Halifax expects house prices to increase between 1 per cent and 3 per cent this year, broadly in line with other forecasters.

There continues to be wide regional variance within the UK. House prices rose more than 5 per cent year on year in Scotland and Northern Ireland, while the South East, South West, London and eastern England all saw annual declines of more than 1 per cent.

Victrex (VCT) reported a soft start to the year as seasonal weakness in December weighed on first-quarter performance at the speciality polymers group. Shares dipped about 4 per cent in morning trading.

Operationally, volumes fell 4 per cent to 858 tonnes and revenues were 6 per cent lower at ÂŁ62.4mn. However, a stronger January means year-to-date volumes are now in line with the prior year, led by resilient demand in Energy & Industrial, while Medical remains slightly behind.

Management reiterated that profits will be second-half weighted and said full-year guidance was unchanged, including expectations of low-to-mid single-digit volume growth. The company is also targeting at least ÂŁ10mn of annualised cost savings to be realised by 2027 under its profit improvement plan.

Broker Peel Hunt left forecasts unchanged, valuing Victrex on a forward price/earnings multiple of around 17.5 times and describing 2026 as a “reset year”, with an assumed roughly 40/60 split between first- and second-half profits.

At the third time of trying Rio Tinto (RIO) and Glencore (GLEN) couldn’t get together.

The first time was over a decade ago, and the two miners started the dance again last year, which brought on the exit of former Rio boss Jakob Stausholm. The question now is whether another buyer arrives – potentially BHP (BHP) – or if Glencore opts for the Anglo American (AAL) approach and restructures to make a future tie-up easier. This would involve spinning off coal, using a recently established Australian subsidiary.

“Glencore will probably now implement its own ‘internal M&A’, possibly IPOing its coal assets in Australia, and may do partnership deals for some of its individual assets, similar to the minority stake sale announced yesterday for its two copper mines in the Democratic Republic of Congo,” said Maurizio Carulli, an analyst at Quilter Cheviot.

Given the strong Australian reaction to Rio taking on Glencore, BHP now attempting a full buyout looks unlikely. A columnist for the Australian Financial Review, Joe Aston, said Glencore’s copper assets would “never compensate for the cultural cancer they come with”, citing the company’s long history of corruption.

RBC Capital Markets analyst Ben Davis said the focus would be value, rather than morals.

“There is a chance that BHP now steps in, but the challenge will be explaining to value-conscious Australian investors how they see the value in Glencore when Rio Tinto didn’t,” he said. Bloomberg reported that Glencore’s management was looking for a 45 per cent premium to get the deal done, giving the smaller company 40 per cent of the combined entity.

Read more on the failed deal here.