(Reuters) -IHG said on Tuesday finance industry veteran Deanna Oppenheimer will become the Holiday Inn-owner's first female chair when she replaces long-serving Chairman Patrick Cescau after his retirement later this year.

BOSTON/LONDON (Reuters) -Larry Fink, chief executive of the world's biggest asset manager BlackRock Inc, has defended its focus on the interests of society as well as on profits as business sense, but drew criticism from campaigners for not going far enough.

Goldman Sachs Group Inc reported fourth-quarter profit on Tuesday that missed market expectations as weak trading activity overshadowed a bumper year for mergers and acquisitions for Wall Street's premier investment bank, sending its shares down 2%.

LONDON (Reuters) -British employers hired a record number of staff last month and labour shortages deepened, increasing the chance that the Bank of England will raise interest rates again next month, but pay was squeezed by rapidly rising inflation.

Goldman Sachs Group Inc reported a fall in fourth-quarter profit on Tuesday due to weak trading activity, but a bumper year for mergers and acquisitions helped Wall Street's premier investment bank post record full-year profits.

High-flying tech stocks, the darling of the pandemic, are the top shunned counters in the opening weeks of 2022 as investors see a flurry of rate hikes from central banks as the top risk to markets, investor surveys said on Tuesday.