| Everywhere you look there seem to be signs that Britain and its businesses are shrinking — whether that's banking, real estate or energy suppliers. Take HSBC. The London-based, Asia-focused bank has endure management and shareholder woes in recent months, in some way mirroring the UK's increasingly fractious relationship with China. The bank said today it was selling its Canadian business to Royal Bank of Canada for C$13.5 billion ($10 billion). Bloomberg has been reporting in recent months how HSBC is eyeing acquisitions in Singapore and India and expanding its private banking in mainland China. No word on going bigger in Britain. US rival Goldman Sachs, which we reported today is among investment banks in the US and Europe trying to get $42 billion of buyout debt off their balance sheets before Christmas, is reducing its London footprint as well.  Goldman Sachs's London HQ. Photographer: Jason Alden/Bloomberg The New York-based lender is shifting staff to Milan to bolster its European offices post-Brexit, Bloomberg's William Shaw and Tommaso Ebhardt report. The slow bleed of banking talent to the continent since the 2016 vote to leave the European Union shows no sign of stopping. Global firms operating in the UK are also contending with increasing regulation. Mastercard today lost a bid to narrow the size of the UK's largest ever class action lawsuit over its payment fees; appeal judges rejected moves to exclude about 3 million people who died since the claim was first filed. And the government is planning to bring a controversial and long-in-the-making Online Safety Bill to Parliament next week. That could significantly tighten rules around how tech giants including Twitter and Meta operate. There's bucketloads more woe on London's property market. For starters, prices of high-end properties are forecast to drop 3% next year, even as Dubai grows a resounding 13.5%. We're already seeing signs of the slowdown in the wider UK housing market — mortgage approvals in October fell to the lowest since the early stages of the pandemic, according to the latest Bank of England data. The one exception to shrinking Britannia seems to be its non-white population. In England and Wales, new census data showed that the proportion of people who identify as Asian rose from 7.5% to 9.3% of the population of 59.6 million between 2011 and 2021; the Black population increased from 3.3% to 4%, the Office for National Statistics said. And London can still certainly claim one crown: It remains the country's most multi-cultural region. The top bosses of US oil and gas companies are speaking less and less about climate and carbon emissions, a signal that the industry's public focus on ESG over the past couple of years may be fading. A Bloomberg analysis of quarterly conference calls held by 172 American oil and gas companies shows how terms such as "climate change," "energy transition" and "net zero" have come up with gradually less frequency in the most recent rounds of conversations with analysts and investors. Read the full story from Gerson Freitas Jr and Raeedah Wahid. | 
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