Good morning and welcome to the Business Breakfast live blog for Wednesday, October 11.

I'm Jonathon Manning and I'm running the live blog this week, to bring you updates on all the breaking business news from across the North East and beyond.

This live blog covers the latest big stories from the North East business community as well as national news and FTSE announcements - anything and everything from the world of business basically.

A cyber attack that targeted credit reference agency Equifax has led to information being accessed relating to almost 700,000 UK consumers.

Equifax discovered the hack in July, but only informed consumers last month. The information included partial credit card details, phone numbers, and driver's licence numbers.

North East car dealership Vertu Motors has reported flat turnover growth for the six months ending August 31 2017.

The firm generated £1.45bn of turnover during the first half of the year, which is the same as the first six months of the 2016/17 financial year.

If you'd like to contribute, tweet at @jnlbusiness to share your opinions, drop me a line at jonathon.manning@trinitymirror.com or tweet me at @JonnyAManning.