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Economics
Interest rates: The Bank of England cut interest rates by 1 percentage
point to 2 per cent, the lowest level since 1951. In a statement
accompanying the announcement, the Bank’s rate-setting committee indicated
that more cuts could be on the way to prevent the economy entering a deep
recession.
House prices: Figures from Halifax, the lender, showed that house
prices fell by 2.6 per cent in November, and by 16.1 per cent in the year to
November, the fastest pace since its series began. The average property is
worth £163,605, down from nearly £200,000 in August 2007.
Eurozone interest rates: The European Central Bank ordered a record
three-quarter point cut in eurozone interest rates to 2.5 per cent, their
lowest since mid-2006, and bowed to criticism that it has been too cautious
in combating the recession gripping the 15- nation bloc.
Eurozone GDP: Initial estimates from the EU’s statistics office showed
that the eurozone fell into its first recession after falling investment and
weaker trade caused GDP to fall by 0.2 per cent in the third quarter, after
a 0.2 per cent fall in the second quarter. Two quarters of shrinking output
defines a technical recession.
US factory orders: The US Commerce Department said that new orders to
factories had fallen in October by a further 5.1 per cent, down for the
third consecutive month, to $407 billion (£276 billion). It was the biggest
drop in orders since an 8.5 per cent plunge in July 2000.
Banking
& finance
Credit Suisse: The Swiss bank said that it plans to cut 5,300 staff, or
11 per cent of its workforce.
Hedge funds: A European Union official said that hedge funds will be
regulated after a public consultation that is taking place.
Commerzbank: The German bank said it will sack an additional 200 City
workers on top of the 1,000 job losses already planned. It announced the
reductions, which are deeper than expected, in e-mails to staff in its
London office and at Dresdner Kleinwort, its takeover target.
Prudential Financial: The US life insurance group said that it plans to
sell its minority stake in the Wachovia Securities brokerage to Wells Fargo,
the US bank, for $5 billion (£3.41 billion) and will seek capital from the
US Treasury Department’s financial rescue plan to bolster its finances.
Construction
& property
Bellway: The Newcastle-based housebuilder said its sales rates were
down by more than 50 per cent on last year after trading conditions remained
“extremely testing”. Its order book at the end of November stood at £340
million, down from £677 million in 2007.
Consumer
goods
Portmeirion: The ceramics and household goods maker, based in
Stoke-on-Trent, said that its full-year profits will be significantly below
market expectations, with its sales in the United States down by 13 per
cent.
Heineken: The Dutch brewer said it will close the Beamish &
Crawford brewery in Cork, acquired as part of its takeover of Scottish &
Newcastle, with the loss of 120 jobs. Production will move to its nearby
Murphy brewry.
Engineering
Rolls-Royce: The engine maker said that it planned to work with Areva,
the French nuclear power group, and Balfour Beatty, the construction
company, on the next generation of UK nuclear power plants.
New car sales: Brazil’s new car sales fell during November, for the
second consecutive month. They slid 25.7 per cent from October’s figure,
according to Anfavea, the national carmakers’ association.
Boeing: The US planemaker is expected to announce further delays to its
new 787 Dreamliner after production problems and a two-month strike by
machinists.
Health
Optos: The Fife-based group, whose equipment is used to detect disease
by examining the retina of the eye, reported full-year pre-tax profits of
$5.9 million (£4 million), up from $1.6 million a year ago, on sales of
$100.8 million.
BTG: The London-listed specialist pharmaceuticals group said that it
has completed its takeover of Protherics, the biopharmaceuticals company, in
an all-share deal worth £218 million.
Industrials
Steelmaking joint venture: Nippon Steel and ArcelorMittal, the world’s
biggest steelmakers, said that they would delay plans to spend $240 million
(£163 million) to add a production line at their US joint venture because of
weaker demand from carmakers.
DuPont: The US chemicals group said it is to cut 2,500 jobs, blaming
the sharp fall in car sales and construction for the job losses. It also
plans to remove 4,000 contractors from its payroll by the end of this year
and said that more will go next year.
Leisure
Thomas Cook: Speculation surrounding the 52.8 per cent stake held in
the travel group by Arcandor was damped down after Friedrich Carl Janssen,
chairman of the German retail group’s supervisory board, said it was focused
on “keeping the existing portfolio structure”.
Western & Oriental: The niche travel group reported a widening of
full-year operating losses from £1.2 million to £2 million and said that
forward bookings for its tour operating businesses had fallen by 7.9 per
cent on a like-for-like basis, reflecting later booking patterns.
Rank Group: The gaming operator announced that Mark Jones, founder of
Online Travel Corporation and former managing director of lastminute.com,
will be managing director of Blue Square, its interactive gaming division.
Le Frog Bistro: Administrators of the Grill Group, the restaurant
operator, have sold four of its five Le Frog eateries for an undisclosed sum
through Christie & Co to Paul Lilley, former chief executive of Grill
Group. A fifth site in Warrington has been closed.
Folio Hotels: Legacy Hotels and Resorts, the privately owned company,
said it was exploring the possibility of taking on the management of some of
the 36 hotels run by the failed Folio Hotels group.
Media
Viacom: The US owner of MTV Networks and the Paramount movie studio
said that it will cut its workforce by about 7 per cent, or 850 positions,
blaming the advertising slump that is afflicting most media companies.
STV: The Scottish commercial broadcaster said that unless it receives
£5 million-a-year in public subsidy, it will be unable to generate enough
advertising revenue to cover the costs of its news service, which employs
100 journalists.
Natural
resources
Talvivaara: The London-listed Finnish miner announced new resource
estimates that nearly doubled the nickel and zinc in its deposits and said
it expected to have €90 million (£78 million) in cash at the end of its
financial year.
Aricom: The Anglo-Russian miner said it was suspending operations at
its Kuranakh iron ore mine in Russia’s far east because of falling prices,
but was confident that the project would be a profitable contributor in the
future, despite the depressed market.
Vale: The Brazilian iron ore miner said that it will close its Copper
Cliff South nickel mine in Canada as it scales back operations amid the
global economic slowdown.
Nippon Oil: Japan’s oil sector may be poised for a number of defensive
mergers after Nippon Oil, the country’s biggest player, announced plans to
merge with its smaller rival Nippon Mining to try to cut costs.
Retailing
Wm Morrison: The supermarket group unveiled an 8.1 per cent surge in
third-quarter sales, beating City forecasts and outstripping Tesco, its
biggest rival. It said that like-for-like sales, excluding fuel, had risen
by 8.1 per cent and total sales rose by 9.5 per cent.
JJB Sports: The struggling sportswear retailer said that it was
continuing to hold “constructive discussions” with its debt providers,
Barclays, HBOS and Kaupthing. JJB, which issued a profit warning in
September and said that it might breach its bank loan agreements, said that
the banks “remain supportive”.
The Co-operative Group: The retailer said that it has found buyers for
24 stores as part of the regulatory approval process for its acquisition of
Somerfield, its rival, for £1.57 billion in July.
The Pier: The high street furniture retailer has collapsed into
administration, putting about 400 jobs at risk.
Wal-Mart: The American retailer reported that like-for-like sales in
November rose by 3.4 per cent, far more than the 2.1 per cent that Wall
Street had been expecting, and forecast a December sales increase of about 3
per cent.
John Lewis: The department store group said Christmas shoppers had been
boosted by the VAT cut from 17.5 per cent to 15 per cent.
Woolworths: Theo Paphitis, the Dragons’ Den entrepreneur, has decided
not to bid for the collapsed high street retailer’s 815-store portfolio,
saying it had not been possible to reach a deal with Deloitte, the
administrator.
Support
Services
Michael Page International: The recruitment consultancy issued a profit
warning and said that it was cutting jobs, adding that its full-year
earnings will be at the bottom end of forecasts at £136 million, or 8 per
cent lower than last year.
Wensum: The corporate wear group, which is livery tailor to the Queen,
is buying Crown East, its rival. Wensum said that the combined annual sales
of the enlarged group would be about £30 million.
Technology
Fake games consoles: HM Revenue & Customs said that hundreds of
imported counterfeit games consoles were found to have been supplied with
potentially dangerous power adapters. The goods had been bought from
websites that had claimed them to be “genuine Nintendo products”.
Nokia: The Finnish mobile phone maker said it expects industry-wide
mobile handset sales to drop by 5 per cent or more next year — the first
time they will have fallen for eight years.
Technology pioneers: Two British companies have been chosen as
technology pioneers for 2009 by the World Economic Forum. Ubiquisys, which
produces 3G femtocells — mini mobile base stations for the home, and
Spinvox, which converts voice messages into text messages for mobile phones,
are among the 34 groups selected from 320 applicants.
Sanyo: Goldman Sachs has snubbed a second, and increased, offer by
Panasonic for the stake that the US investment bank holds in Sanyo, the
struggling Japanese electronics group that it rescued two years ago.
Microsoft: The US software group has hired Qi Lu, the former Yahoo!
executive, to run its internet business. Brian McAndrews, the Microsoft
advertising executive, will leave the company.
Telecoms
Alcatel-Lucent: The Franco- American telecoms group said it is not
planning to leave the mobile telecoms business in response to investor
suggestions that it should hive off its struggling mobile unit.
AT&T: The US fixed-line and mobile phone services group said it was
shedding 12,000 staff, 4 per cent of its workforce, and would cut its
capital spending.
Transport
EasyJet: The low-cost airline said it carried almost three million
passengers in November, an increase of 3.4 per cent on a year ago. The
airline’s load factor rose to 83.9 per cent, from 80.8 per cent.
Utilities
E.ON: The German utility said that its British arm would reduce annual
bills by £14 for householders who did not have mains gas, after Ofgem, the
regulator, said that such customers were missing out on discounts offered to
those unable to get “dual fuel” energy deals. Ofgem had recommended a £55
reduction.
