Press Round-Up Short (Premium)
Tuesday newspaper round-up: Clearview AI, Virgin Atlantic, Accenture, BT
Volumes of goods shipped directly from Ireland to the EU on new Brexit-busting ferry routes have rocketed by 50% in the past six months as exporters seek to avoid travelling across land through Great Britain, according to official data. Figures published by the Irish Maritime Development Office (IMDO) show significant traffic diverted away from the traditional routes between Dublin and Britain to some of 32 new ferry services direct to ports such as Le Havre, Cherbourg and Dunkirk in France and Zeebrugge in Belgium.
Monday newspaper round-up: Manufacturers, Clarks, City Workers, Motorway
Britain’s manufacturers are facing a “perfect storm” crisis of rapidly rising costs and towering debts that many fear could push them over the brink, according to a new survey. The leading industry trade body on Monday urged the government to introduce payment holidays on loans, warning that thousands of firms faced a “tipping point” that could make their business models unviable. - Guardian.
Wednesday newspaper round-up: LV=, Bulb, Asda
The insurer LV= will be taken over by a company based offshore in Jersey if members agree to deal orchestrated by US private equity firm Bain Capital that would see it lose its historic mutual status. Bain has established a Jersey-based company called BCC Blake Bidco Ltd to carry out the takeover, according to correspondence between an independent expert and Gareth Thomas, a Labour MP and shadow minister of international trade. - Guardian.
Thursday newspaper round-up: Bulb, LV=, Opec, Lidl
The government has begun to count the cost of Bulb Energy’s collapse as many begin to wonder whether it is a fair price to pay for policymakers’ failure to spot a looming market breakdown. The life-support scheme set up to allow Bulb to keep supplying gas and electricity to its 1. 7 million customers through the winter months could cost taxpayers up to £1. 7bn according to a court application to hand the company to a special administrator. - Guardian.
Friday newspaper round-up: StubHub, pandemic jobs scheme, Ofgem
StubHub has been accused of failing to disclose when customers are buying tickets from professional touts, in breach of a legal undertaking given to the consumer watchdog. The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) requires sites such as Viagogo and StubHub to let customers know when tickets are being sold by professional ticket traders, who dominate resale listings for gigs and other events, leading to fans paying massively inflated prices. - Guardian.
Monday newspaper round-up: John Lewis, Black Friday, Bitcoin, M&S
The owner of John Lewis and Waitrose will on Monday launch a £1m fund that will channel cash into projects with the potential to end the high street’s “throwaway” culture. The John Lewis Partnership is inviting academics, charities and start-ups that have ideas with the potential to reduce the environmental impact of the food, clothing and gadgets we buy, to pitch for a share of the money. The fund is aimed at identifying “innovators” that are challenging the industry’s outdated “make … use … throw away” model.
Tuesday newspaper round-up: Tax abuse, Amazon, Tesla
Countries are losing almost half a trillion dollars through tax abuse by multinationals and the super-rich, enough to fully vaccinate the global population against Covid-19 three times over, a report has said. Research by tax campaigners found that estimated losses had risen from $427bn last year to $483bn (£359bn) in 2021, with the UK alone responsible for almost 40% of the total. - Guardian .
Wednesday newspaper round-up: Tesla, Covid payouts, Rolls-Royce
JPMorgan has sued Tesla for $162. 2m, accusing Elon Musk’s electric car company of “flagrantly” breaching a 2014 contract relating to stock trading options that Tesla sold to the bank. The options, or warrants, give the holder the right to buy a company’s stock at a set “strike” price and date. The suit, filed in a Manhattan federal court, centres on a dispute over how JPMorgan repriced its Tesla warrants as a result of Musk’s notorious 2018 tweet that he was considering taking the carmaker private.
Thursday newspaper round-up: Turkeys, pay rises, Daily Mail
Ranjit Singh Boparan, the owner of East Anglian turkey producer Bernard Matthews, said the first workers would arrive in the next few days as it prepared for the busy festive season. Boparan said: “With just a few weeks to go until Christmas, it is very good news to be able to report that here we are in mid-November, and we’re well on the way to plugging the job gaps for the massive volume increases we get during this time of year. - Guardian .
Friday newspaper round-up: GFG Alliance, Apple, FinnCap, M&S
Sanjeev Gupta’s GFG Alliance has sold two aluminium parts factories after Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) stepped in to secure a vital part of its supply chain. Evtec, an automotive supplier based in Coventry, will take over Liberty Aluminium Technologies casting plants in Coventry and Kidderminster in the West Midlands, saving 170 jobs. However, GFG is closing a site in Witham, Essex, with the loss of 64 jobs. - Guardian.
Monday newspaper round-up: EU car makers, living wage, pensioners
Weak EU vehicle emissions targets could allow Europe’s biggest carmakers to produce millions more petrol and diesel cars than necessary up to 2030 in a “wasted decade” for cutting carbon pollution, according to a report. Analysis of car industry sales plans for electric vehicles shared exclusively with the Guardian by Transport and Environment (T&E), a thinktank and campaign group, showed that manufacturers could hit their 2030 EU carbon emissions targets with four years to spare.
Monday newspaper round-up: UK business output, electric cars, inflation
British businesses’ output has fallen for the sixth month in a row amid a supply chain crisis, energy price rises and a shortages of workers, according to a closely watched survey of big employers. UK business output hit its lowest level since March during the last national coronavirus lockdown, according to the accountancy firm BDO. Its measure fell from 105. 23 points in September to 103. 35 points in October. - Guardian.
Friday newspaper round-up: Graduates, the Tulip, Embark Technology
Graduates from poorer backgrounds earn half as much as their more privileged peers in their first job after university because they put themselves forward for fewer roles and lack the family connections and financial support to hunt for top jobs, a survey has shown. The survey of 5,000 graduates suggested that those whose parents held professional roles, including chief executives, doctors and teachers, earned an average of £23,457 in their first job after university, compared with just £11,595 among those whose parents held technical, manual or service jobs.
Wednesday newspaper round-up: Staff shortages, AstraZeneca, accounting errors
Britain’s employers are offering bonuses of up to £2,000 to recruit Christmas workers amid fears over staff shortages disrupting the festive season. Research from the jobs website Adzuna showed there are currently 26,307 seasonal job vacancies ahead of the pivotal Christmas shopping period, almost double the 13,668 at the same point a year ago. - Guardian.
Thursday newspaper round-up: Tesla, fraud victims, Rivian
Elon Musk has sold about $5bn in shares amounting to roughly 3% of his Tesla holdings, the billionaire reported in filings on Wednesday, just days after he polled Twitter users about selling 10% of his stake. About $4bn worth of the sale – 3. 6m shares – could be considered as counting towards his 10% pledge on Twitter. Another $1. 1bn worth, amounting to 934,000 shares, was sold under an options arrangement to acquire nearly 2. 2m shares that was already in train before the poll.
Tuesday newspaper round-up: Rolls-Royce, utilities, ITV, Softbank
Rolls-Royce will move ahead with a multibillion pound plan to roll out a new breed of mini nuclear reactors after securing more than £450m from the government and investors. The engineering firm will set up a venture focused on developing small modular nuclear reactors, or SMRs, in partnership with investors BNF Resources and the US generator Exelon Generation with a joint investment of £195m to fund the plans over the next three years. - Guardian.
Monday newspaper round-up: JCB, Eurostar, used cars, Devolver Digital
The construction equipment maker JCB has signed a multibillion-pound deal to import and supply hydrogen produced using renewable energy. As the Cop26 climate conference got under way in Glasgow, the company announced a deal with Australia’s Fortescue Future Industries (FFI) that will allow it to start selling “green” gas through a specialist division, Ryze Hydrogen, from early next year. - Guardian.
Tuesday newspaper round-up: French Connection, Rolls-Royce, EY partners
French Connection shareholders have backed the £29m takeover of the fashion brand led by a Newcastle-based businessman, putting the company back into private hands for the first time since 1983. The new owners are expected to take over on 8 November. The 75-year-old chair and chief executive, Stephen Marks, who co-founded the chain in 1972 and owns nearly 42% of the company, is to receive about £12m for his stake in the business. - Guardian.
Thursday newspaper round-up: Phones4U, Aston Martin, LV
ExxonMobil and Chevron are the world’s most obstructive organisations when it comes to governments setting climate policies, according to research into the “prolific and highly sophisticated” lobbying ploys used by the fossil fuel industry. The biggest US oil companies, as well as American Petroleum Institute, a lobby group, were found to be the worst offenders in a global report by lobbying experts at the thinktank InfluenceMap. It concluded that companies were manipulating governments to take “incredibly dangerous paths” in their approach to climate action.
Friday newspaper round-up: Liberty Steel, London house prices, Covid support schemes
The metals tycoon Sanjeev Gupta should be investigated for potential breaches of his duties as a company director, according to a scathing report by MPs that said his leadership threatened the future viability of Liberty Steel. Liberty Steel has lurched through eight months of crisis after the March collapse of its key financial backer, Greensill Capital, triggered an ongoing attempt to find new lenders. - Guardian .