Category Archives: Business

Australia’s coal exporters made windfall gain of $45bn last year, report estimates

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Report by Australia Institute finds a windfall profits tax could collect almost all this money for public use

Coal exporters from Australia reaped as much as $45bn in windfall gain in the 2021-22 year, with a similar bonanza likely this year, offering governments a budgetary boon for those willing to grasp it, the Australia Institute has said.

In a report released on Thursday, the institute’s economists said Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and subsequent disruption to energy markets alone had delivered between $13bn and $23bn of gains to coalminers. All up, those gains totalled between $39bn and $45bn.

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Goldman Sachs bankers brace for hefty cut to bonuses

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Bonus pool could be slashed by up to 40%, in possibly the lender’s largest cut to payouts since the financial crisis

Goldman Sachs bankers are reportedly at risk of having their bonus pool slashed by up to 40%, in what could be the lender’s largest cut to payouts since the 2008 financial crisis.

The bank is still in the process of deciding the size of its bonus pools for 2022, but the prospective cut could mean its 3,000 investment bankers endure the most significant drop in variable pay among their peers, according to the Financial Times, which first reported the news.

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Lingerie firm Agent Provocateur under pressure over Moscow franchise stores

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Retailer among companies listed by Leave Russia project but says it does not itself operate there

In its three decades in British retail, the lingerie brand Agent Provocateur, the 1990s brainchild of Dame Vivienne Westwood’s son, has rarely shied away from controversy.

Whether it be its daring window displays or that 2001 TV advert featuring Kylie Minogue riding a velvet bucking bronco, the brand has stirred up some strong emotions. But it had not, until now, been accused of inadvertently helping to finance a war in Europe.

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UK train strikes: Rishi Sunak says government will not shift on rail negotiations – as it happened

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Large parts of national rail network grind to halt as RMT union members strike for increased pay

There is similar pessimism about the prospects for a deal to prevent later rail strikes from the other side of the table.

Asked if there is a glimmer of hope in the negotiations, Network Rail chief executive Andrew Haines earlier this morning told BBC Breakfast (via PA Media):

It’s hard to see that today. I’ve learned, you know, through a long career, that sometimes the light is just around the corner.

But where I stand today, I’d have to say that with the level of disruption the RMT are imposing, the way forward isn’t obvious.

Well, we hope not. We want to get a deal but at the moment, there is no deal in sight.

So we’ve got the schedule down at the moment, which is running for the next four weeks. We will review that at the end of that if there’s no settlement on the table and we’ll decide what our next steps are, but at the moment there is no settlement to be had.

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Sam Bankman-Fried and other FTX staff allegedly had ‘Wirefraud’ chat group

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Chat group on the platform Signal was reportedly used to send end-to-end encrypted information about FTX and its hedge fund

Sam Bankman-Fried and other members of the inner circle of the collapsed crypto exchange FTX allegedly formed a chat group on the encrypted platform Signal under the name “Wirefraud”.

The Australian Financial Review reported that the Wirefraud chat group was used to send end-to-end encrypted information about FTX and its crypto hedge fund, Alameda Research, in the run-up to the implosion of the exchange. According to the newspaper, members of the secret group included Bankman-Fried, his FTX partners Zixiao “Gary” Wang and Nishad Singh, and the CEO of Alameda Research Caroline Ellison.

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UK strikes: Rishi Sunak says government cannot shift pay stance

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Rail bosses and unions also signal they will not budge, as RMT’s Mick Lynch says there is ‘no deal in sight’

Rishi Sunak has said the government is unable to shift its position on pay, effectively implying the only way for strikes across the railway and other sectors would be for unions to back down.

In comments to his cabinet on the first day of four weeks of disruption to train services, the prime minister said: “While the government will do all we can to minimise disruption, the only way we can stop it completely is by unions going back around the table and calling off these strikes.”

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Hot water bottles sell out around UK as cold snap hits

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John Lewis said sales are up sixfold on last year as people look to save on their heating bills

Hot water bottles are selling out around the UK amid the cold snap and efforts to save on soaring energy bills.

John Lewis said sales were up sixfold on last year with several popular models currently out of stock online including the department store’s own-label version with a fake fur protective cover.

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‘We’re really worried’: US supermarket mega-merger raises mass layoff fears

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Kroger and Albertsons seek deal through FTC but employees say previous merger experience has them deeply concerned

Thousands of workers at two of America’s biggest supermarkets are warning of potential mass layoffs as the giant firms push for a merger.

Kroger, the second largest grocery chain in the US, and Albertsons, the fourth largest, are pushing for a merger through the Federal Trade Commission, which is reviewing the proposal.

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Microsoft to buy 4% stake in London Stock Exchange

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US tech company signs 10-year strategic partnership with LSEG for data analytics and cloud technology

Microsoft will buy 4% of the London Stock Exchange as part of a multibillion-pound deal to work together on data analytics and cloud technology.

The US tech company will buy the stake from a consortium of Blackstone and Thomson Reuters, and will take a seat on the board of the London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG). The consortium previously sold the financial data company Refinitiv to LSEG in a £22bn takeover.

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UK economy returns to growth as GDP rises 0.5% in October

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Growth figure shrank 0.3% in a quarter, reflecting concerns over lengthy recession

Britain’s economy returned to growth in October as activity bounced back from the impact of the additional bank holiday for the Queen’s funeral, however a long recession is still expected.

The Office for National Statistics said gross domestic product (GDP) rose by 0.5% on the month, after a decline of 0.6% in September when many businesses closed their doors during the national mourning period.

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UK power prices hit record high amid cold snap and lack of wind power

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Severely cold weather has come with low wind speeds, creating perfect storm to drive wholesale costs up

UK power prices have hit record levels as an icy cold snap and a fall in supplies of electricity generated by wind power have combined to push up wholesale costs.

The day-ahead price for power for delivery on Monday reached a record £675 a megawatt-hour on the Epex Spot SE exchange. The price for power at 5-6pm, typically around the time of peak power demand each day, passed an all-time high of £2,586 a megawatt-hour.

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Albanese government looking at laws to force big business to disclose climate efforts

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Jim Chalmers will say global investors increasingly see ‘a new harmony between profit and planet’

Banks and other big businesses will be forced to come clean with the public about what they are doing to cut emissions under plans put forward by the Albanese government.

The government is also looking for ways to crack down on “greenwashing” – or when businesses try to win over consumers by overhyping their environmental practices.

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Economists hail end to zero Covid in China but huge human toll is feared

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Low rate of vaccination of elderly and a lack of natural immunity mean country may be in for a bumpy ride

Beijing’s abrupt dismantling of zero-Covid controls has been welcomed by economists, even as the country braces itself for the human impact of letting the disease spread through a vulnerable population.

The leadership’s abrupt U-turn on how it handles the pandemic appears to have been triggered by protests against controls that began last month, a nationwide show of discontent on a scale China had not seen in decades.

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Bankman-Fried ‘would give anything’ to start new business to repay FTX users

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Former boss of collapsed crypto-exchange says he has duty to try to recoup investors’ lost money

Sam Bankman-Fried, the former boss of the failed crypto-exchange FTX, has said he hopes to start a new business to help pay back the victims of his old firm’s collapse.

Speaking to the BBC from the Bahamas, he said he would “give anything” to be able to begin a new venture in order to recoup his users’ lost investments.

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The £100m Qatar whitewash: how UK advertisers put profit before protest

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Like the players, brands have in the end shied away from confrontation with the hosts during the World Cup

More than £100m will be spent by brands hoping to cash-in on World Cup fever, but when it comes to taking host Qatar to task over its human rights record protest marketing has taken a back seat to sales targets.

In the run-up to kick off of the football tournament in Qatar criticism of the gulf state was akin to shooting at an open goal.

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Australian tax office and police raid 35 businesses as part of crackdown on sales-suppression software

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Raids were part of an international crackdown on those suspected of supplying and using illegal tax-avoiding tools

Police and the Australian Taxation Office have raided 35 businesses across five states as part of an international crackdown on the use of software to avoid paying tax.

The ATO said the raids, conducted with the Australian federal police, targeted businesses suspected of supplying and using illegal electronic sales suppression tools (ESST) in Victoria, New South Wales, Queensland, Western Australia and Tasmania.

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FTX’s Sam Bankman-Fried to testify before Congress next week

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Founder and former CEO says he could talk about what he thinks led to crash and ‘my own failings’

Sam Bankman-Fried is set to testify before Congress next week about the collapse of FTX, as regulators investigate the cryptocurrency exchange he led until its recent demise.

The US House Committee on Financial Services said in a statement on Friday that the panel would hear from FTX’s newly-appointed CEO, John Ray, and from Bankman-Fried on 13 December.

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UK to develop next-generation fighter jets with Italy and Japan

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Rishi Sunak says defence deal for Tempest means ‘outpacing those who seek to do us harm’

Britain will work to develop next-generation fighter jets with Italy and Japan, Rishi Sunak has announced.

The prime minister said the defence partnership will ensure the UK and allies are “outpacing and outmanoeuvring those who seek to do us harm”.

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$1.5bn energy price relief package for Australians including caps on coal and gas

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Treasury advised the PM and premiers not to deliver the rebates as cash handouts due to risk of fuelling inflationary pressure

Canberra and the states have agreed to cap coal and gas prices, and provide additional rebates for Australians on low and middle incomes, as part of a $1.5bn intervention that will shave hundreds of dollars off power bills.

After a national cabinet meeting on Friday, governments have agreed to cap gas prices temporarily at $12 per gigajoule and cap coal prices at $125 per tonne. Parliament will be recalled next week to implement the change.

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Without effective vaccines, China’s economy may not heal

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Changes to zero-Covid policy could prove insufficient if lockdowns are expected to continue

China’s nearly three-year policy of enacting strict lockdowns to contain outbreaks of Covid-19 came with a heavy price for the world’s second largest economy.

The question for its president, Xi Jinping, and his inner court of advisers is whether a sudden relaxation of lockdown rules brought in this week will both prevent a recurrence of the shockwave of protests across the country and turn the economy around.

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