Category Archives: Business

Raise taxes on firms that harm nature, OECD tells G7 countries

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Report calls for change of priorities and culture to avert catastrophic biodiversity loss

Governments need to ramp up investment in nature restoration and raise the tax burden on companies that degrade wildlife, according to recommendations made to the G7 group of rich nations.

The proposals are part of a growing debate on how to radically change humanity’s relationship with nature in the wake of a new UN mega-report that showed an alarming decline in the Earth’s life-support systems.

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Bombardier puts Belfast wing-making plant up for sale

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Four thousand skilled jobs at risk in Northern Ireland as Canadian firm unveils sell-off

The Canadian aerospace firm Bombardier is to sell its wing-making operation, which employs 4,000 people in Northern Ireland, sparking concern among trade unions and MPs about the impact on highly skilled jobs.

A spokesman for the prime minister said the government did not expect jobs to be affected but the trade union Unite said it was seeking stronger assurances from the government and the company.

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Anjelica Huston defends Woody Allen and Roman Polanski

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Actor says she would work with Allen again ‘in a second’ and that Polanski had ‘paid his price’ for his behaviour

Actor Anjelica Huston has come out in defence of under-fire film-maker Woody Allen, and expressed sympathy for other controversial entertainment industry figures including Roman Polanski and Jeffrey Tambor.

In an outspoken and wide-ranging interview published in New York magazine, Huston was asked for her thoughts on Allen, with whom she worked on his acclaimed 1989 film Crimes and Misdemeanors. Huston said she would work with him in again “in a second”, noting that “two states investigated him, and neither of them prosecuted him”. Allen is currently in a legal dispute with Amazon, which cancelled its four-film agreement with him in the wake of his daughter Dylan’s allegations of sexual abuse and his response to the #MeToo campaign.

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Federal Reserve snubs Trump by refusing to cut interest rates

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  • US rates held at 2.25% to 2.5%
  • President had called for ‘one point’ cut

The US Federal Reserve snubbed Donald Trump’s call for a cut in interest rates on Wednesday as the central bank noted economic activity was still rising at “a solid rate”.

After a two-day meeting the Fed board unanimously decided to hold rates steady at a range between 2.25% and 2.5%.

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Google share price plunges, wiping $70bn off its market value

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Biggest fall since October 2012 follows worse-than-expected quarterly results

Google’s share price has had its biggest fall in nearly seven years, wiping $70bn (£54bn) off its market value, after disappointing sales figures sparked investor fears that advertisers have been shifting their business to digital rivals such as Facebook and Amazon.

Shares in Alphabet, the parent company of Google and YouTube, fell at one point by more than 8% on Tuesday, the biggest fall since October 2012, after the company produced first quarter results on Monday that were worse than expected.

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Eurozone growth rises, unemployment falls, and Italy escapes recession – business live

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Eurozone economy grew by 0.4% in the last quarter, faster than expected, as Italy escaped its third recession in a decade

Earlier:

Italy’s farms, factories and service sector companies all made a positive contribution to growth in the last quarter, Istat says.

Net exports also boosted growth, which is an encouraging signal.

In another boost to the eurozone, Italy has returned to growth after its third recession in a decades.

Italy Q1 preliminary GDP +0.2% vs +0.1% q/q expected https://t.co/bZacGKzKXT pic.twitter.com/6Nl0Eqd7KZ

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Ferrexpo could have done without the side show to its Deloitte spat

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A wiser board might have stopped Chris Mawe’s £400,000 share sale the morning before auditor quit

It is a rare for an auditor to quit the role at a London-listed FTSE 250 firm. So one might conclude it was merely unfortunate that Chris Mawe, the finance director at Ferrexpo, chose last Thursday morning to sell £400,000-worth of shares, just before events moved rapidly at the Swiss-based miner of iron ore in Ukraine. In the evening of the same day, Deloitte quit. On Friday morning, when the firm’s resignation was made public, Ferrexpo’s share price plunged by 28%.

The company had not received Deloitte’s letter of resignation at the time of the share sale, so there is – to be clear – no suggestion rules were broken. Even so, one has to ask if it was sensible for Mawe to sell last Thursday when so many unanswered questions hung in the air.

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Beyond Meat preps for IPO as rivals take bite out of food industry

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Startup is the latest ‘unicorn’, with a valuation of about $1.2bn, to go public as its competitor launches the Impossible Whopper

Wall Street is going vegan. At some point in the next four weeks, Beyond Meat, a pioneering plant-based meat alternative startup, will debut on Wall Street at a valuation of about $1.2bn. And in the meantime its rivals are cutting deals with some of the biggest names in food.

Beyond Meat is the latest in a series of “unicorns” – private companies valued at over $1bn – to go public. And this one is edible.

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On Loch Lomond’s banks, anger grows at £30m resort plan

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Locals and naturalists oppose a proposed hotel development on ‘beautiful and historic’ wooded national park land

A storm is brewing on the banks of Loch Lomond. One of Scotland’s most serene beauty sites has been rocked by a planning and environmental row that swamps anything the elements can throw at it.

Last week, updated plans for a £30m leisure facility near the small town of Balloch at the southern end of the loch were presented to Loch Lomond and the Trossachs national park. The project has the backing of Scottish Enterprise, the government agency tasked with stimulating economic development and investment.

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Mercedes production delays push Daimler’s quarterly profits down by 16%

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Sales of Mercedes-Benz cars fell 7%, partly because of manufacturing bottlenecks

Daimler’s quarterly operating profit has fallen by 16% as a €718m (£620m) one-off gain failed to offset the impact of falling sales in China and production delays at three Mercedes-Benz factories.

Sales of Mercedes-Benz cars fell 7% in the first quarter 0f 2019, partly because of manufacturing bottlenecks for the A-Class compact car in Aguascalientes, Mexico, the Mercedes-Benz van in Charleston, South Carolina, and the Mercedes-Benz GLE SUV in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.

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US to put pressure on UK government after leaked Huawei decision

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Britain faces lobbying after Chinese firm wins approval to supply 5G network

Donald Trump’s administration is expected to put further pressure on the UK to reconsider the decision to allow Chinese telecoms company Huawei to help build parts of the UK’s 5G telecoms network.

The US has arranged for a representative from the state department, which has repeatedly warned of the risks of using Huawei, to give a briefing on Monday.

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Microsoft becomes third listed US firm to be valued at $1tn

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Company beat sales and profit expectations to join Apple and Amazon in prestigious club

Microsoft has become the third publicly listed US company, after Apple and Amazon, to boast a market value of more than $1tn after bumper quarterly results boosted its share price.

The company beat sales and profits expectations in the three months to 31 March, thanks in part to its cloud computing business, which signed up major corporate clients over the period.

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Global grounding of Boeing 737 Max will cost company more than $1bn

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Boeing says it’s abandoned its 2019 financial outlook and halted share buybacks in mid-March as it deals with the crisis

The global grounding of Boeing’s 737 Max jets will cost the company more than $1bn, the company said on Wednesday.

The jets were grounded after two fatal crashes that killed 346 people and have triggered investigations into the accidents across the world and left Boeing with one of the biggest crises in its history.

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Ending the Iranian sanctions waiver could be own goal for Trump

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Preventing Iran’s oil from reaching the market will raise oil prices and US business costs

The past two and a bit years have shown that it is naive to expect Donald Trump’s strategic and economic policies to demonstrate coherence. Even so, the lack of joined-up thinking in the decision to end the waiver against sanctions from nations that buy oil from Iran takes some beating.

Related: US toughens stance on Iran, ending exemptions from oil sanctions

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Microsoft workers decry grueling ‘996’ working standard at Chinese tech firms

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A letter on Github demanded companies comply with labor laws, limiting workers to 40 hours a week versus a 12-hour day standard

Microsoft employees have published a letter on the software development platform Github in solidarity with tech workers in China.

Workers at tech companies in the country have used the Microsoft-owned platform to complain about grueling working conditions and the “996” standard in the industry, a philosophy endorsed by the tech billionaire Jack Ma. The name is based on the idea of working from 9am to 9pm, six days a week.

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US toughens stance on Iran, ending exemptions from oil sanctions

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Mike Pompeo says any nation interacting with Iran should do its diligence and err on the side of caution

The US has announced it will no longer exempt countries from sanctions that aim to impose a complete oil embargo on Iran.

Officials said the Trump administration would not renew any of the sanctions waivers granted to a handful of countries, including China, India, Turkey, Japan and South Korea, when those waivers expire on 2 May.

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Tesla investigates video of Model S car exploding

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The video, widely shared on China’s Twitter-like Weibo, shows the parked EV emit smoke and burst into flames seconds later

Tesla has sent a team to investigate a video on Chinese social media which showed a parked Tesla Model S car exploding, the latest in a string of fire incidents involving the company’s cars.

The video, time stamped Sunday evening and widely shared on China’s Twitter-like Weibo, shows the parked EV emit smoke and burst into flames seconds later. A video purportedly of the aftermath showed a line of three cars completely destroyed.

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Camera firm distances itself from Tiananmen Square advert

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Leica, whose biggest growth market is China, say short film was not officially sanctioned

Western companies trying to do business in China learned long ago that they must bow, at least in part, to the political demands of an authoritarian state. So when the German camera-maker Leica released an advert featuring perhaps the greatest political taboo in contemporary Chinese history, it looked like an unusually audacious gamble.

In fact the short film referencing the Tiananmen Square crackdown appears to have been an extraordinary – and potentially very expensive – mistake.

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Deutsche Bank faces action over $20bn Russian money-laundering scheme

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Exclusive: in confidential internal report seen by the Guardian, bank says scandal has hurt global brand

Germany’s troubled Deutsche Bank faces fines, legal action and the possible prosecution of “senior management” because of its role in a $20bn Russian money-laundering scheme, a confidential internal report seen by the Guardian says.

The bank admits there is a high risk that regulators in the US and UK will take “significant disciplinary action” against it. Deutsche concedes that the scandal has hurt its “global brand” – and is likely to cause “client attrition”, loss of investor confidence and a decline in its market value.

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Mark Carney tells global banks they cannot ignore climate change dangers

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Financial sector warned it risks losses from extreme weather and its stakes in polluting firms

The global financial system faces an existential threat from climate change and must take urgent steps to reform, the governors of the Bank of England and France’s central bank have warned, writing in the Guardian.

In an article published in the Guardian on Wednesday aimed at the international financial community, Mark Carney, the Bank’s governor, and François Villeroy de Galhau, the governor of the Banque de France, said financial regulators, banks and insurers around the world had to “raise the bar” to avoid catastrophe.

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