Bank of England holds rates, and would need half a year for negative rates February 4, 2021 The Bank of England (BoE) has today left interest rates on hold at 0.1 per cent and its bond-buying programme at £895bn. The BoE’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) voted unanimously to keep rates at record-low levels. It also confirmed that it would take six months for banks to get ready for negative interest rates should [...]
Rolls-Royce continues disposal plan with €150m Bergen Engines sales February 4, 2021 Rolls–Royce has today announced that it will sell an engine units to Russian firm TMH for €150m (£132.5m). The sale of gas and diesel subsidiary Bergen Engines is the second disposal the FTSE 100 firm has made it as it seeks to raise £2bn to survive the pandemic. Chief exec Warren East said: “We believe [...]
JD Sports raises £464m to fund future expansion plans February 4, 2021 Sportswear brand JD Sports this morning announced it had raised £464.2m which it will use to fund its expansion plans as it eyes acquisition opportunities in new markets. The retailer said that it had placed 58.4m new shares at 795 pence a share, representing about 6.0 per cent of its share capital. The successful raise [...]
Car sales sink 40 per cent as 2021 gets off to worst start since 1970 February 4, 2021 Just 90,000 new cars were sold in January, the worst start to a year since 1970 for the UK auto industry. According to new figures from the Society for Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT), registrations dropped 39.5 per cent last month, with 90,249 cars sold in total. That’s nearly 60,000 fewer registrations than in January [...]
Shell posts $21bn loss as coronavirus sends oil industry plunging into the red February 4, 2021 Shell this morning posted a $21.6bn (£15.9bn) full year loss as the full costs of the coronavirus were laid bare. The loss marked a massive swing to the red for the oil giant, which made a $15bn profit in 2019. However, speaking to reporters this morning chief executive Ben van Beurden promised a “much more [...]
Petrofac snaps up new deals worth £220m in Oman February 4, 2021 Oil field services firm Petrofac today announced it had won two contracts worth a combined $300m (£220m) from Oman’s petroleum development outfit. Shares in the firm rose 1.5 per cent in early trading today. The first of these, at Marmul in the south of the Gulf state, is a 30 month contract to build and [...]
New UK trial will ‘mix and match’ different Covid vaccines February 4, 2021 A new trial testing whether giving people two different Covid vaccines for their first and second doses is as effective as the current approach of using the same vaccine for both has been launched. The £7m trial is the first of its kind in the world, and comes as the UK reported that more than [...]
Kaz Minerals owner tables £3.7bn bid to take miner private February 4, 2021 Kaz Minerals has this morning received an increased £3.7bn offer from Nova Resources after an earlier bid was rejected. Nova, which is led by Kaz chairman Oleg Novachuk, first made a 640p per share offer for the London-listed miner back in October. However, due to a rise in global copper prices, the firm’s shares have [...]
Grant Shapps: Sadiq Khan cannot ‘raid national budget’ to fix TfL finances February 3, 2021 Grant Shapps has this morning said that Sadiq Khan cannot “just raid the national budget” to fix Transport for London’s ailing finances. Speaking to the Transport Select Committee, the transport secretary said that it would not be fair on taxpayers to fund services and concessions that were not available outside of London. The comments raise [...]
Eurostar is ‘not our company to rescue’, says Grant Shapps February 3, 2021 The transport secretary has poured cold water on hopes that the UK would lead the rescue of the struggling Eurostar rail link. Speaking to MPs on the Transport Select Committee this morning, Grant Shapps said that the cross-channel service was “not our company to rescue”. Pointing to the fact that the French government owned the [...]
