Woodford fund investors face payment delay January 10, 2020 Investors in the Woodford Investment Equity Fund must now wait until the end of the month for payouts to begin. Investors in Neil Woodford’s stricken fund, which will be wound up on 18 January., had been expecting letters on Monday, with the first payments to commence on or around 20 January. Read more: Timetable set [...]
Ryanair’s €1bn profit upgrade lifts rival airlines’ shares January 10, 2020 Ryanair profit upgrade today on better-than-expected Christmas traffic has lifted competitors’ shares on the FTSE as well as its own. Ryanair’s stock rose 6.6 per cent to €16.23 as it raised full-year profit guidance to beyond €1bn (£850m) after saying Christmas and New Year bookings were “stronger than expected”. Read more: Ryanair’s ‘abusive’ hand luggage [...]
Superdry shares plunge as it warns profit could hit zero January 10, 2020 Superdry witnesses its stock plummet in early trading today after issuing a dramatic profit warning on the back of underwhelming sales over its peak Christmas trading period. The fashion retailer now expects underlying profit before tax to range up to £10m, but warned it could vanish altogether after booking “lower than anticipated” retail sales of [...]
Boeing 737 Max ‘designed by clowns supervised by monkeys’, internal memos say January 10, 2020 Boeing staff joked about possible flaws in the 737 Max model and mocked regulators in hundreds of messages the jet manufacturer has handed over to investigators. The messages also saw an employee say of the plane in April 2017: “This airplane is designed by clowns who in turn are supervised by monkeys.” Read more: World [...]
John Lewis issues profit warning as MD steps down January 9, 2020 John Lewis & Partners issued a profit warning today and said its managing director will leave the struggling business next month after underwhelming Christmas sales. The retail partnership warned full-year profits will be “substantially down” on last year as it revealed significant drops in both John Lewis and Waitrose revenue. Read more: Four problems new [...]
Liberty Steel to axe 355 UK jobs under ‘challenging’ conditions January 9, 2020 Liberty Steel today said it plans to slash 355 jobs from its South Yorkshire and south Wales plants amid pressure from “challenging market conditions”. Liberty Steel also blamed “a lingering reduction in demand for UK steel products” as it made the announcement. Read more: GFG Alliance launches $15bn Liberty Steel Group In a widely reported [...]
All Bar One owner Mitchells & Butlers posts ‘good, not great’ Christmas sales January 9, 2020 Pub chain Mitchells & Butlers enjoyed a solid rise in like-for-like sales over Christmas, but suffered from strong comparative sales the year before. The core three-week festive period saw the firm’s pub chains – which include All Bar One, Ember Inns and Harvester – enjoy comparable sales growth of 5.6 per cent. Read more: Wetherspoon [...]
Brexit and election uncertainty knock hole in Robert Walters’ UK profit January 9, 2020 Robert Walters’ share price dropped today as it revealed a huge 23 per cent dent to UK profits as a result of a rollercoaster year of political uncertainty in 2019. UK gross profit fell from £26.8m in the fourth quarter of 2018 to £20.7m in the corresponding period last year. Read more: Time too short [...]
Iran plane crash: Ukraine U-turns on engine failure as cause of Boeing 737 crash January 8, 2020 Ukraine’s embassy in Iran has dropped a reference to engine failure as a cause of the Boeing 737 plane crash that killed 176 people earlier today. Iranian state media had initially reported that “technical issues” were behind the disaster after the Boeing 737-800 crashed shortly after taking off from Tehran’s international airport. Read more: Iran [...]
Spoonbender Uri Geller answers Dominic Cummings’ call for ‘weirdos’ January 8, 2020 Spoon-bending magician Uri Geller has applied to join the civil service after special adviser Dominic Cummings asked “misfits” and “weirdos” to become part of government. Geller, 73, started his cover letter by telling Cummings that his career to date as an entertainer had been the “perfect mask” for work in espionage. Read more: DEBATE: Is [...]