Inflation Hits 0% As Food Costs Fall Further

Tesco Faces New Legal Action Worth Billions

Written By Unknown on Rabu, 25 Maret 2015 | 00.26

Tesco is facing more possible legal action from shareholders, potentially worth billions of pounds, over the retailer's £263m profit mis-statement.

A group calling itself Tesco Shareholder Claims Ltd (TSC), supported by US legal firm Scott & Scott, said it planned to seek compensation under a co-ordinated action following the slump in the supermarket chain's share price last autumn.

The legal move, reported by Sky News last night, is aimed at soliciting interest from investors, including pension funds.

The statement said: "A permanent destruction of value has occurred and had the accounting irregularities not taken place the share price, and value of the company, would today be materially higher.

"TSC expects the claim to be in the region of 50p-70p per share.

"Tesco Plc has in excess of eight billion shares listed."

A similar case is being prepared by Stewart's Law, a top City firm.

If they proceed, they are expected to claim compensation for shareholders on the basis that Tesco allegedly breached the Financial Services and Markets Act by over-stating its profits.

Chairman of the claims group, John Bradley, said: "Tesco is one of the widest held stocks in the UK and this loss has hit pension funds and investors across the UK and beyond.

"We look forward to bringing this claim to court."

Another case brought by a Texan pension fund which had invested in Tesco's US depositary shares became public last October.

The latest claim, which is expected to take months to assemble, will again underline the scale of the task facing Dave Lewis, Tesco's chief executive, and John Allan, who is about to take over as the company's chairman.

Although recent grocery industry data has hinted at the beginnings of a revival for Tesco, the commercial and reputational crises triggered by its poor trading performance and profits over-statement are likely to take years to rectify.

Tesco is engaged in a huge redundancy programme to cut several thousand jobs with the aim of saving hundreds of millions of pounds annually.

The company's £263m profit over-statement occurred because of inaccurate booking of revenue from suppliers, into which the Serious Fraud Office has launched a formal criminal investigation.

The Groceries Code Adjudicator and the Financial Reporting Council are undertaking separate inquiries, while the Financial Conduct Authority ceased its own probe when the SFO became involved.

In addition to the redundancy programme, Mr Lewis has outlined proposals to relocate Tesco's head office, close dozens of stores and terminate its defined benefit pension scheme in an effort to save costs.

Tesco declined to comment on the launch of the latest legal action.

00.26 | 0 komentar | Read More

British Gas Boss Set For Energy Inquiry Talks

By Mark Kleinman, City Editor

The owner of Britain's biggest energy supplier will attempt to persuade regulators on Wednesday that millions of its customers are not disadvantaged despite evidence showing that many of them have never switched to cheaper rivals.

Sky News understands that Centrica, which is the parent company of British Gas, will hold talks ‎with the inquiry panel of the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) for a crucial oral hearing.

Sources said that Iain Conn, Centrica's new chief executive, will be the last of the bosses of the 'big six' energy groups to meet with the CMA ahead of the publication of its provisional recommendations to reform the market.

‎The series of hearings come weeks after the competition watchdog published an update on its energy market investigation.

Its statement last month provided some comfort to companies such as Centrica by saying that its analysis provided no evidence that the 'big six' had earned excessive profits from their power generation operations.

However, the CMA said that between 2012 and June 2014, over 95% of dual fuel customers of the six biggest firms could have saved up to £234 by switching tariff.

"The evidence that we have seen to date...suggests that the gross margins that the Six Large Energy Firms earn are higher for customers on the SVT [Standard Variable Tariff] than for those on non-standard tariffs over the last three years,"‎ the CMA said.

Centrica's meeting with the inquiry panel is seen as being particularly important because as the market leader in residential gas and electricity supply, it is the likeliest target of any attempt to break up big providers.

The CMA said last month that about 40% of Centrica's domestic gas customers had been with the company for more than a decade, which is likely to prompt questions at Wednesday's meeting about the profitability of these so-called 'sticky customers'.

Mr Conn is already facing a challenging start to his career as Centrica's chief executive, announcing several weeks ago that it was cutting its dividend for the first time since 1997 in the wake of sharp oil price falls and mild winter weather.

The move was designed to protect Centrica's credit rating, but it has since been downgraded by Moody's, the ratings agency.

An overhaul of the energy market is likely to feature prominently during the General Election campaign, with Ed Miliband, the Labour leader, having pledged to freeze energy prices until 2017 if he wins in May.

The political battle over the cost of living has led both sides of the Coalition to promise tough action against energy companies.

Matthew Hancock, the Conservatives' Business and Energy Minister, wrote to the largest energy companies, after which they all announced price cuts, while Ed Davey, the Energy and Climate Change Secretary, has repeated a public threat to break up the 'big six'.

EDF Energy, EOn, Npower, Scottish Power and SSE have all met with the CMA inquiry panel in the last fortnight‎.

Centrica declined to comment.

00.26 | 0 komentar | Read More

Heathrow Snubs Runway Rival's Approach Path

By Mark Kleinman, City Editor

The board of Britain's biggest airport has been holding secret talks about a multimillion pound swoop to acquire a rival runway expansion concept at Heathrow.

Sky News has learnt that directors of Heathrow Airport Holdings (HAH) discussed in recent days a suggestion that it should acquire the intellectual property rights held by Runway Innovations, an independent group which wants to extend - and then divide in two - the airport's existing northern runway.

People close to the discussions said that HAH decided at a board meeting last week that it would not pursue a deal at this time with Runway Innovations, which is also known as Heathrow Hub and which is fronted by Jock Lowe, a former British Airways Concorde pilot.

HAH responded to the Runway Innovations proposal in a letter sent on Friday, a source added, which said that it believed the best option for expanding Heathrow remained its own plan for a new, and entirely separate, third runway.

The talks between the two parties come ahead of a recommendation for runway expansion from the Government-appointed Airports Commission, which is due to publish its final report soon after May's General Election.

Sir Howard Davies, who is chairing the Commission and will become the new chairman of Royal Bank of Scotland later this year, has shortlisted three options: the two variants of Heathrow expansion, and an additional runway at London's Gatwick Airport.

One source close to the situation said that Runway Innovations had been seeking at least £50m from HAH to buy it out, although it was unclear whether this included land options that could be developed to provide new rail facilities if the Heathrow Hub option is selected.

A person close to HAH, which counts some of the world's wealthiest sovereign funds among its shareholders, said the price of acquiring the rights to Runway Innovations' plans was substantially lower than £50m.

They added, however, that it could reconsider its opposition to buying its rival's idea if the Airports Commission decides to recommend Heathrow Hub as its preferred mode of growing London's creaking airport capacity.

Directors of HAH are said to believe that the noise respite afforded to local residents would be diminished under its rival's plan, something Runway Innovations is understood to dispute.

A spokesman for Runway Innovations told Sky News: "We will continue to maintain a close and cordial relationship with Heathrow as we share a belief that it is the right place for airport expansion in the UK and superior to Gatwick in all respects."

A fierce battle has broken out between Heathrow and Gatwick over the relative economic and environmental costs of creating new runway capacity at the two airports.

Responding to last week's Budget, Stewart Wingate, Gatwick's chief executive, said: "We have given a guarantee to Government that we will deliver our second runway project by 2025 and we won't ask for public funds to help us do it.

"In contrast, Heathrow needs more than £5bn from the taxpayer for tunnelling of the M25, major work on the M4 and A4, and many rail improvements.

"The taxpayer is essentially being asked to pay twice for these projects – once through their taxes and then again through the many years of disruption they will cause."

All three of the expansion options have been assessed by the Airports Commission, with HAH's standalone third runway plan estimated to cost £18.6bn without factoring in public money for improved road and rail links; the Heathrow Hub plan has been costed at £13.5bn, with Gatwick's expansion projected to require an outlay of £9.3bn.

Heathrow's expansion is, however, regarded as offering the most substantial economic benefits in terms of job creation, while Gatwick argues that the noise impact would be far greater at its rival airport.

Business leaders have warned that the cost to the UK economy will be severe if a swift decision to implement the Commission's recommendation is not taken.

A spokesman for HAH declined to comment on its talks with Runway Innovations.

00.26 | 0 komentar | Read More

Twitter Introduces Abuse-Blocking Filter

Twitter is introducing a new filter to block bullying and threatening messages from users' timelines.

But the new feature will only be available to verified users with a blue tick at first.

Verified users already have access to a feature called tailored filtering, which lets them see edited versions of their notifications from the people they chat to most often.

The new feature uses algorithms to detect threatening words and their context to decide whether to block them from a user's timeline.

The filter is only available on Twitter's app for Apple mobile devices.

Those using the app are presented with a message saying: "Quality filtering aims to remove all Tweets from your notifications timeline that contain threats, offensive or abusive language, duplicate content, or are sent from suspicious accounts."

The user then has the option to turn the feature on and off.

If the system works it is likely to be rolled out to all Twitter users within months.

Ordinary Twitter users have recently been given access to improved systems to report abuse on the social network, after chief executive Dick Costolo recently admitted the site had a problem.

00.26 | 0 komentar | Read More

George Osborne Says Economy Still Struggling

The Chancellor has admitted the UK's economic problems are not over and there is "lots more work to do".

George Osborne also insisted Britain should be "in Europe, but not run by Europe" as he defended the Government's decisions on a range of issues including savers and zero hours contracts.

Mr Osborne was answering questions at Sky News' Ask The Chancellors event at Facebook's central London offices.

He said while the economy was improving there remained problems that needed to be "fixed".

"Although our economy is recovering and although we grew faster than almost any other major country in the world last year and although we have got a lot of people in work now, it is still a very difficult economic situation out there," he said.

"That is why interest rates are so much lower than they have been in other times in our nation's recent history.

"So let's not think the problems are over. Not for one second do I think problems in the British economy are fixed. There's lots more work to do. The job isn't finished."

He also dismissed the idea firms were being put off investing in the UK because David Cameron had promised a referendum on Britain's membership of the EU.

He said: "We are getting more investment than any other EU country."

But he added it was essential there was EU reform, saying: "We've got to make sure the whole of Europe, Britain included, reforms ... Our view, which is we want to be in Europe but not run by Europe, is where I think the majority of British people are, and the majority of British businesses are.

"And we want a better deal for the whole of Europe. We should not be happy with the fact there are so many unemployed young people across our continent ... we also want a better deal for Britain.

"We're not in the euro. We need a proper relationship with the members who are in the euro, and that's what we intend to achieve."

Mr Osborne was answering questions at Sky News' Ask The Chancellors event at Facebook's central London offices.

He said the economy had "had a heart attack" and the coalition had managed to get it back on track and was ready to "finish the job".

He admitted more homes need to be built to help young people get on the housing ladder - but said the Government had introduced a number of measures to help first-time buyers.

"The reason why the housing market stopped building things is because the economy fell off a cliff," he said.

Mr Osborne said there was "no silver bullet" to solve the problem, but there were measures the Government had announced at last week's Budget, including Help To Buy schemes and an ISA aimed at helping young people save for a deposit.

He said: "I'm absolutely passionate about people having homes to buy and to rent for themselves."

While Mr Osborne admitted savers had got a bad deal out of historically low interest rates, he said: "I don't think increasing interest rates just to help savers would help the rest of the economy."

He was also quizzed about zero-hour contracts, and said they have been "abused" by employers.

"I think the biggest abuse you get is exclusivity," he said.

"So someone is on a zero-hours contract, but their company will not let them work for any other company, even though they're not guaranteed any hours of work.

"So a law has now gone through Parliament, which we've introduced, to stop that happening."

The Chancellor was asked questions by an audience of key opinion formers, including entrepreneurs and small business owners.

His Labour counterpart Ed Balls has also faced questions from the same audience this afternoon.

The event follows on from similar question and answer sessions for party leaders including David Cameron and Ed Miliband.

The clash comes at a crucial time, with the latest Sky News projection of seat numbers suggesting the two main parties are well short of the 326 seats they need for an overall majority.

00.26 | 0 komentar | Read More

Diesel Drivers 'Taken For A Ride' At The Pump

A motoring organisation has claimed that diesel drivers are being "taken for a ride" by fuel retailers.

The RAC said it was calling for a cut of 4p-per-litre at the pumps because of a lack of parity between the wholesale cost and what motorists are having to pay.

It said the wholesale price of diesel was 1p a litre more than for petrol, yet diesel was nearly 6p more than petrol at forecourts.

The RAC highlighted recent Government figures which showed total fuel sales were up 3.5% in February compared with the same month last year.

Diesel sales last month, at 2.42 billion litres, represented the fifth highest monthly total since 1990 and were 4.5% up on February last year.

Petrol sales were up 2% last month but this was the eighth lowest total since 1990, the organisation said.

RAC fuel spokesman Simon Williams said: "It's hard not to think that business is being taken for a ride by the fuel retailers.

"Traditionally, business runs on diesel, and with sales of diesel at an all-time high the retailers have maintained a higher margin on diesel, perhaps to subsidise petrol sales".

Pump prices have been marching upwards in recent weeks as oil costs - which lost up to 60% of their value - started to recover some of those losses again.

Brent crude is currently trading around $55-per-barrel having dropped to around $40 earlier this year as a glut of oil on the market combined with world economic weaknesses to drive costs down.

The latest figures from Experian Catalist showed average forecourt diesel prices stood at 118.31p-per-litre on 22 March while unleaded cost 112p.

Diesel hit five-year lows of 115p in January while petrol costs tumbled below 110p.

Brian Madderson, Chairman of the Petrol Retailers Association, responded to the RAC report by saying it failed to acknowledge the increasing impact of fuel cards - used by many businesses especially to save on bills.

He said: "Transactions made on fuel cards in the UK will mainly be diesel due to the tax incentives.

"The total UK fuel card market is now worth over 8 billion litres per annum".

Commenting on the wider market he added: "Currently the margin available on petrol is extremely low - and so higher margins may be taken on diesel after adjusting for the severe margin depressing effect of fuel cards to the independent retailer sector".

00.26 | 0 komentar | Read More

Game Loses Value As First Half Profits Fall

Shares in Game Digital fell 7% on opening after the video games retailer posted a fall in sales and profits.

The company, which had issued a profits warning in January on the back of strong Black Friday discounting ahead of Christmas, reported a 16% drop in first-half adjusted core profit to £43m.

Sales in the 26 weeks to 24 January fell marginally to £582.1m.

Game Digital also confirmed its chief financial officer Benedict Smith would step down in July to move to a private equity-backed firm and the search for a successor had begun.

Game Digital, which went public in 2014 after it was bought out of administration by the investment group OpCapita, is battling strong competition in the mobile gaming sector and has suffered from a lack of major releases.

The company expected trading to pick up from Easter and new releases in the coming weeks include Metal Gear Solid V and Mortal Kombat X.

Martyn Gibbs, Game's chief executive, was upbeat in his summary.

"The video games market remains dynamic and competitive," he said.

"While we experienced some challenging conditions over the Christmas trading period, we are confident that our strategy of focusing on customer recruitment, combined with the significant and growing number of Xbox One and PlayStation 4 owners across our two major territories, provides a solid foundation from which to drive growth over the medium term.

"In the coming weeks and months we can look forward to a solid line up of new physical and digital games launches. Our pre-order rates on the major titles are encouraging and we have secured exclusive editions on many of the key titles.

"We continue to manage the business prudently, balancing the need to fund growth with the discipline of returning excess capital.

"In this regard, I am pleased to announce the group's intention to return £25m to shareholders by way of a special dividend, in addition to our maiden interim dividend of £12.5m".

Ahead of today's results, Game Digital shares were down 33.6% in the year to date but up 29% since its flotation.

00.26 | 0 komentar | Read More

Amazon-Owned Streaming Site Twitch Is Hacked

People who use the Amazon-owned gaming site Twitch may have had their details stolen by hackers.

Amazon has warned of "possible unauthorised access" on the site, which lets people stream their games to viewers watching online.

Among the information at risk is username and password, IP address, login information, limited credit card information and personal details such as address and date of birth.

Twitch has disconnected accounts from Twitter and YouTube and expired user passwords in an effort to protect people from the hackers.

People who log on to the site now will be asked to create a brand new password, and told to change their passwords on websites in which they use a similar password.

The announcement by Twitch on its blog does not indicate the scale of the breach, or how many accounts might have been compromised.

Amazon beat off a rival bid from Google to buy Twitch for $970m (£648m) last year.

00.26 | 0 komentar | Read More

New Morrisons Boss Takes Axe To Management

The new chief executive of struggling Morrisons has only been in the job for just over a week but has already axed five members of its top management team.

David Potts, who took over the top job at the supermarket chain on 16 March, has ordered plans to streamline operations.

Morrisons said the five people affected were to "step down and leave the company".

The managers are group customer marketing & digital director Nick Collard, group retail director Martyn Fletcher, group property and strategy director Gordon Mowat, group logistics director Neal Austin and convenience managing director Nigel Robertson.

Mr Potts said: "I will now be constructing a leaner management board, with the aim of simplifying and speeding up the business.

"I would like to thank Nick, Martyn, Neil, Nigel and Gordon for their service to Morrisons."

Morrisons has been trailing major rivals in terms of sales and market share amid a bitter price war involving hard discounters.

Earlier this month it reported an annual loss of £792m - deepening from a loss before tax of £176m in 2013/14.

The chain said its like-for-like sales excluding fuel and VAT fell 5.9% over the last 12-month period.

The slump reflected Morrisons' strategic U-turn last year when it said it would spend £1bn on price cuts over three years to stem the loss of shoppers to the discounters Aldi and Lidl.

Mr Potts, a former Tesco executive, was brought in to replace Dalton Philips who was sacked following a poor trading performance over the crucial Christmas season.

His first decision was to pause the expansion of the chain's convenience M store offering - a sales platform it was late to develop - with 380 jobs at risk as a result.

He also launched a campaign to receive customer and staff feedback, pledged to work in a store in April and purchased over £1m of Morrisons shares.

00.26 | 0 komentar | Read More

Inflation Hits 0% As Food Costs Fall Further

We use cookies to give you the best experience. If you do nothing we'll assume that it's ok.

Falling food prices meant the annual rate of UK inflation stood in uncharted territory of 0% in February, boosting family budgets.

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) said its headline CPI measure of inflation eased from 0.3% in January to 0% in February year-on-year.

The figure sets a new record low for CPI since comparable records began in 1989 though the ONS added that inflation may have been lower in 1960 at -0.6%, based on unofficial estimates.

The ONS said consumer prices, measured under prices for a core basket of goods, were unchanged from a year earlier as lower food and computer goods prices outweighed upward pressures.

Food and non-alcoholic beverage prices saw a record year-on-year drop of 3.3% amid the supermarket price war.

1/10

Gallery: Last Time Inflation Was As Low

A loaf of bread, which could finally be bought sliced, would have set you back 4.5p

You could spread your money thinly with a pound of butter just 22p

]]>

Fancy a pint? 8p, please!

]]>

Or if you preferred something lighter, 250g of tea would have cost 16.5p

]]>

And if you took sugar, 1kg wouldn't be more than 6.5p

]]>

Falling prices have also been locked in because of the drop of up to 60% in world oil costs.

Economists expect inflation to fall further in the coming months as cuts to energy bills are felt.

The static cost of living, on an annual basis, has arrived at a time when wages are rising by 1.8% year-on-year.

It is a welcome relief for consumers following six years of inflation outpacing salaries.

The Bank of England, while welcoming weak inflation as a benefit to the UK economy, is keeping a close eye on the measure for fear that negative prices it has forecast in the coming months could become entrenched in the medium term.

Deflation has a tendency to delay purchases by consumers and businesses on hopes the cost of goods and services will be cheaper in future.

The Bank believes record employment and rising wage levels will help maintain consumer spending.

The surprise scale of February's fall is likely to push back the expected timing of an interest rate rise, currently pencilled in by markets for 2016 and putting downward pressure on the pound.

Bank rate has been held at 0.5% for six years but the bank's chief economist Andy Haldane has suggested that the next move was as likely to be a cut as a hike because of lower inflation.

Low inflation is welcome for the Chancellor George Osborne ahead of May's General Election.

He tweeted: "Inflation at zero is a first for the British economy.

"Low inflation due to falling oil prices is good news for family budgets.

"Prices are frozen and, as the recovery from Labour's Great Recession strengthens, their economic argument has literally come to nought".

TUC general secretary Frances O'Grady warned: "Zero inflation is a reminder of how fragile the economy remains.

"Stagnating prices are not a sound foundation for the strong and sustained pay rises that workers have waited so long for.

"With deflation on the horizon, the Chancellor's plans for extreme cuts after the election look more and more like a suicide note for the UK economy".

Recommended by Outbrain Recommended by Outbrain

Cemburu Rabun

Mengenai Saya

Popular Posts Today

Tesco Faces New Legal Action Worth Billions

Written By Unknown on Rabu, 25 Maret 2015 | 00.26

British Gas Boss Set For Energy Inquiry Talks

Heathrow Snubs Runway Rival's Approach Path

Twitter Introduces Abuse-Blocking Filter

George Osborne Says Economy Still Struggling

Diesel Drivers 'Taken For A Ride' At The Pump

Game Loses Value As First Half Profits Fall

Amazon-Owned Streaming Site Twitch Is Hacked

New Morrisons Boss Takes Axe To Management

Inflation Hits 0% As Food Costs Fall Further

Top Stories

Top Stories

Links

Arsip Blog