Financial news

• Marks & Spencer to offer 'buy now, pay later' option online

  01-10-2019 20:23
  Chief tells investors retailer plans credit option for online customers to help revive fortunesMarks & Spencer is to offer a “buy now, pay later” option to online shoppers as part of a plan to modernise its struggling clothing business which had a “lost 18 months”, the company has admitted.While maintaining its crown as the UK’s largest clothing retailer, sales at the high street giant have been falling for seven years. On Tuesday, its chief executive, Steve Row
  
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• John Lewis: never knowingly understaffed?

  01-10-2019 20:15 via theguardian.com
  Retail partnership’s cull of one in three top managers seems risky, but there could be some easy winsIf the big reorganisation of the John Lewis Partnership falls flat, who would incoming chair, Sharon White, fire?Well, it won’t be the chief executive since the partnership doesn’t employ anyone with that title. But nor, from next year, will there be managing directors – one for the department stores and one for Waitrose. Instead, White will chair an executive team compris
  
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• The Guardian view on eurozone populism: fight it with fiscal firepower | Editorial

  01-10-2019 19:40 via theguardian.com
  The nationalism that taps into people’s angst and dislocation can be effectively challenged with a bazooka of a eurozone budgetLast month Germany’s version of the Sun, Bild, ran a sensationalist attack on the outgoing president of the European Central Bank, Mario Draghi. Depicting the central banker as “Count Draghila”, replete with vampirish teeth and velvet collar, the article portrayed the ECB boss as a fiend sucking the bank accounts of German savers dry of billions o
  
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• Waitrose boss Rob Collins steps down in £100m John Lewis cuts

  01-10-2019 18:25 via theguardian.com
  Supermarket’s parent group says 75 out of 225 head office management posts will be axedThe boss of Waitrose has quit the business as part of a radical overhaul that will merge the supermarket’s management with its John Lewis department stores sister chain in an effort to cut costs. The retailers’ parent group, the John Lewis Partnership, will axe one in three senior head office management posts – 75 out of 225 – as part of the reorganisation, which will save the com
  
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• Banksy launches homewares shop in dispute over trademark

  01-10-2019 17:54 via theguardian.com
  Artist opens Gross Domestic Product for sale of ‘impractical and offensive’ merchandiseIn the run-up to a potentially record-breaking auction of his work at Sotheby’s, to be held on Thursday, the street artist Banksy said he had been forced into taking the unusual step of opening his own homewares store following a legal dispute with a greetings card company.Gross Domestic Product mysteriously opened in Croydon on Tuesday on the site of a former carpet shop. It will trade for t
  
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• Pound euro exchange rate eases, Brexit weighs on UK manufacturing in September

  01-10-2019 17:53 via feedproxy.google.com
  The pound euro exchange rate eased today, with the pairing currently trading around €1.122 after September’s UK Markit Manufacturing PMI failed to emerge from contraction territory at 48.3. Last month saw Brexit uncertainty and the global economic slowdown continue to weigh on the British economy.
  
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• Greggs to stockpile bacon and tuna to avert Brexit shortages

  01-10-2019 17:14 via theguardian.com
  Bakery chain also switches to buying cheese in UK and has leased extra warehouse spaceGreggs is preparing to stockpile bacon and tuna and has switched to buying all its cheese in the UK as the bakery chain tries to avert shortages in the event of a chaotic Brexit.Roger Whiteside, the chief executive of Britain’s largest bakery chain, said the company had leased extra warehouse space and this month would begin building additional stocks of ingredients vulnerable to hold-ups at the UK’
  
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• Pound US Dollar exchange rate: GBP/USD slips as dollar hits 29-month high

  01-10-2019 16:59 via feedproxy.google.com
  The US dollar remained steady as it climbed against a handful of currencies, hitting a 29-month high as markets priced in a lower chance of further Federal Reserve Rate cuts in the coming months. The US Markit manufacturing PMI also provided some support for the US Dollar, edging up to a five-month high in September.
  
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• WTO warns tariff wars threaten jobs and global living standards

  01-10-2019 16:26 via theguardian.com
  Organisation slashes forecast for 2019 trade growth amid US-China dispute and Brexit fears
  The World Trade Organization has warned that the outbreak of tariff wars pose a threat to jobs and living standards as it slashed its forecast for trade growth during 2019.The Geneva-based WTO said it had more than halved its growth forecast for trade in goods this year from 2.6% to 1.2% after a summer of escalating US-China protectionism, a slowdown in global growth and fears of the impact of a no-deal Br
  
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• Nottingham-based energy supplier fails to pay £9.5m in subsidies

  01-10-2019 16:03 via theguardian.com
  Robin Hood Energy may have licence revoked if it fails to pay total sum to OfgemRobin Hood Energy, the energy supplier owned by Nottingham city council, has failed to pass on £9.5m in renewable energy subsidies after collecting them from customers through their bills.The supplier has already claimed the sum from its customers, to be used to support renewable energy projects, but missed the deadline to pay its share of the money to the industry regulator, Ofgem last month. Continue reading.
  
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• UK house prices fall amid no-deal Brexit fears

  01-10-2019 15:16 via theguardian.com
  Nationwide says prices in London dropped at an annual rate of 1.7% in SeptemberHouse prices in Britain unexpectedly fell last month amid mounting fears over the impact of no-deal Brexit on the property market.According to the latest snapshot from the Nationwide building society, prices fell in September by 0.2%, pulling down the average price of a home to £215,352 from £216,096 in August. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast a 0.1% rise on the month. Continue reading...
  
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• Harland and Wolff saved from closure in £6m rescue deal

  01-10-2019 13:54 via theguardian.com
  Shipyard that built Titanic bought by London-based energy firm InfraStrata to supply its gas storage projectHarland and Wolff, the Belfast shipyard that built the Titanic, has been saved from closure after a London-based energy company stepped in with a £6m rescue deal.The historic shipyard, which also built the HMS Belfast cruiser now permanently moored on the Thames as a museum, went into administration in August after its Norwegian parent company collapsed. Continue reading...
  
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• Credit Suisse chief operating officer fired over spying scandal

  01-10-2019 13:32 via theguardian.com
  Bank condemns decision by Pierre-Olivier Bouée to put executive under surveillanceSwitzerland’s second-biggest bank has sacked its chief operating officer over an “extraordinary” James Bond-style corporate espionage scandal in which private detectives were hired to follow a senior executive through the streets of Zurich after a row with the organisation’s boss at a cocktail party.Credit Suisse said on Tuesday that Pierre-Olivier Bouée had left with immediate
  
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• Two-tier workforce: WeWork protests show dark side of outsourcing

  01-10-2019 12:55 via theguardian.com
  The outcry over dismissed cleaners in London highlights a wider problem: modern global multinationals are now often staffed by a two-tier workforceBlowing on horns, waving black flags and playing blaring sirens and loud music through a speaker system, protesters outside a WeWork branch in Shoreditch, London, demanded the attention of those going in and out last week.The deafening demonstration – which called for four cleaners who have lost their jobs at WeWork to be reinstated – made
  
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• Ryanair boss says the package holiday market is finished

  01-10-2019 12:39 via theguardian.com
  Michael O’Leary criticises Civil Aviation Authority after Thomas Cook collapseRyanair boss Michael O’Leary has criticised Britain’s Civil Aviation Authority for awarding Thomas Cook a licence just months before its collapse and said the package holiday market was finished.Thomas Cook, the world’s oldest travel firm, collapsed last week, leaving more than 150,000 UK holidaymakers stranded abroad. O’Leary praised the CAA for its Operation Matterhorn rescue airline set
  
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• Tory spending plans: Sajid Javid's key pledges

  01-10-2019 10:50 via theguardian.com
  Chancellor promises multibillion-pound rises for hospitals, education and moreWith a general election looming, Boris Johnson has sanctioned a multibillion-pound spending programme announced at the Conservative party conference. Ministers have promised investment in the transport system, NHS and digital infrastructure in an attempt to stimulate economic growth and win back erstwhile Tory voters. But there are concerns the party has jettisoned its reputation for fiscal rectitude. Continue reading.
  
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• Thomas Cook auditors investigated by accounting watchdog

  01-10-2019 09:37 via theguardian.com
  FRC announces review of EY’s auditing in wake of travel firm’s collapseBritain’s accounting watchdog has begun an investigation into EY’s audit of Thomas Cook’s accounts, just over a week after the world’s oldest travel firm collapsed.The Financial Reporting Council said its enforcement division was investigating EY’s audit of the financial statements of Thomas Cook for the year to 30 September 2018. Continue reading...
  
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• Why Germany must not make the same fiscal mistakes as the US

  01-10-2019 08:25 via theguardian.com
  Donald Trump cut taxes for rich Americans, but Berlin should invest in modernisationAs long as Germany’s economy was recovering well from the 2008 global financial crisis, policymakers had a coherent rationale for fiscal austerity. Rejecting other eurozone countries’ constant urging that it undertake stimulus, Germany enshrined the national commitment to budget discipline in the 2009 “debt brake”, which limits the federal structural deficit to 0.35% of GDP, and in the sub
  
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• One minute my LNER train ticket was valid, the next it wasn’t

  01-10-2019 08:00 via theguardian.com
  I was assured I could take a later train when my one was full, but the inspector demanded £88 to stay onOn a journey from London King’s Cross to Edinburgh Waverley with LNER, I had a ticket for the 14.00 train. I am a student and was moving back to Scotland from London for the new college year, carrying three large suitcases.I was unable to get on the 14.00 train as it was full. Seeing me struggling to board, a member of LNER staff told me to get on the next train at 15.00. She assur
  
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