Category Archives: ECONOMY

U.S. Seeks Quick Nafta Deal, but Allies Balk as It Gives Little Ground

U.S. Seeks Quick Nafta Deal, but Allies Balk as It Gives Little Ground Photo A manufacturing plant in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico. In Nafta talks, the Trump administration has not significantly softened its position on rules aimed at bringing manufacturing back to the United States. Credit Ivan Pierre Aguirre for The New York Times WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is pushing to reach a deal on the North American Free Trade Agreement by the beginning of May. But the timeline could be complicated by its refusal to budge from contentious proposals aimed at bringing manufacturing back to the United States.
The administration has not significantly softened its position on rules that automakers would need to meet to qualify for zero tariffs under Nafta, according to a summary of the American proposal reviewed by The New York Times. While the administration has removed a requirement about the percentage of a car that must be made in the United States, it has added other rules that North Americ..

Metro Bank chairman faces rebellion after handing millions to wife's company

Vernon Hill handed over £4.6m to Shirley Hill's architecture firm InterArch
Metro Bank chairman Vernon Hill is facing the prospect of an embarrassing shareholder rebellion after an investor hit out at more than £21m of payments from the lender to his wife's architecture firm.
Royal London Asset Management has warned it will vote against a raft of resolutions at Metro Bank's annual general meeting (AGM) on 24 April, including the re-election of founder and chairman Mr Hill and the lender's remuneration report.
The fund manager, which holds a 0.44 per cent stake in Metro Bank worth £13.6m, said it would also vote against the re-election of the heads of both the remuneration and audit committees.
Read more 'Goldman may have build London HQ elsewhere if it knew about Brexit' Shirley Hill's firm InterArch was paid £4.6m in 2017 alone, linked to architectural design services for Metro Bank, as well as a branding, marketing and advertising agreement t..

Goldman Sachs might not have built European HQ in London if it had known about Brexit, says Lloyd Blankfein

Investment bank boss says he “thought there would have been a worse outcome by now”
Goldman Sachs might not have chosen to build its new European headquarters in London if the decision had been made after Brexit, the bank's boss Lloyd Blankfein said.
The Wall Street giant is currently constructing a new £300m site in the City, which will remain its European base.
But Mr Blankfein said, had Goldman known about Brexit, “we might have made a different decision”.
Read more Goldman Sachs boss Lloyd Blankfein reportedly stepping down “In our European headquarters, Goldman has German nationals covering German securities issued by German institutions, in London,” he said in an interview with Politico on Thursday.
The long-serving Goldman boss said he was wrong about the immediate of effects of the Brexit vote on the economy.
“Cassandra hasn’t been proved right,” he said.
“Some people would say, ‘hasn’t been proved right, yet’.”
Read more Goldman Sachs CEO takes to Twitter to ..

A View from the Top: Naina Lal Kidwai, the former banker trying to make India cleaner

When she left HSBC after a 13-year career with the bank, one of India’s most successful businesswomen turned her attention to the country’s sanitation problems
It’s midday in New Delhi and Naina Lal Kidwai is talking about faeces. “It’s all very well funnelling all the shit into loos, but we have to make sure the waste is properly treated, otherwise this mission is going to be the most expensive failure in history,” the 61-year-old former chair of HSBC India says firmly.
While excrement seems an unlikely subject for one of India’s most prominent businesswomen, it is in fact high on her agenda. The mission she references is the Swachh Bharat (Clean India) Mission (SBM), launched in October 2014 by Indian Prime Minister Modi to improve sanitation in the country.
Read more India’s ambitious plans to achieve sanitation for all Kidwai chairs the India Sanitation Coalition, whose aim is to bring “all stakeholders in the sanitation field onto one platform where they can share informatio..

Mothercare: Could hiring some mothers to run the thing fix its problems?

The retailer has issued another disappointing trading update as the latest in a series of male CEOs tries to turn around a business with a gender pay gap of over 40 per cent despite an overwhelmingly female customer base
What’s wrong with Morthercare?
A revolving door of CEOs have been trying to answer that question. So far none of them have got even close.
I have a suggestion that might just fly.
Read more Mothercare sales drop even further as fewer people visit its stores Pawnbroker H&T surges as Mothercare reveals struggles Mothercare warns over profits after sales fall over Christmas First, though, let’s have a look at where things stand for the latest incumbent, David Wood.
Shore Capital, the retailer's broker, was actually able to find some positives from the latest trading statement, which is quite an achievement given that it saw the company reporting a 2.8 per cent fall in UK sales, a 3.7 per cent fall in international sales, and the admission that Mr Wood and ..

Toys R Us receives multiple $1bn bids for Asia business

The collapsed retailer looks for a glimmer of hope in Asia
Toys R Us has received several $1bn (£706m) bids for a majority stake in its Asia arm, a lawyer for the company said.
The US company plans to sell some of its global operations after collapsing in September due to piling debt and strong competition from discount online retailers.
Lawyer Joshua Sussberg said that the company will attempt to continue running profitable stores in Europe and Asia while it folds its UK and US stores.
Read more Mothercare sales drop even further as fewer people visit its stores Mr Sussberg told a US court hearing that sales and estate auctions were generating some money to repay creditors.
Toys R Us is also expecting to finalise a deal to sell its operations in Central Europe.
The retailer had almost 1,600 stores before it filed for bankruptcy protection, many of them characteristically located in out-of-town areas with large stores.
The rise of online shopping and the dominance of e-retail..

National Grid issues profit warning as extreme weather causes £140m of damage

National Grid has issued a profit warning after extreme weather in the US inflicted an extra £140m of costs.
The energy infrastructure provider said headline earnings for the full year would be lower than expected because of the cost of fixing storm damage.
Hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria (HIM) battered the US in the second half of 2017. Further severe storms hit again in February and March this year, leaving more than a million residences without power in the Northeast and Midwest.
Read more National Grid ends gas supply warning. Long term we need to use less National Grid said that underlying earnings, which strip out one-off costs, would be in line with its previous guidance.
Storm remediation costs “are expected to be recovered in future periods and will be reported as timing in our full-year results in May”, the company said in a stock market announcement.
National Grid also said it would benefit from a reduced US corporation tax rate. Senate Republicans recently passed ..

EDF announces energy price hike affecting 1.3m UK households

Follows similar announcement by British Gas earlier this week
EDF Energy has announced is raising the price of its standard bill by 1.4 per cent, bringing costs up for 1.3m households from June.
The energy provider said it would increase its standard variable electricity tariff by £16 a year, taking the cost to £1,158 per year. The company said there would be no change to gas prices.
Read more British Gas price hike a 'slap in the face' for customers, MPs say There will also be an increase in the charges for customers choosing to pay by cash or cheque by £6 per fuel per year , “to be closer to the real cost of serving these customers”, the group said. The change means a dual fuel standard variable customer choosing to pay by cash or cheque will see a combined increase of £28, or 2.3 per cent, a year to £1,248 a year.
Beatrice Bigois, EDF’s managing director of customers, said: “We know that price rises are not welcome and we have worked to offset rising energy and pol..