SSE Sees Profit Up 9.6% Amid Price Hikes

Energy giant SSE has seen its full-year adjusted pre-tax profit rise by 9.6% to £1.55bn, just months after announcing price increases.

But it saw the retail division operating profit fall 28.6% to £292m in the year to March 31 as energy usage plunged during the mild winter.

SSE is Britain's second largest provider of household energy and announced it would increase prices last autumn.

It said increased output from renewable energy helped its wholesale arm's operating profit rise to £634.6m - up 24.8%.

During the last year SSE has topped several customer complaint league tables compiled by consumer groups.

SSE lost 370,000 customers during the year - more than 1,000 a day - in a drift towards smaller and independent providers.

In a swipe at the likely backlash over profits, it pointed to a report by accounting giant PwC which found that in the previous financial year the energy firm contributed £9.1bn to UK gross domestic product and supported 112,000 jobs.

Sky's Eamonn Holmes interviewed SSE Group managing director Will Morris after the results were released.

Asked by Holmes if the company would reduce prices for consumers amid reducing wholesale prices, Mr Morris said: "It has been a tough year.

"We will look constantly and if there is a sustained fall ... We know customers care most about having certainty and peace of mind."

A political and consumer backlash over energy firms raising prices saw SSE decide to freeze its energy tariffs last March, until January 2016.

The company's electricity transmission operating profit however, rose by nearly half due to a major increase in investment which its chairman Robert Smith said would continue with a net investment of around £5.5bn over four years in the network.

00.11 | 0 komentar | Read More

UK Retail Sales Growth Hits 10-Year High

A late Easter helped boost UK retail sales to a 7.7% growth rate year-on-year, officially relased figures have revealed.

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) said retail sales volumes jumped by 1.3% on the March figure, and 6.9% on the year - the highest since May 2004.

A consensus among economists had forecast the rise to be around 0.5% on the month and 5.2% on the year.

The ONS said food sales jumped 3.6% in April compared to March, and 6.3% on the year, taking the rate to its highest level for more than 12 years.

It said the spike in food sales was due to better weather and promotions in-store.

Non-food store sales rose 6.5% year-on-year but were down 0.4% on the month.

The increase in consumer spending has become a key driver of Britain's modest recovery from the financial crisis more than five years ago.

A trend in easing inflation and gentle wage growth, along with record low mortgage rates, has helped boost spending.

However ONS figures released on Tuesday showed inflation rising 0.2% month-on-month, eating into the wage recovery.

Figures from the Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML), also released on Wednesday, showed gross mortgage lending was an estimated £16.6bn in April - 8% higher than March's total.

The CML added that it was 36% higher than April last year and the highest total for an April since 2008 when it was £25.7bn.

Click and collect, and smartphone usage to research prices, is increasingly seen as a driver for high street purchases.

Meanwhile, the sector known as non-store/repair saw the biggest jump out of eight retail areas classified by the ONS.

It said year-on-year that sector grew by 25.1%, and 5.9% month-on-month.

But spending on fuel dropped both on the month and compared to last year, due to price suppression.

Figures showed motorists spent 3.7% less on fuel in April compared to March, and 0.7% down on the April 2013 figure.

Deloitte UK head of retail Ian Geddes said: "It is encouraging to finally see some strong figures in the food sector, as this remains a challenging market for the large grocers who are vigorously responding to consumers' changing retail habits and, are currently implementing significant structural reorganisation.

"This is clearly a long race and the large grocers are repositioning themselves to win over customers in the new, more complex era of multichannel retailing."

00.11 | 0 komentar | Read More

Food Worth £1bn Wasted Every Year Across UK

By Poppy Trowbridge, Consumer Affairs Correspondent

Food worth £1bn is wasted in the UK every year before it even reaches our fridges, according to figures obtained by Sky News.

Damage, flawed appearance and the cost of recycling are just some of the justifications used for throwing food away.

Growers, producers and retailers together bin an average of 400,000 tons annually, or more than 950 million meals.

For the first time, Britain's biggest food retailer, Tesco, is expected to publish the amount of food wasted each year within its UK operations.

The figures will show that more than 50,000 tons - about 1% of all products - gets thrown out.

Matt Simister, Commercial Director, Group Food at Tesco, said: "It really does impact a family's budget.

"What we're saying is that we acknowledge that we have a role to play in helping mums to save more money in the household.

Tesco says it is trying to reduce waste at private distribution centres

"We can reduce the wastage in our own operations, but I think more importantly, we can start to influence the wastage that happens across the whole system."

Families throw away around six meals a week.

Over a year, that can cost up to £700, according to the latest figures from the UK's Waste and Resources Action Programme (Wrap) published in November.

So when you add in what is wasted by consumers too, the total value is closer to £13.5bn.

At private distribution centres, Tesco says it's trying to reduce the tonnage of edible waste.

Food that is perfectly edible, but unsuitable for store shelves, is packed up and sent out to charities that feed the hungry.

Even if the economic recovery does ease the pinch on family budgets this year, the cost of some basic foods will continue to rise, according to market experts.

Halving the amount of discarded food is a goal for Wrap

Joe Rundle, a trader at ETX Capital, said: "Corn, coffee, meat … everything is going to go up considerably.

"In the short term there are seasonal factors and environmental issues that have caused the spike."

Brazil, a large coffee producer, has experienced drought, and tension between Ukraine and Russia has prompted a rise in the price of wheat.

"In the long term we are going to see an emerging middle class in the emerging markets that are really going to consume a lot more food and therefore push the price up."

Mr Rundle added: "That will probably mean that consumers are going to have to change the way they consume food and think about the way they waste it."

Wrap wants to halve the amount of discarded food by 2025.

Achieving that target should also mean the cost to consumers comes down too.

00.11 | 0 komentar | Read More

Buyout Giants Team Up For Sub-Prime Lender

By Mark Kleinman, City Editor

Two of the world's biggest private equity groups have joined forces to mount a takeover bid for Kensington, one of the UK's biggest specialist mortgage lenders.

Sky News understands that Blackstone and TPG will table a combined offer for the business ahead of a deadline towards the end of the month.

The buyout giants are understood to be competing against at least three other bidders for Kensington, one of which is said to be Lonestar, a specialist US property investor.

Kensington is owned by Investec, the Anglo-South African banking group which sponsors the England cricket team.

The mortgage operation was bought by Investec for £283m in 2007, just before the start of the banking crisis.

Analysts say the bank should recoup the vast majority of that initial outlay, with Kensington's performance aided by the strength of the UK housing market.

Other bidders for the business are reported to have included Goldman Sachs, Virgin Money and Metro Bank, although at least two of them are understood to no longer be involved.

The auction of Kensington, which is being handled by Fenchurch Advisory, comes amid increasing signs of an overheating housing market in London and the south-east.

On Tuesday, Lloyds Banking Group said it would limit mortgage lending to four times an applicant's salary in London where the value of the loan exceeded £500,000.

The Bank of England's Financial Policy Committee is expected to discuss further measures to cool the market when it meets next week.

Blackstone and TPG declined to comment on Wednesday.

00.11 | 0 komentar | Read More

House Prices Up As PM Mulls Help To Buy Future

House prices have risen 8% in the year to March, figures have shown, as David Cameron said he would "consider" changes to the Help To Buy scheme if advised to do so by the Bank of England.

While the increase is down on the 9.2% rise announced in February, according to the Office for National Statistics, the continued strong price growth, particularly in London and the South East, is set to fuel criticism of the government scheme which underwrites home loans for people without large deposits.

Bank of England governor Mark Carney told Sky News at the weekend that the housing market had "deep, deep" problems.

In an interview with Sky's Murnaghan show, Mr Carney warned rising house prices represented the biggest current risk to the economy.

In response, the Prime Minister indicated he was open to rethinking Help To Buy, which critics argue contributes to forcing up house prices by fuelling demand, which far outstrips the supply of available homes.

Asked if he would look at reducing the programme's £600,000 threshold, Mr Cameron said: "Of course, we will consider any changes that are proposed by Mark Carney.

"But, as he said, this is a well-targeted scheme and it's helped tens of thousands of people get on the housing ladder and to have mortgages."

Mr Cameron says Help To Buy has helped tens of thousands of people

In a bid to tackle housing inflation in London, Britain's biggest mortgage lender is imposing a new loan-to-income cap on people looking to borrow more than £500,000.

Lloyds Banking Group said people applying for a mortgage in excess of that figure will only be able to get up to four times their income.

The new policy will apply across the UK but Lloyds said it is primarily aimed at the soaring London market. It expects the change to affect around 8% of its lending in the capital and around 2.5% elsewhere.

The ONS report said annual house price rises in England were being driven by a 17% year-on-year increase in London, a 6.6% hike in the East and a 6.1% rise in the South East.

The average house price in London has reached £459,000, while the average price in the UK as a whole now stands at £252,000, slightly down on the £253,000 peak in February.

The 0.5% drop marks the first time property values have fallen month-on-month in just over a year.

Shelter says the housing market has reached "boiling point"

However, first-time buyers now face having to pay 10% more than they did a year ago, with the average price of a starter home standing at £193,000 in March, according to the ONS.

Campbell Robb, chief executive of housing charity Shelter, said: "These figures are yet more proof that our housing market is reaching boiling point.

"With every rise in house prices leaving more people priced out or stuck in cramped homes, rollercoaster house prices are rapidly losing their feel-good factor."

In his Sky News interview, Mr Carney signalled he is ready to take action to cool the housing market.

He said the Bank could adopt a range of measures, including a new "affordability test" for borrowers and advising the Government to curb the Help to Buy scheme.

Lib Dem Chief Secretary to the Treasury Danny Alexander said: "Help to Buy doesn't change any of those, the qualifying criteria that people need to follow in order to get a mortgage, but what it does do is help to open up the housing market to people who otherwise would be excluded from it."

00.11 | 0 komentar | Read More

Royal Mail Launches Sunday Parcel Deliveries

Royal Mail is to start delivering parcels and opening delivery offices on Sundays, in response to the rapid growth of online shopping.

The recently-privatised firm says parcels will be delivered on Sundays later this summer to addresses within the M25. 

Around 100 of the busiest delivery offices will open on Sunday afternoons as part of the pilot.

The group's express parcels business, Parcelforce Worldwide, will also launch a Sunday delivery service in June for online shoppers through participating e-retailers.

Parcelforce Worldwide will make the service available to contract customers across the UK.

Shoppers who choose the Sunday service through registered retailers will receive a text message between 30 and 90 minutes before delivery.

Royal Mail said the changes were being introduced under an agreement with the Communication Workers Union (CWU).

Chief executive Moya Greene said: "Through these new Sunday services we are exploring ways to improve our flexibility and provide more options for people to receive items they have ordered online."

Union support for the move had enabled the company to "respond quickly to a changing market", she added.

CWU deputy general secretary Dave Ward said: "Royal Mail's announcement about expanding delivery and collection services to seven days a week is an exciting innovation which we welcome.

"We appreciate that in order to stay competitive in a broadly unregulated sector, Royal Mail has to expand its services to its customers.

"We believe that offering Sunday delivery and collection services is the right response from the company.

"With ever-increasing numbers of people opting to shop online, Sunday services are necessary to deal with the growing demand in parcel delivery.

"The union is negotiating with Royal Mail nationally to ensure that postal workers who are affected by these changes receive good terms and conditions and, where appropriate, that work is performed on a voluntary basis."

00.11 | 0 komentar | Read More

China Signs Russian Gas Deal 'Worth $400bn'

Is Wiley Putin Really Like Hitler?

Updated: 12:46pm UK, Wednesday 21 May 2014

By Sam Kiley, Foreign Affairs Editor

It's an opportunity for a brief snigger, a moment of international schadenfreude, the moment of guilty pleasure at someone else's misfortune - and it came all in one sentence.

In reaction to Prince Charles' comparison of Vladimir Putin to Adolf Hitler the Russian president's spokesman said: "I don't know anything about it. I can't really trust the Daily Mail as a source."

This offhand dismissal signals both that the heir to the British throne is irrelevant to Russia - and that the Kremlin is not to be moved, as British politicians very often are, by headlines in the UK's most powerful tabloid.

Charles' comment was made in private. It was controversial only because he said it.

His father, Prince Philip, has form for making off-the-cuff comments about foreigners that have been intended as jokes but taken too seriously.

"And now Putin is doing just about the same as Hitler," the Prince of Wales is reported to have said.

Hillary Clinton said much the same not long ago.

The former US Secretary of State told an audience: "The claims by president Putin and other Russians that they had to go into Crimea and maybe further into Ukraine because they had to protect Russian minorities is reminiscent of claims made back in the 1930s when Germany under the Nazis kept talking about how they had to protect German minorities in Poland, Czechoslovakia and elsewhere throughout Europe."

Prince Charles and Clinton are simply showing that they know their history.

Hitler's unopposed annexation of the Sudetenland, a German speaking part of Czechoslovakia, happened on the pretext of protecting ethnic Germans there after deliberately fomenting unrest, riots, and violent secessionist movements.

Putin has done exactly the same thing in Ukraine.

The issue is whether Russia wants to annex the vast central European country.

He needs to work out whether he has gone far enough or wants to go for broke - and he risks just that, going broke.

So his main focus this week has been on a state visit to China where he had hoped to sign a 30-year, $456bn, deal to export gas and other petrochemicals to China.

He needed this deal to offset the inevitable strategic shift by European national consumers of Russian gas to alternative supplies because Russia is no longer trusted following the annexation of the Crimea.

And Putin got it.

He landed the deal, according to the Chinese state news agency, on Wednesday.

Some 88% of Russia's total oil exports, 70% of its gas exports and 50% of its coal exports go to Europe.

They all face sanctions if Russia keeps the pressure on Ukraine with more of the destabilising tactics used by Hitler.

The Chinese deal is roughly the equivalent of Russia's current oil exports to Germany.

But he'll still be feeling smug.

Russia's play for Ukrainian territory has been as much about a land grab as it has been about weakening the European Union and the bloc's flirtation with Kiev.

He has designs on greater influence over 'Eurasia' and will be watching the EU-wide elections with great interest.

He'll be rooting for the anti-European right - for UKIP, the National Front in France, Austria's Freedom Party - all determined to leave the European Union.

A weakened EU is what Putin wants, so if anti-Europeans do well then Russia's president will enjoy yet another moment of shadenfreude - taking pleasure at the EU's misfortune.

00.11 | 0 komentar | Read More

Advent Interest In Mothercare Bid Falters

By Mark Kleinman, City Editor

One of the City's biggest private equity firms has been mulling a takeover bid for Mothercare, the struggling high street chain.

Sky News understands that Advent International, an experienced investor in the retail sector, has been examining an approach to Mothercare for several months.

Sources close to the retailer said that it had had no discussions with Advent, and there were suggestions on Wednesday that Advent might no longer be actively looking at making an offer for the business.

Mothercare has been the subject of perennial bid speculation, particularly since the sudden departure in February of its chief executive, Simon Calver.

Mr Calver, a former boss of Lovefilm, was ousted after dire Christmas trading triggered a massive profit warning.

The company subsequently appointed Mark Newton-Jones, who previously ran Shop Direct, as its interim chief executive.

Mothercare is due to announce full-year results on Thursday, but is not expected to update the City on the process to name a permanent boss.

Shares in Mothercare were up about 2% on Wednesday, giving it a market capitalisation of although they have fallen approximately 60% during the last year.

Advent, which previously owned Poundland, the discount retailer, and Mothercare both declined to comment.

00.11 | 0 komentar | Read More

Ebay Users Urged To Change Their Passwords

By Tom Cheshire, Sky Technology Correspondent

Ebay has asked its users to change their passwords following a cyberattack that compromised the site's database.

The database, which was compromised between late February and early March, involved hackers infiltrating the database by accessing the log-in details of eBay employees.

The database included eBay customers' names, encrypted password, email address, physical addresses, phone numbers and dates of birth. 

However, the company says extensive tests carried out on its networks confirmed the breach had not resulted in any unauthorised activity for its users or compromise of their financial data. 

Ebay said it was "best practice" for users to change their passwords as it would "help enhance security for eBay users".

The company first learnt of the initial break-in two weeks ago, and a subsequent forensic analysis confirmed that a customer database had also been compromised.

The company said it has seen no increase in fraudulent activity since the hack. Paypal - which eBay owns - is unaffected, and it runs from a different database, according to the company.

"Working with law enforcement and leading security experts, the company is aggressively investigating the matter and applying the best forensics tools and practices to protect customers," eBay said in a statement.

Customers of eBay who use the same password for other websites should change their passwords on all sites.

The new cyberattack is only the latest in a recent string of high profile incidents. In February, the details of 2,200 Tesco clubcards were leaked online. Last year, US retailer Target lost the credit card details of 40 million customers.

A recent Verizon report found 1,367 serious data breaches in 2013, dubbed "the year of the retailer breach", saying it was a year of "large-scale attacks on payment card systems."

David Emm, a senior security researcher at Kaspersky Lab, said:  "It's difficult to quantify the danger customers may be in following the eBay cyberattack, but of course any personal data in the wrong hands is bad news and it appears that the attackers have gained access to customers' names, email addresses, physical addresses, phone numbers and dates of birth, as well as encrypted passwords.

"The fact that this attack took place two to three months ago means the attackers have had additional time with which to attempt to decrypt the stolen passwords as well as make use of the other personal data.

"On the face of it, it looks as though eBay has been slow to respond, but if the company has only just discovered the full extent of the attack it is now doing the right thing by notifying customers in a timely manner."

00.11 | 0 komentar | Read More

New French Trains Too Wide For Platforms

New trains ordered in a £2.43bn deal to expand the network in regional France have been found to be too wide for many of the platforms.

A total of 1,300 platforms out of a total of 8,700 will need to be modified to accommodate the new trains, it has been confirmed.

A spokesman for national operator RFF told French radio: "We discovered the problem a bit late, we recognise that and we accept responsibility on that score."

Work has already started to modify hundreds of stations and move trackside equipment to accommodate the new trains.

The mistake was first reported by a French satirical magazine.

It said SNCF was given dimensions for platforms built since the 1980s. However, platforms in more than 1,000 locations built decades beforehand were said to be a different size.

An SNCF spokesman confirmed the technical issue to Sky News and said: "The problem is not with the rolling stock but with the platforms."

It said 182 new TER train carriages ordered from train maker Alstom were too wide for stations in 12 French regions, along with 159 carriages from Bombardier for nine regions.

Remedial work totalling €50m (£40m) has already been spent to get the procurement back on track, SNCF said.

It added the trains "were wider to meet public expectations" and that the alterations would cost just 1.25% of its annual maintenance and infrastructure budget.

More than 300 platforms have been altered to date, with another 600 expected to be completed by the end of the year.

French transport minister Frederic Cuvillier said an "absurd rail system" caused the error.

"When you separate the rail operator from the train company ... this is what happens."

Work will be finished by 2016 to coincide with full delivery of the multi-billion contract.

The decade-long expansion plan comes as the rail system has seen a 50% rise in passenger numbers around the French capital, and a 40% rise in regional travel.

France's biggest rail worker union denounced the mistaken order as proof of the dangers of deregulation, seizing on the costly error on the eve of an anti-liberalisation protest in Paris.

The CGT said the order would never have happened if the state railway company had not been split in two in a preliminary step towards privatisation.

"This saga would be just a vaudeville farce if it were not for the fact that it results from the split," the union said in a statement.

It referred to a decision back in 1997 to break the railways into two entities - the SNCF train service operator and RFF, which is in charge of rail infrastructure.

00.11 | 0 komentar | Read More