Business to Business News

A deal for car company Volvo seems to have been sealed today by Chinese car maker Geely. Volvo used to be owned by Ford but has failed to make a profit in the last five years and by selling the marquee Ford hope to pay off debts and focus on their own brand.

The deal is estimated to be worth a cool 1.2 billion pounds. And, Geely hope that by buying Volvo it will give them a foothold in the lucrative European car market, whilst also introducing the Volvo brand to China where 13 million cars were sold last year.

The sale marks a turbulent time for the car industry as a whole but hopefully Volvo will use this as a springboard for future success.

Npower, one of the UKs largest energy providers has announced that it is to cut gas bills for customers from the 26th of March. The average bill will be reduced by 7% which equates to a fall in about £50 per year for the average consumer.

At the same time as the reductions were announced Npower also made changes to its payment plans to favour customers who pay by direct debit. The news comes after British Gas reduced prices at the beginning of Feb and EON who announced price cuts at the beginning of this week. It remains to be seen if the last two ‘big’ providers, EDF energy and Scottish power follow suit.

Aer Lingus, the Irish airline carrier has announced plans to cut over 650 jobs as part of its large scale restructuring plans. The cuts are in an attempt to save the airline about £88 million pounds as they struggle with low passenger numbers.

The airline reported losses of £60 million in 2009 and a rise in passenger numbers seems to be a long way off. After discussing job losses with staff and unions, the cabin crew face about 230 compulsory redundancies and the rest of the job cuts will be voluntary.

It comes at a time when British Airways are still facing strike action and Lufthansa are still in talks with pilots to agree a new deal.

After a tough couple of months for the retail sector, sales have bounced back in February according to figures just released by the British Retail Consortium (BRC). Sales were actually up by 2.2% which goes someway to negate the fall in figures seen in January which was put down to severe weather conditions throughout the month.

Although sales went up there is still concern for the retail sector, as growth continues to struggle due to the downturn in the economy. Food sales were one area that did particularly poorly which the BRC put down to reserves bought in January, however sales of clothes and homeware did see a rise due in part to the number of people who had put off purchasing such items during the cold weather.

It remains to be seen if growth will be as slow before the upcoming election.

The hotly anticipated deal between UK mobile phone giants Orange and T-Mobile seems to have quickened pace after the EU ruled that the merger between the companies can go ahead.

The merger of the two companies would make the biggest mobile phone company in the UK eclipsing O2 and Vodaphone who currently share about one quarter each of the UK market. The deal between Orange and T-Mobile would give them a 33% share.

The Office of Fair Trading had been concerned about the merger and had asked the European Commission to investigate the matter. But, after further analysis and a clause that states that the companies should amend an existing agreement with ‘3’, the UKs smallest mobile provider, an agreement was reached.

The state-owned South African power firm, Eskom, raised its prices by a whopping 24.8 per cent recently, causing many trade unions to threaten strikes in protest.

Businesses and the general public are likely to struggle to cope with such a surge in price, say the unions, while the Johannesburg Chamber of Commerce and Industry said that businesses were already struggling due to the recession, implying that this could tip many over the edge.

Eskom has been struggling to meet the country’s electricity needs of late and needs finance in order to build additional power stations, therefore, this price was not unexpected. Power rationing is being implemented, which has been hugely problematic for South African mines, which are at the heart of the nation’s economy.

France’s largest retail bank, Credit Agricole, recently announced its quarterly results. A disappointing level of profit was largely explained by major losses in Greece.

The bank made £380million in the fourth quarter of 2009, but predictions had been for around 10 per cent more than that. However, this followed on from a deficit in the fourth quarter of 2008. In all, Credit Agricole profited by over a billion euros in 2009 – a 10 per cent improvement on the preceding year.

The bank is confident that their position will remain strong into 2010, saying that initial trends confirm this view.

British gas saw record profits in 2009, it has been announced. A 58 per cent increase in profit saw the residential side of the company profit by £595million – an improvement on the 2007 figure of £573million.

In response to this, British Gas will aim for a profit margin of around 7 per cent this year, where 2009 was closer to 8 per cent. This means that gas prices will be reduced by around 7 per cent and could also see 1,100 jobs created this year.

The energy supplier acquired 141,000 customers last year, taking its total customer base to 15.7million homes.

Immigration from central and east Europe is in decline according to recent figures. The number of people arriving in the UK from these countries declined by a third in the 12 months up until June last year – 68,000 people, compared to around 100,000 in the previous 12 months.

Other related figures include the number of asylum seekers, which have been fewer in the last three months of 2009 compared to the same period in the previous year.

Deportations and unauthorised migrants who left voluntarily were 64,750 in the year, which is about 3,000 fewer.

However, the number of people seeking British citizenship increased by about a third.

The Royal Bank of Scotland has recently announced its 2009 financial results and the ailing bank is down £3.6billion.

The loss is largely as a result of bad loans, but regardless of this dire position, bonuses are being paid to the tune of £1.3billion. The reasoning is that productive staff have been lost through not paying good enough bonuses in the past.

However, this will come as unwelcome news to many in the UK as 84 per cent of the bank is owned by the public after the government was forced to step in towards the end of 2008 as the financial difficulties threatened the future of RBS.