Business to Business News

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.

In a sign of economic stability returning, the price of oil has been rising steadily recently, suggesting the recession may be easing slightly. US light crude was up 48 cents last Monday, after peaking at $74.81 during the day, which is the highest price since October 2008.

Meanwhile, Brent crude oil rose by 7 cents to close on $74.26 on Monday, 24 August, which reinforces the growing strength once again in the oil industry.

Oil analyst, Edward Meir, backs this positive growth up by saying he believes “We could now easily move towards the $80 mark” if the market continues to remain optimistic.

The cost of the UK’s membership in the European Union is set to rise by around 60% in 2009/10. Currently the United Kingdom pays out a total contribution of  £4.1bn, but that is set to rise to £6.4bn over the next year or so.

According to the UK treasury, they believe it is fair to “share the burden of membership with new accession countries”, a statement which is opposed by the Tory party who claim it is a sign of “Labour’s incompetence” since they have been in power.

The figures show a dramatic rise from £53 per household in 2004 to a potential £260 per household in 2010, signifying a possible 490% increase.