With Lewis Hamilton winning the Formula One World Championship and becoming the youngest ever F1 World Champion, the spotlight on F1 has never been brighter. Every country wants a place on the F1 calendar, but with only 18 grand prix in the 2008 calendar and just 17 in the 2009 calendar (after the loss of the French Grand Prix) it’s difficult for a new country to stake a claim for a grand prix.
However, Bulgaria has made such a claim, which it hopes will be successful and increase business in the region. The Bulgarian Motorcycling Federation (BMF) is petitioning Formula One supremo Bernie Ecclestone to consider Bulgaria for a Grand Prix on a new circuit, still to be constructed.
Bogdan Nikolov, the president of the BMF, stated:
It’ll be very difficult but I think we’ll succeed.
The BMF is to submit a proposal for a F1 Grand Prix on December 15th, with a view to building a new F1 circuit near the town of Plevan.
Hosting an F1 Grand Prix is great for any country’s economy as it opens up many new business opportunities that would otherwise be closed, including tourism and leisure. The movie would also be beneficial for the Bulgarian property market, as an influx in F1 fans would mean many new visitors looking for places to live and stay.
Woolworths’ biggest shareholder is vehemently opposing putting the struggling group into administration and is determined to derail plans of selling 800 shops at a nominal price. Ardeshir Naghshineh, the Iranian property tycoon, who has over 10% stake in the business, argued that offloading stores to restructuring specialist Hilco for a meagre £1 is highly detrimental to the interests of either staff or shareholders. He wants the group to look for other options.
Ardeshir held discussions with Woolworth’s bankers GMAC and Burdale on the sale of some of the group’s leases to create cash flow for short term before Christmas. He said that Woolworths’ balance sheet was quite strong and its high street retail division enjoyed a unique position with well recognised and sought after brands.
Ardisher claimed that banks were having open mind on his proposal and were ready to discuss further by involving company. He added that it was the first time that banks were presented with an alternative business plan and they showed readiness to listen.
Hilco was holding discussions since last week over a deal under which Woolworths would sell off its shops while trading by the group’s publishing and distribution businesses would continue. The deal would cover £286m debts, £160m in annual rents and £58m pension deficit.
Though people have not got to December yet, sales have already begun, signalling fierce competition for market share. Retailers are getting ready to face cut-price battles rather than big profits this Christmas.
Instead of seeing bauble-laden Christmas trees, shoppers were happy to see banners of mega sale offers out of stores windows. Though Christmas is yet many days away, retailers have gone into discount mode. Shoppers might get relief for Christmas shopping, but the investors are getting more worried about slim pickings.
At Westfield, except Next, all three ‘anchor stores’ House of Fraser, Debenhams and Marks & Spencer were running promotions. Next chief executive Simon Wolsfon claimed that Next had never discounted before Christmas and this stand meant that customers could trust their prices.
But the cash strapped customers are least concerned about retailers’ price integrity. At Westfield they thronged in large numbers. Many shoppers acknowledged that they were buying more because of 20% discounts.
Annual Christmas survey by Deloitte indicates that 25% of UK shoppers plan to spend less this year but the retailers are trying to attract them with early discount offers. Around 50% of those surveyed would be spending the same amount as last year.
According to Neil Saunders, director at Verdict, discounts were good news for shoppers but very bad news for retailers’ margins. John Lewis’s selling operations director, Dan Knowles, commented that it was great way to cut margins and attract customers into stores.
In a break from the usual reporting of current affairs, I decided to write an article look at the way business security is being viewed at present.
It seems that more and more of a focus is being placed on cyber crime and digital robberies than real-life threats. There was a stage where many of us were naive to the effects of digital-thieves, but now it is becoming more of a second nature to ensure our online store is secure.
I just wondered if, as a result of putting so much emphasis on internet crime, we are all under prioritising our real life business. I’m sure this is only of any concern to smaller business that haven’t got security advisors to inform them of the best decisions specifically for their company.
We need to remember that roller shutters are just as important as firewalls and an intruder alarm is as vital as anti-virus software.
I openly admit that I am no security expert and in no way am I saying that everyone doesn’t care about physical security anymore. I just want to stress the importance of not forgetting to protect everything you own. Not just the things we hear most about.
Rising coal prices are prompting more companies to apply for the expansion of mines, posing a big threat to measures being undertaken for pollution control across Britain. The mining industry is poised to expand despite fears that it would lead to high emission, climate changes and create health hazards for communities.
Council records indicate that in last 18 months 14 companies have sought permission for extracting 60 million tonnes of coal from 58 new opencast mines. If approved, it would be the fastest expansion of coal mining in 40 years and could be turning Northumberland and southern Scotland into the biggest coal mined regions in Europe.
The dramatic increase in coal prices has driven demand for new mines in the UK. The prices have risen 4 times in the last two years. Though surface or opencast mines are less costly than deep mines, inhabitants in surrounding areas can suffer from pollution effects for years.
Coal mine expansion will be a setback to the efforts of Energy and Climate Change Secretary in reduction of carbon emissions. According to study conducted by the Public Interest Research Centre (Pirc), local authorities have given approval for expansion of 16 existing and 24 new open mines in the past 18 months.
Pirc’s Richard Hawkins saw clear contradiction in Government’s plan of 80% emission cuts and massive investment plan in new coal mines.
There are times when a business has to get in touch with other business for help. I’m talking about services such as cleaning, furniture, commodities, etc. Obviously this sort of work usually gets outsourced to companies that specialise in these areas. This ensures that your business will be getting the best possible service in each area.
In order to find the ideal service for your business, be it carpet cleaning in London or catering in Edinburgh. It used to be that the best way of finding the right people was either through word of mouth or local listings, like a classifieds paper. But in this modern digital age, we can do it all through the internet. Not only is this cheaper, it also makes it much easier to compare the services on offer to get the best deal for you and your business.
Finding information on the internet is also a lot simpler. Previously, you may have grabbed a directory and search under ‘C’ for Carpet Cleaners or ‘L’ for London, which can be quite confusing. However, with the internet, using the likes of Google, you can just enter a term such as “carpet cleanering London” (you don’t need words like in, and, of, etc.) and let the search engine do the rest.
Britain’s biggest private company, struggling with £6.1bn debt, has sought the help of restructuring specialists to tide over the crisis. Chemical manufacturer Ineos’s chairman, also the 25th richest person of the UK, Jim Ratcliffe, has asked PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC) to suggest a business plan and revised repayment terms for its debt by end of March 2009. This is in the hope of stopping the debt collection agencies moving in and the inevitable need for administration.
The investment bank, Lazard, is holding negotiations with lenders with request to wave covenants over next two quarters. Ineos is faced with possibility of failing to honour its loan conditions due to steep fall in petrochemical prices. The group will have to secure support of two-third of lenders, who are members of 230-strong syndicate that includes hedge funds and banks, for the approval of deal. Core banks, Barclays and Merrill Lynch have agreed to back the deal.
Petrochemicals consultant CMAI is preparing ‘state of the industry’ report which is likely to be used for justifying PWC’s plan. Lenders are also seeking help of restructuring specialists to get best possible terms from Ineos.
Ineos, claiming to be the third-biggest chemicals company in the world, announced that its earnings before taxes, interest amortisation and depreciation were €1.3bn in first three quarters, down €400m from same period last year.
According to chief finance officer John Reece, group has already started cash flow optimisation by cutting fixed costs, improving working capital ratio and curtailing capital expenditure.
Who will be axed? This is the big question which is worrying 12,000 UK workers this week as the Wall Street giant goes deep into the crisis. According to the Citigroup’s bankers, at least 1,250 jobs are likely to be cut from Canary Wharf London base, and additional jobs at the Egg credit card business and at subsidiary Schroders.
It is learnt that a very large number of staff has offered to accept voluntary redundancy, fearing that they would lose everything in continuing with Citi if conditions worsened further.
Citi’s share prices fell 20% after losing more than 60% last week. The world’s biggest bank that was worth $250bn in 2006 is now worth just $20bn.
Wall Street analyst Meredith Whitney termed chief executive Vikram Pandit ‘naive’ for his belief that unprecedented share price declines could be shrugged off by the bank. She added that Pandit was wrong. It is not possible for Citi to stay in current form and suggested that the group should break up and reduce size by selling off parts to raise capital. The mess is so big that Stephen Hawking also failed to turn around the company, she remarked.
Citi group’s seniors were trying to boost investors’ confidence amidst mounting speculations that it was heading towards bankruptcy like Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns.
The Thomson and First Choice package holiday brands, tour operator group Tui Travel, has plans to cut the number of British travellers’ summer holidays offered by 27% in 2009. It cited a decline in consumer confidence, rise in unemployment and weakness of the pound against the euro as reasons for the cut-down.
The UK market leader Thomas Cook, had revealed in September its plan of 15% fewer summer holidays for next year, while emphasising possibility of further big cuts if necessary. It claimed flexibility in managing and improving balance between demand and supply and reported that it had committed less than 10% hotel capacity for next summer.
Analysts argue that cuts planned by the two industry giants would have been much more severe but for the collapse of XL Leisure, the third largest UK operator, in September.
The German-controlled Tui stated that it was focussing on managing capacity in the UK in the backdrop of weaker advance bookings. An initially planned reduction of 15% has been raised to 16% after noting that bookings were 17% less than last year. The cuts are in addition to a 13% fall in offers to UK travellers by Tui this year.
Tui Travel and Thomas Cook were formed as a result of Tui AG’s purchase of British tour operator First Choice Holidays and German group Thomas Cook’s acquisition of UK’s My Travel, last year.
Former coal mining sites in the UK are to be redeveloped into wind farms as part of a scheme to replace old energy with new.
Peel Energy and UK Coal, in a joint venture, will erect 54 turbines on 14 old colliery locations to generate 133 megawatts per hour and provide electricity to 80,000 homes in the UK.
UK Coal was formerly part of the National Coal Board. Its chief executive John Lloyd declared that there was significant opportunity for wind farm development on parts of UK Coal’s land portfolio. He claimed that by announcing joint venture with Peel Energy, company has joined forces with most knowledgeable and active wind power companies of the UK.
UK Coal has already started harnessing of methane gas and is hoping to submit for planning permission for sites which will be ready in next three months.
Peel Energy is already generating 450MW wind power and also working on Scout Moor project, England’s largest, with 26 turbines. It is developing Royal Seaforth Dock wind farm and has sought planning permission for wind farm at Port of Sheerness.
According to Peel Energy’s director Steven Underwood, agreement with UK Coal was a step forward in expanding onshore pipeline and getting access to best wind farm sites of the UK.
An analyst at Numis Securities termed the deal as pretty good and commented that UK Coals’ innovative wind farm initiatives would derive big advantage from Peel Energy’s capital and expertise.