Published: 09 January 2023
By Suzanne Evans, Director, Political Insight
This week's strikes include planned walkouts by ambulance drivers, bus drivers and teachers in Scotland, and driving examiners. Workers at the DVLA have also launched a five-day strike starting today over pay, pensions and jobs.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said yesterday he would be willing to discuss pay rises for nurses, ahead of meetings that will be held today by separate Ministers with health, teaching and rail unions. The aim is to try to bring an end to widespread and ongoing strike actions within the public sector. Despite ministers previously refusing to reopen talks on nurses pay, Sunak told the BBC: "We want to have a reasonable, honest, two-way conversation about pay.” The door has always been open to talk about the things that nurses want to talk about, and the unions want to talk about more generally," he added. Pat Cullen, head of the Royal College of Nursing union, said she had a "chink of optimism" after noticing a "little shift" in the prime minister’s stance. Thousands of nurses are due to strike again on 18th and 19th January after walking out on two days in December. Ambulance workers are also due to strike again on Wednesday this week, and on 23rd January. A ballot has also opened for junior doctors in England to vote on their own industrial action, which could begin in March. Meanwhile, Sunak repeatedly refused to say during the BBC interview whether he uses private healthcare. The questions was a "distraction from the things that really matter," he said, adding: "As a general policy I wouldn’t ever talk about me or my family’s healthcare situation. It’s not really relevant."
Meanwhile, Health Secretary Steve Barclay has announced £250m in additional NHS funding for the service to buy beds in care homes so patients can be discharged more quickly from hospital wards to free up beds for new admissions from A&E. The government says some 13,000 medically fit patients are occupying beds in England, unable to be discharged because they have no one to look after them or nowhere to go. The plans are to be included in a series of emergency measures to relieve Winter pressure on the NHS to be unveiled by Barclay later today.
A survey by Make UK, the main trade body for British manufacturers, and accountants PwC, suggests Britain has become less competitive and less attractive to foreign investors as a result of soaring energy costs and recent political turmoil. The proportion of manufacturers who think Britain has become less attractive to overseas investors was 43%, while the numbers of those believing Britain is a competitive location halved to 31% from 63% a year ago. The survey of 235 businesses took place from 1st – 22nd November, when the turmoil of Liz Truss's short-lived government was fresh in people's minds, Yahoo Finance says. 53% of firms said ongoing political instability had damaged business confidence. Two thirds of manufacturers also expected to reduce headcount or cut output at the time, because of high energy costs.
Construction activity fell in December at its sharpest rate since May 2020, according to the latest S&P Global/CIPS construction purchasing managers’ index. The index scored 48.8 in December, down from 50.4 in November and marking the first contraction in activity since August. Only a score above 50 signifies growth, while anything below 50 marks a decline. The survey found that housing activity declined for the first time since last July, while civil engineering recorded a sixth consecutive monthly contraction in output. Commercial construction however, kept growing.
Virgin Orbit, which is part-owned by billionaire Richard Branson, plans to launch nine satellites into an orbit more than 500km above the planet from a LauncherOne rocket, attached under the wing of a modified Boeing 747, today. The airplane will initially depart from Spaceport Cornwall at the county’s Newquay Airport today, before heading west out over the Atlantic to a designated launch zone just off the Irish coast. It will be the first time a satellite has departed from western European soil.
The British arm of German discount supermarket group Lidl had a very good Christmas. As shoppers sought out savings during this time of rising food inflation, its sales rose 24.5% in the four weeks running up to Christmas Day, when compared to the previous year. Over 1.3 million more customers shopped at its stores in the seven days to Christmas Eve, the firm said this morning. Citing data from market researcher Kantar, Lidl GB also said shoppers switched £62.8m of spend to it from other supermarkets over the four week period, almost triple that of last year. Trading from more than 950 stores, Lidl is currently the UK's sixth biggest supermarket chain with a grocery market share of 7.2%, Reuters says.
FTSE 100 pharma AstraZeneca has struck a deal to buy NASDAQ-listed biopharmaceutical firm CinCor Pharma Inc for up to $1.8 billion to strengthen its pipeline of heart and kidney drugs and grow beyond its mainstay cancer business. The purchase price represents a premium of nearly 121% to the CinCor stock's closing price on Friday.
Frasers Group has cut its stake in German fashion house Hugo Boss. The FTSE 100 company said on Friday said that it now holds 3.9% of Hugo Boss stock directly, down from 4.3% previously and a further 25% via the sale of put options, down from 28.5%. In October, Frasers announced it was increasing its maximum exposure to Hugo Boss to about £840m from £770m. At the same time, it upped its investment into fast-fashion retailer Asos,becoming its fourth largest shareholder.
Caledonia Mining has completed its acquisition of Bilboes Gold. The AIM-traded firm said Bilboes Gold is the parent company which owns, through its Zimbabwe subsidiary, Bilboes Holdings, the Bilboes gold project in Zimbabwe. Acquisition plans were announced initially on 21st July last year.
Mark Kelly, CEO of London-listed uPVC window and door manufacturer Eurocell plans to retire later this year. He will be succeeded by Darren Waters, who is currently COO of brick and concrete product manufacturer Ibstock. Waters will join the board as CEO Designate in spring.
The Swiss National Bank (SNB) has posted an annual loss of 132 billion Swiss francs (£117.65bn) for 2022 – almost equivalent to the annual GDP of Morocco. The loss, the biggest in its 115-year history is as a consequence of falling stock and fixed-income markets and a strengthening Swiss franc.SNB’s previous largest loss was far smaller, at 23 billion francs (£20.5bn) in 2015. The bank made a 26 billion franc (£23.17bn) profit in 2021.
Goldman Sachs Group Inc will start one of its biggest rounds of job cuts ever, as it locks in on a plan to eliminate a maximum of 3,200 positions this week, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. The process is expected to begin in the middle of this week, the report said, citing a source.
Shares of listed Chinese companies that count Ant Group as a major shareholder rose today after announcements that Ant founder Jack Ma is giving up control of the fintech giant following an overhaul. The company said in a statement on Saturday that it was adjusting its ownership structure so that “no shareholder, alone or jointly with other parties, will have control over Ant Group”. “The adjustment is being implemented to further enhance the stability of our corporate structure and sustainability of our long-term development,” the statement added. Notably, Ant operates Alipay, the world’s largest digital payments platform, which boasts hundreds of millions of monthly users in China and beyond. Ant Group’s announcement follows a sustained Chinese Communist Party crackdown on the nation’s tech sector, one that specifically targeted billionaire Ma. In November 2020, Ant’s $37bn initial public offering, which would have been the world’s largest, was cancelled at the last minute, leading to a forced restructuring of the firm and speculation the Chinese billionaire would have to cede control. Beijing also imposed a record fine equating to £2.27bn on Alibaba for alleged unfair practices. Andrew Collier, an expert in China's macroeconomy and shadow banking, told Al Jazeera that Beijing had two problems with Ma, the fact he is a “well-funded, very popular billionaire who controls two large companies,” and that he started to compete with some state-owned banks in China which are “the backbone of the economy”. “For those two reasons, they thought he was a threat, and they are cutting him down in size,” Collier said. Reuters says Ma held more than 50% of voting rights in Ant via his investment vehicle, Hangzhou Yunbo, which effectively controlled two other entities that owned a combined 53.46% stake in Ant. Under the latest restructuring, his voting share will fall to 6.2%.
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