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The iconic Belfast company that built the Titanic is to collapse into administration.

Harland & Wolff has announced it is insolvent and will appoint administrators.

An administration order will likely be made this week, it added.

The company said between 50 and 60 jobs are to be lost immediately, most of them based in London, but staff employed at its four shipyards are not affected.

Harland and Wolff has four shipyards - one in Belfast, two in Scotland (Methil on the Firth of Forth and Arnish on the Isle of Lewis) and one in England (Appledore in north Devon).

The union representing most members at two of the sites said its preferred option is a single buyer with a history of shipbuilding, rather than a private equity firm looking for a short-term profit.

"Workers, their families and whole communities now face their lives being thrown into chaos due to chronic failures in industrial strategy and corporate mismanagement," the GMB union said.
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The union called on the government to intervene and protect the four yards, saying they are needed "for our future sovereign capabilities" in sectors including renewables and shipbuilding.

It added: "The government must now act to ensure no private company is allowed to cherry pick what parts are retained, in terms of which yards or contracts they wish to save."

A government spokesperson said the announcement will in no way affect jobs at Harland & Wolff shipyards or core operations such as delivering Ministry of Defence contracts.

"We are continuing to work extensively with all parties to find an outcome for Harland & Wolff that delivers shipbuilding and manufacturing in Belfast, Scotland and across the rest of the UK and protects jobs," the spokesperson added.

2:15

It is the second time the business has been placed in administration in five years.

The announcement follows a full review of all group holdings which began in July.

Financial advisers were appointed to find potential investors or buyers of the business and "a number of parties" expressed an interest in "some or all" of the group's activities, Harland & Wolff said.

Discussion is also ongoing with "several parties" to secure interim funding by October for the business, the company said, adding: "There is a credible pathway to recovery for the group".

Babcock International, the London-listed defence contractor, was revealed by Sky News to be weighing a possible bid for some of Harland and Wolff's assets.

Navantia, the Spanish shipbuilder which has a joint contract with Harland and Wolff, is likely to be among the rival bidders.

"The group faces a very challenging time", Harland and Wolff's interim executive chair Russell Downs said.

"Good progress has been made to test the market for investor appetite, but this is likely to be via acquisition thereby reluctantly concluding that the plc listed vehicle's own future will shortly come to an end."

Harland & Wolff employs more than 1,500 people across its operations, including the main yard in Belfast.

It had been in talks with the Department for Business and Trade over support including a £200m export development guarantee, which was not given due to a "very substantial risk that taxpayer money would be lost".

A government spokesperson said: "We are clear that following a thorough review of the company's financial situation, at present the market is best-placed to address these challenges, and providing government funding would have meant a significant risk of losing taxpayer money."

Harland and Wolff has struggled for years due to strong competition, particularly from Asia.

Its shipyards were saved from closure in 2019 when it was bought out of administration for £6m by energy infrastructure firm InfraStrata.

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Titanic builder Harland & Wolff set to collapse into administration

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The company says between 50 and 60 jobs are to be lost immediately but insists a there is a "credible pathway to recovery" through a new owner taking over the business.

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Premier Inn owner Whitbread to cut 1,500 jobs amid restaurant chain closures

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The hospitality group plans to close or convert more than 200 restaurants in a bid to ‘optimise’ its estate.

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Royal Bank of Scotland to shut 18 branches this year - see full list of locations to close

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The bank, which is now part of the Natwest Group said the decision to close more branches was due to declining use by customers with more than 80% of active current holders using digital services

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The governor of the Bank of England, Andrew Bailey, has shrugged off a smaller-than-expected drop in inflation last month, saying he expected a sharp fall towards the government's 2% target next month.

Speaking in Washington after news that the government's preferred measure of the cost of living had eased from 3.4% in February to 3.2%, Bailey said the path of inflation was broadly in line with what Threadneedle Street had predicted in its quarterly health check on the economy.

Financial markets had predicted a bigger drop in the annual rate in March to 3.1% and saw the latest data on price pressures as putting back the timing of interest rate cuts.

But Bailey said: "We are pretty much on track with where we thought we would be - a bit under in February and a bit over in the latest figures. Next month will see quite a strong drop."

While the UK was experiencing strong disinflation, the governor said the fall was unbalanced. He said that in April household energy bills were likely to be 25% lower than a year earlier, but service sector inflation is running at 6%. Decisions on interest rates would be influenced by service sector inflation, earnings growth and the state of the labour market, he said.

"It looks like we are getting a loosening of the labour market," Bailey said after this week's news of a rise in the unemployment rate to 4.2%. "But we are disinflating at full employment."

Bailey's comments followed the release of data showing the annual inflation rate at its lowest level since September 2021 - helped by food prices rising more slowly than a year earlier.

Jeremy Hunt said: "The plan is working: inflation is ... down from over 11% to 3.2%, the lowest level in nearly two and a half years, helping people's money go further."

Speaking in Washington on Wednesday night, the chancellor said the economy had achieved a "soft landing" and been transformed since Rishi Sunak became prime minister.

Asked whether he was disappointed that there had been no improvement in the Conservative party's poll ratings despite falling inflation, Hunt said: "How people feel is subjective and beyond my control. All I can do is take the right decisions about the fundamentals of the British economy. I think those have been transformed in the period since Rishi Sunak became prime minister."

Hunt said that when he arrived at the Treasury in late 2022, the Bank of England was predicting the longest recession in 100 years and the Office for Budget Responsibility was expecting a record drop in living standards.

"It looks like we have achieved a soft landing," Hunt said. "Living standards have risen, not fallen."

Investors reacted to the March figure by trimming bets for an imminent reduction in borrowing costs, pricing in the first quarter-point rate cut in September or November. A matter of weeks ago, investors had been expecting a first cut in June.

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The Bank has raised interest rates to 5.25% as it tries to bring CPI inflation back down to its target of 2%. However, on Wednesday, Megan Greene, an independent economist on the Bank's nine-strong rate-setting committee, told an event in Washington that recent tensions in the Middle East could pose a risk to achieving that aim, including by heightening inflation expectations.

"I do think that what's going on in the Middle East does pose a risk," Greene told the Institute of International Finance. "I'm worried about the sort of an energy price shock and other supply-side shock, which obviously follow a number of supply-side shocks we've seen over the past couple of years, and what that might do to inflation expectations."

The ONS said cooling inflation in food and drink prices contributed most to the decline, after a fall in the prices of bakery products including chocolate biscuits and crumpets. However, this was offset by rising fuel prices and stubbornly high inflation in services prices. A reduction in the rate of inflation does not mean that prices are falling, just that they are rising more slowly.

The latest snapshot showed consumer prices continuing to rise across a broad range of categories, including car insurance, which soared by almost 30% compared with a year earlier. The cost of mobile phone and broadband packages also shot up and prices for hotels, beer and other alcoholic drinks rose as well.

Rachel Reeves, the shadow chancellor, said the figures showed households remained worse off. "Prices are still high in the shops, monthly mortgage bills are going up and inflation is still higher than the Bank of England's target," she said.

The latest snapshot from the ONS showed that core inflation - which excludes energy, food and tobacco prices and is closely monitored by the Bank - slowed to 4.2% from 4.5% in February, but remained higher than forecast by City economists and the Bank.

Services inflation, which the Bank also watches closely, eased slightly to 6% from 6.1% a month earlier, but was also marginally higher than predicted.

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A joint investigation between ITV News and The Guardian found contracts and payslips which show P&O Ferries is still paying some crew less than £5 an hour, ITV News Business and Economics Editor Joel Hills reports Play Brightcove video
P&O Ferries continues to pay some of its crew less than half the UK minimum wage thanks to a gap in legal protection for seafarers, which the government promised to close.

On March 17, 2022, the company sacked 786 of its staff without warning and replaced them with agency workers who it said earned an average hourly rate of £5.50 an hour.

P&O admitted it had broken employment law by failing to consult the unions but insisted it had no choice as it needed to save money to avoid bankruptcy.

At the time, the company's actions were widely condemned.

Grant Shapps, who was Transport Minister, accused P&O of behaving like "pirates of the high sea" and pledged to compel the company to pay UK minimum wage, which is £10.42 an hour and will rise to £11.44 an hour next month.

But while the Seafarers' Wages Act became law last year, the secondary legislation that is necessary to implement it has not yet been laid.

ITV News and The Guardian have seen contracts and payslips from between December 2023 and March 2024, which show that P&O is still paying some crew less than £5 an hour.

The average hourly rate for some of the P&O Ferries crew from documents shown to ITV News

To find out what it's like to work onboard a P&O ferry, we posed as passengers and filmed undercover on the company's three ships, which operate non-stop across the English Channel between Dover and Calais.

We spoke to more than a dozen crew whose identities we are protecting.

All of them told us they routinely work 12 hour shifts, seven days a week, for up to 17 weeks at a time, without a day off and without permission to leave the ship

"It's the same place, the same people, you cannot go outside," one crew member told us. "You go crazy. Every day it's sleep, work. Sleep, work. That's it".

One crew member said the experience was "like [being in] a jail".

The documents we examined were from workers from developing countries. The crew were employed by PhilCrew Management, a recruitment agency based in Malta.

The average hourly rate was £4.87 an hour.

P&O hires crew from a variety of countries, including India, Philippines, Indonesia, Honduras, Mauritius, Malaysia, Georgia, Serbia, Latvia, Russia and Ukraine.

As it stands, P&O's conduct is entirely legal. Credit: PA

Many crew told us they found it exhausting to work 84 hour weeks for several months at a time and that they missed their families.

But many also said the rates of pay on offer at P&O were better than those on other international cruise or cargo ships they had worked on.

"[In my country] you cannot find a salary like this," one said.

"You need to work," another crew member confided. "When you have a family, you need to work".

As it stands, P&O's conduct is entirely legal.

The company is exploiting a gap in the law that means it is not required to pay the minimum wage to seafarers who work on foreign-registered ships that sail in international waters and are employed by agencies outside the UK.

Two years ago, the government said it would change the law.

On March 28, 2022, Mr Shapps wrote to the chief executive of P&O, Peter Hebblethwaite and promised "this government will not stand by while the requirement to treat seafarers with due respect and fairness is brazenly ignored".

On April 27, 2022, Mr Shapps told the Commons Transport Select Committee P&O Ferries would need to do three things "to get out of this mess": pay its crew the UK minimum wage; give back the £11 million of furlough money it received from the government during the pandemic and sack Mr Hebblethwaite.

As yet, none of these things has happened.

Mr Shapps also pledged to review government contracts with P&O and its owner DP World. He also ordered the Insolvency Service to investigate the actions of both the company and its directors "as a matter of urgency".

A parliamentary question by Labour has since revealed that the government has paid $291 million (approximately £228 million) to both companies since the dismissals.

Last summer, the Insolvency Service decided not to pursue criminal proceedings. It tells us its civil investigation "remains ongoing and is making good progress".

In its last set of accounts, P&O Ferries said it believes there is "a less than remote possibility" of any sanction, as a result of the Insolvency Service's work.

P&O Ferries said it needed to sack its crews because the business was on the verge of bankruptcy and needed to cut its costs.

Industry insiders tell us that by dramatically reducing its wage bill, P&O has also been able to lower its prices and gain a competitive advantage over its rivals.

In 2023, P&O's freight and passenger traffic increased sharply between Dover and Calais - the UK's busiest ferry route.

According to data from Freightstat, P&O won business from the ferry operator DFDS and Eurotunnel - both companies which pay the UK minimum wage.

P&O told us the company is "now on track to be profitable". The company's accounts for the year ending December 2022 are more than two months overdue at Companies House - a delay that constitutes a criminal offence.

P&O says the accounts will be filed "imminently".

The evidence we have seen shows P&O is still paying some crew less than the £5.15 an hour which the company had previously suggested was the lowest hourly rate.

Have you heard our podcast Talking Politics? Every week Tom, Robert and Anushka dig into the biggest issues dominating the political agenda...

In a statement, P&O Ferries told us that none of the its crew on the Dover-Calais ships earns "less than $2,400 per month, equivalent to £5.20 per hour, in line with international recommendations."

The statement added: "We always pay at least the minimum wage required by national and international law.

"In addition to wages we provide all meals, modern accommodation, gym and sauna, and travel to and from their home country including flights for international workers coming onto our ships.

"We provide an industry-leading support package and work hard to ensure their welfare, wellbeing and mental health are properly cared for.

"The tough but necessary changes we made to the business [in March 2022] mean that P&O Ferries and 2,200 jobs have been saved."

A spokesperson for the Department for Transport told us. "We acted swiftly and decisively against P&O Ferries' appalling treatment of its staff and have made substantial progress to improve pay and conditions.

"We have since brought forward legislation, the Seafarers' Wages Act, to ensure seafarers are paid at least UK National Minimum Wage, and working alongside international partners - including. France - we continue to further strengthen their rights around the world."

The government says the final consultation on the secondary legislation required to implement the Seafarers' Wages Act closed on 14 March and the regulations will be brought into force in the summer.

Neither Mr Shapps nor PhilCrew Management responded to our requests for comment.

Two years ago, P&O Ferries took a risk.

The company knew that illegally sacking staff would be controversial but it gambled that the shock and the anger would fade.
Want a quick and expert briefing on the biggest news stories? Listen to our latest podcasts to find out What You Need To Know...
Today, bookings are up and overheads have been reduced. P&O's gamble appears to have paid off.

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P&O Ferries paying crew under £5 an hour after government pledged minimum wage | ITV News

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ITV News and The Guardian has seen contracts and payslips which show that P&O is still paying some crew less than £5 an hour. | ITV National News

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Bank of England to cut interest rates in June, economists forecast

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The Bank of England is set to start cutting interest rates in June, according to a City A.M. poll of top economists, as inflation nears its target, the labour market cools and the UK takes its first steps out of recession.

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Sainsbury's focusing on core competence 

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Sainsbury's focusing on core competence 

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Sainsbury's Bank has opened the door to fresh takeover offers, after the supermarket group announced it would exit the banking business nearly 27 years after its launch.

The company is exploring a number of options for its bank - which offers savings accounts, credit cards, travel money and insurance - after a strategic review suggested it could be a distraction from a years-long overhaul, meant to bring the supermarket's focus back to its core food and retail operations.

Simon Roberts, the chief executive of Sainsbury's, said: "We have been clear since we launched our Food First strategy in 2020 that we would concentrate our efforts on our core retail businesses and today's announcement reflects that strategic focus."

Sainsbury's considered selling the bank during the pandemic, but despite interest from companies such as NatWest Group, failed to strike a deal. It is now understood to be open to new bids, though a spokesperson would not comment on whether talks with potential buyers were under way.

Sainsbury's Bank has already exited the mortgage market, having closed to new home loan deals in 2019 and sold its £479m mortgage book - and transferred its 3,500 loan customers - for an undisclosed sum to the Co-operative Bank last August.

"In order to improve the financial services offered to customers and consistent with the clear focus on our retail businesses, we are exploring a number of options," Sainsbury's said on Thursday.

If the groupdid continue to offer any financial services in the future, it would do so solely as a distributor, meaning it would offer "white-label" financial products from other banks under the Sainsbury's brand. It would ensure customers could access credit cards and saving products through the supermarket, but without Sainsbury's having to carry risks on its own balance sheet.

"Over time this will result in a phased withdrawal from our core banking business," the supermarket group said.

If other options fail, the group could end up winding down the business, which was originally launched as a joint venture with Bank of Scotland in 1997, before Sainsbury's took full ownership in 2014.

Sainsbury's reported an active loan book worth £3.6bn in March last year, before the sale of its mortgage business, when it had about 1.9 million active customers. That is on top of 2.1 million financial services customers served through its Argos brand, which offers products including buy-now-pay-later arrangements.

Sainsbury's Bank also contributed £50m towards shareholder dividends last year.

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Sainsbury's said there would be no immediate changes to its services - which include its 1,350 cash machines and 225 travel money bureaux across the UK - and its announcement was merely a statement of intent. It will continue serving and taking on new customers until bosses decide how to proceed.

In the interim, Sainsbury's has appointed the former Allied Irish Bank boss Robert Mulhall to run the bank. Mulhall, who has since worked as a consultant and advised on business overhauls, will take up the role in March, as Sainsbury's Bank chief executive Jim Brown prepared to retire after more than four years in the role.

Meanwhile, Sainsbury's announced that its head of non-food, Paula Nickolds, was leaving to become the boss of the upmarket clothing and homewares brand The White Company in April. The former boss of John Lewis, who has been at Sainsbury's for almost three years, is taking over from Mary Homer, who has run The White Company for seven years.

Sainsbury's is downsizing its executive team on Nickolds's exit, with the transformation director, Graham Biggart, having his remit widened to include non-food to.

Biggart takes over after a relatively tough Christmas for Sainsbury's general merchandise aisles and Argos chain, with sales down almost 4% as customers reined in spending on electrical gadgets. Clothing sales were down 6% over the festive period amid mild weather and heavy discounting across the market.

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Sainsbury's Bank open to offers as retailer plans to exit finance

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Company exploring options as it plans to shift focus back to food and retail, rather than services

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Rebecca Speare-Cole, PA Sustainability Reporter & Lawrence Matheson

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Nestle faces shareholder vote over sale of foods high in salt, sugar and fat

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A group of shareholders wants Nestle to improve the food it offers to consumers so that it impacts postively on their health

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Birmingham council approves biggest budget cuts in local authority history

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Councillors in Birmingham have approved what are thought to be the biggest budget cuts in local authority history, with residents warning that the consequences could be “disastrous” for the city. Birmingham city council met on Tuesday afternoon to debate and vote on a proposed set of cuts that will see the loss of up to 600 council jobs, arts grants scrapped, libraries closed and bin collections reduced to fortnightly. They also include funding…

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A throw back to when we looked at the Competition and Markets Authority (Legislation) This is an useful story from this weeks news.

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Planning system and the limitations of speculative private development have seen too few homes built.

Concerns around estate management charges and the build quality of some new homes.

New Competition Act investigation opened into 8 housebuilders following evidence suggesting information sharing.

The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has published its final report on the housebuilding market in Great Britain - finding that the complex and unpredictable planning system, together with the limitations of speculative private development, is responsible for the persistent under delivery of new homes.

The study also found substantial concerns about estate management charges - with homeowners often facing high and unclear charges for the management of facilities such as roads, drainage, and green spaces. Concerns have been found, too, with the quality of some new housing after the number of owners reporting snagging issues increased over the last 10 years.
Sarah Cardell, Chief Executive of the CMA, said:

Housebuilding in Great Britain needs significant intervention so that enough good quality homes are delivered in the places that people need them.

Our report - which follows a year-long study - is recommending a streamlining of the planning system and increased consumer protections. If implemented, we would expect to see many more homes built each year, helping make homes more affordable. We would also expect to see fewer people paying estate management charges on new estates and the quality of new homes to increase. But even then, further action may be required to deliver the number of homes Great Britain needs in the places it needs them.

The CMA has also today opened a new investigation into the suspected sharing of commercially sensitive information by housebuilders which could be influencing the build-out of sites and the prices of new homes. While this issue is not one of the main drivers of the problems we've highlighted in our report, it is important we tackle anti-competitive behaviour if we find it.

Housebuilding in Great Britain

There are persistent shortfalls in the number of homes built across England, Scotland, and Wales, with less than 250,000 built last year across Great Britain - well below the 300,000-target for England alone.

The report identified a wide range of different types of housebuilders operating in the market: around two-fifths of the homes built between 2021 to 2022 were delivered by the largest, national housebuilders while more than 50,000 homes were delivered by thousands of smaller, regional builders.

Around 60% of all houses built in 2021 to 2022 were delivered by speculative private development, which is when builders obtain land, secure planning permission, and construct homes without knowing in advance who will buy them or for how much. This way of building homes has given builders flexibility to respond to changes in the market. However, the country's reliance on this model has seen the gap widen considerably between what the market will deliver and what communities need.

CMA Findings

The report found that this speculative approach to building, coupled with complex and unpredictable planning rules across the three nations, has been responsible for the persistent under delivery of homes:

Planning Rules: the planning systems in England, Scotland and Wales are producing unpredictable results and often take a protracted amount of time for builders to navigate before construction can start. The report highlights that many planning departments are under resourced, some do not have up to date local plans, and don't have clear targets or strong incentives to deliver the numbers of homes needed in their area. They are also required to consult with a wide range of statutory stakeholders - these groups often holding up projects by submitting holding responses or late feedback to consultations on proposed developments.

Speculative Private Development: the report found another significant reason behind under delivery of homes are the limitations of private speculative development. The evidence shows that private developers produce houses at a rate at which they can be sold without needing to reduce their prices, rather than diversifying the types and numbers of homes they build to meet the needs of different communities (for example providing more affordable housing).

Land Banks: the CMA assessed over a million plots of land held by housebuilders and found the practice of banking land was more a symptom of the issues identified with the complex planning system and speculative private development, rather than it being a primary reason for the shortage of new homes.

Private Estate Management: the CMA found a growing trend by developers to build estates with privately managed public amenities - with 80% of new homes sold by the eleven biggest builders in 2021 to 2022 subject to estate management charges. These charges are often high and unclear to homeowners. Whilst the average charge was £350 - one-off, unplanned charges for significant repair work can cost thousands of pounds and cause considerable stress to homeowners. The report highlights concerns that many homeowners are unable to switch estate management providers, receive inadequate information upfront, have to deal with shoddy work or unsatisfactory maintenance, and face unclear administration or management charges which can often make up 50% or more of the total bill.

Quality: housebuilders don't have strong incentives to compete on quality and consumers have unclear routes of redress. Analysis also suggests that a growing number of homeowners are reporting a higher number of snagging issues (at least 16). The CMA's consumer research and other evidence revealed that a substantial minority also experienced particularly serious problems with their new homes, such as collapsing staircases and ceilings.

Information Sharing

The CMA found evidence during the study which indicated some housebuilders may be sharing commercially sensitive information with their competitors, which could be influencing the build-out of sites and the prices of new homes. While the CMA does not consider such sharing of information to be one of the main factors in the persistent under-delivery of homes, the CMA is concerned that it may weaken competition in the market.

The CMA has therefore launched an investigation under the Competition Act 1998 into Barratt, Bellway, Berkeley, Bloor Homes, Persimmon, Redrow, Taylor Wimpey, and Vistry. The CMA has not reached any conclusions at this stage as to whether or not competition law has been infringed.

More information can be found via the CMA's housebuilding investigation case page.

Next Steps

The CMA believes a substantial intervention in the housebuilding market is necessary to address the issues its market study has identified.

The CMA would like to see a housebuilding market that delivers:

1. more homes overall, and particularly in the areas of highest demand, in turn reducing pressure on affordability;

2. consistently better outcomes on new-build quality, with consumers having an effective route to redress; and

3. reduced detriment to consumers arising from the private management of public amenities on new-build estates.

The CMA is making recommendations to governments in those areas where it sees opportunities to improve market outcomes without significant trade-offs with other policy objectives. These include:

requiring councils to adopt amenities on all new housing estates.

introducing enhanced consumer protections for homeowners on existing privately managed estates - including making it easier for homeowners to switch to a more competitive management company.

establishing a New Homes Ombudsman as soon as possible and setting a single mandatory consumer code so homeowners can better pursue homebuilders over any quality issues they face.

Given the wider policy trade-offs and complexities that are inherent in the design and operation of the planning system, the CMA does not consider it appropriate to make specific recommendations to governments in this report about how those trade-offs should be made. However, given the vital role that the planning systems play in shaping market outcomes, the report sets out proposed options for consideration. These include:

ensuring local authorities put in place local plans and are guided by clear, consistent targets that reflect the need for new homes in their area.

streamlining the planning systems to significantly increase the ability of housebuilders to begin work on new projects sooner - while not watering down protections such as for the local environment. Measures to improve the capacity of council planning departments would also enable them to process more applications.

introducing measures to increase the build-out of housing sites by incentivising builders to diversify the tenures and types of homes delivered.

While the recommendations and options above will significantly improve outcomes for homeowners and the housebuilding market, the evidence shows that the market may still not deliver the quantity of homes that meets Great Britain's housing need.

It is open to policymakers to deliver change through more fundamental interventions, often with fiscal and policy implications, that go beyond the way in which the market itself works but would have a significant impact on the quality and affordability of new homes being built. While it is not for the CMA to offer recommendations or specific policy proposals in this space now, the report sets out areas of potential intervention.

These interventions would include a significant increase in non-speculative house building that has previously been led by local councils and housing associations.

More information - including the full final report - can be found via the CMA's housebuilding market study case page.

Notes To Editors

1. The final report marks the end of the CMA's market study.

2. The housebuilding market study examined housebuilding in England, Scotland, and Wales. The CMA launched the market study on February 28 2023.

3. The CMA launched a consultation on 25 August 2023 on whether to make a Market Investigation Reference, based on concerns to do with weaknesses in the adoption process for roads and public open spaces resulting in responsibility for their maintenance being passed on to private companies that may have significant market power, and the large amount of developable land controlled by the largest housebuilders, which it was feared could be hindering the growth of smaller housebuilders. The CMA has decided not to launch a Market Investigation Reference at this time, for reasons set out in the final report.

4. The Chapter I prohibition of the Competition Act 1998 prohibits agreements, concerted practices, and decisions by associations of undertakings which have as their object or effect the prevention, restriction, or distortion of competition within the UK or a part of it and which may affect trade within the UK or a part of it unless they are excluded or exempt. The CMA may launch an investigation under the Competition Act 1998 if it has reasonable grounds to suspect that there has been an infringement of competition law.

5. There is no legal deadline to complete inquiries under the Competition Act 1998. As with all its work, the CMA will progress this investigation at pace whilst ensuring a robust and detailed review is conducted and parties' rights of defence are respected.

6. The CMA launched its consumer protection project in the private rented sector in 2023. As previously announced, the current focus is on investigating so-called 'event charges' in the retirement housing sector with other work paused until the government implements its Renters Reform Bill and the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers (DMCC) Bill which are currently going through Parliament.

7. For media enquiries, contact the CMA press office on 020 3738 6460 or press@cma.gov.uk.

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CMA finds fundamental concerns in housebuilding market

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The CMA has concluded its housebuilding market study in England, Scotland, and Wales.

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Business reporter, BBC News

The Body Shop's UK business is set to appoint administrators this week, in a move likely to result in shop closures and job losses.

The owner of the company, set up in 1976 by the late Dame Anita Roddick, is expected to appoint experts to significantly restructure the retailer.

The Body Shop was bought by private equity firm Aurelius just weeks ago.

It is understood that trading over the key Christmas period and into January was not as strong as hoped.

It also emerged that the Body Shop had insufficient working capital.

The retailer's British business has more than 200 shops in the UK as well as its headquarters in London. The Body Shop also employs a significant number of staff.

Restructuring expert FRP Advisory is likely to be appointed as the administrator in the coming days.

It is highly unlikely that the Body Shop brand will completely disappear from Britain's High Streets. But there will be a focus on reducing its costs, including on property and rents, as well as building up its online presence.

There are hopes it will be restructured to better compete with brands such as Lush, perhaps best-known for its bath bombs, which is popular with younger shoppers.

The Body Shop has now changed hands three times since it was sold by founder Dame Anita in 2006, shortly before her death the following year.

The company became well-known for its ethical trading ethos and its stance against testing beauty products on animals. It began from a single shop in Brighton in the 1970s and grew under Dame Anita and her husband Gordon Roddick.

Its campaigning won legions of shoppers, especially teenagers, and led to a significant period of expansion, with shops selling popular products such as its White Musk fragrance, Hemp hand cream and various body butters.

But some loyal customers saw Dame Anita's decision to sell the company to L'Oreal, the French beauty giant, for £652m as a betrayal of its ethical values.

L'Oreal then sold the firm to Brazilian beauty giant Natura in 2017 for £880m. It changed hands again late last year when Aurelius acquired the company for £207m.

Mark Constantine, co-founder and chief executive of Lush, told the Sunday Times that under L'Oreal's ownership, the Body Shop had moved manufacturing to the Philippines which meant better profit margins and "marketeers discounted to create sales".

But Mr Constantine, who was a major supplier to the Body Shop for years under his previous business, said: "You can't cheapen everything, remove the values and take more profit without the customers noticing and going elsewhere."

He told the newspaper: "They lost that feeling one got when buying a Body Shop product - that you were helping to change the world."

When Aurelius bought the Body Shop, it said that it wanted to revitalise the business and build on its brand name.

It said that "despite the challenging retail market there is an opportunity to re-energise the business to enable it to take advantage of positive trends in the high-growth beauty market".

On its website, the Body Shop says it employs 10,000 people with a further 12,000 staff through franchises. It adds that it operates in around 3,000 stores in more than 70 countries.

But in January, the Body Shop said it was selling its business in most of mainland Europe and in parts of Asia.

At the time, it told Retail Week: "This further prioritises the Body Shop's strategically important markets and global head franchise partner relationships, which it will look for opportunities to build.

"The Body Shop will also focus on more effectively reaching customers by strengthening digital platforms, developing new sales channels, and via differentiated retail experiences."

The Body Shop and Aurelius declined to comment.

Do you work for the Body Shop? Share your experiences by emailing haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.

Please include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also get in touch in the following ways:

If you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your question or comment or you can email us at HaveYourSay@bbc.co.uk. Please include your name, age and location with any submission.

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The Body Shop set to appoint administrators in UK

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The retailer is expected to undergo a major restructure, leading to shop closures and job losses.

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Goodbye Veggie Pret – Brits no longer need you

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After an eight-year stint, meat will soon be returning to the menu.

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Ship carrying 16,000 sheep and cattle stranded in 40C heat amid Red Sea chaos

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A ship carrying about 14,000 sheep and 2,000 cattle is marooned off the coast of Australia in sweltering heat after it was forced to abandon a trip through the Red Sea, causing outcry from people concerned about the animals’ welfare. The vessel left Australia on Jan 5 for Israel, where it was to unload its cargo, but was diverted from its course in…

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Elon Musk’s $56bn Tesla pay package is too much, judge rules

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Elon Musk’s $56bn Tesla pay package is too much, judge rules

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A Delaware judge on Tuesday ruled in favor of the investors who challenged billionaire Elon Musk's $56bn Tesla pay package as excessive, a court filing showed. The judge found that Musk's compensation was inappropriately set by the electric-vehicle maker's board and struck down the package. If the decision survives any potential appeal, the Tesla board will have to come up with a new compensation package for Musk.

"Never incorporate your company in the state of Delaware," Musk responded on X, formerly Twitter.

Tesla shareholder Richard Tornetta filed the lawsuit five years ago, accusing the company's chief executive of improperly dictating negotiations around the compensation package and claimed that the board acted without independence. The court's opinion directed Tornetta to work with Musk's legal team on an order implementing the judge's decision. The ruling can be appealed to the Delaware supreme court.

Tesla's agreement with Musk is by far the largest compensation deal ever for an executive and it contributes a significant part of his fortune, which is one of the world's largest. Musk testified during the compensation trial in November 2022 that the money would be used to finance interplanetary travel.

"It's a way to get humanity to Mars," he testified. "So Tesla can assist in potentially achieving that."

Tesla directors argued during a weeklong trial that the company was paying to ensure that one of the world's most dynamic entrepreneurs continued to dedicate his attention to the electric-vehicle maker. Antonio Gracias, a Tesla director from 2007 to 2021, called the package "a great deal for shareholders" because he said it led to the company's extraordinary success.

The judge said the defense was unable to establish that the "historically unprecedented compensation plan" was necessary to ensure Musk remained dedicated to Tesla. She directed parties to confer on a final form of order to implement her decision.

"Swept up by the rhetoric of 'all upside,' or perhaps starry-eyed by Musk's superstar appeal, the board never asked the $55.8 billion question: Was the plan even necessary for Tesla to retain Musk and achieve its goals?" Judge Kathaleen St J McCormick wrote in her decision.

Tornetta's lawyers argued the Tesla board never told shareholders that the goals were easier to achieve than the company was acknowledging and that internal projections showed Musk was quickly going to qualify for large portions of the pay package.

The plaintiff's legal team also argued the board had a duty to offer a smaller pay package or look for another CEO and that they should have required Musk to work full-time at Tesla instead of allowing him to focus on other projects. In 2022, he bought the social media company Twitter, which he renamed X, and he has founded several startups, including brain implant company Neuralink, tunneling enterprise the Boring Co and SpaceX, a rocket venture.

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The package grants stock option awards allowing Musk to buy Tesla stock at heavily discounted prices as escalating financial and operational goals are met. He must hold the acquired stock for five years. Musk qualified for all 12 tranches or performance targets in the plan. He was not guaranteed any salary.

The ruling will put the spotlight on Tesla's next round of compensation negotiations with the CEO. Tesla's value ballooned to briefly top $1tn in 2021 from $50bn when the package was negotiated. The ruling also comes after Musk reiterated his desire for 25% voting control of Tesla. Musk sold a big portion of his Tesla shares in order to buy Twitter but said in a post on X in January that he was uncomfortable leading Tesla unless he had 25% of the voting control. The billionaire owned around 13% of the company at the time.

Amit Batish at Equilar, an executive pay research firm, estimated in 2022 that Musk's package was around six times larger than the combined pay of the 200 highest-paid executives in 2021.

In July, Tesla's directors agreed to return $735m to the company to settle shareholder allegations brought in a separate lawsuit filed in 2020 that they overpaid themselves. The lawsuit challenged options that were granted to directors starting in June 2017.

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Elon Musk's $56bn Tesla pay package is too much, judge rules

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Judge ruled his pay - six times larger than the combined pay of the 200 highest-paid executives in 2021 - was set inappropriately

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Henry Saker-Clark, PA Deputy Business Editor

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John Lewis slashes redundancy payouts amid concerns over more job cuts

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Workers were informed on Thursday morning that the group would water down part of its partnership redundancy pay plan.

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Once a trailblazer in the consumer electronics industry, Sony has experienced a downward spiral in recent years. The company, known for its groundbreaking technology and top-notch products, is now struggling to keep up with its competitors.

Apple, Samsung, and LG have surged ahead, leaving Sony behind in terms of technological advancements and user-centric experiences. With a cluttered product line and a lack of clear strategic direction, Sony's future success hinges on its ability to redefine its vision and deliver innovative, game-changing products.

Can Sony rise to the challenge and reclaim its position as an industry leader?

Key Takeaways

Sony's past success and reputation as a leader in consumer electronics has declined due to a lack of adaptability to changing consumer preferences and technological advancements.

The market now values an integrated experience and overall user experience over individual product specs, which Sony has failed to deliver.

Sony's current challenges include a crowded and confusing product line, a lack of strategic vision, and a failure to deliver game-changing products.

The importance of context and adaptability cannot be overstated, as other brands continue to innovate and adapt to changing consumer preferences, while Sony's hardware-focused strategy is no longer effective.

Sony's Past Success and Reputation

Sony's reputation as a master of consumer electronics was built on its ability to deliver cutting-edge technology and impeccable quality in usable forms before its competitors. With a strong focus on innovation, Sony established itself as a leader in the industry, gaining a competitive advantage over other brands.

Sony's brand image was synonymous with sophistication, desirability, and technological prowess. Consumers trusted Sony to provide them with the latest advancements in electronics, and the company consistently delivered on that promise. Sony's products were known for their superior quality and intricate functionality, solidifying their position as a top choice for consumers seeking innovative and high-performing electronics.

This reputation allowed Sony to dominate the market and enjoy substantial success in the past.

Technological Shift and Changing Consumer Preferences

Consumers now prioritize the overall experience rather than just the product specs, leading to a shift in the market's preferences. This change in consumer preferences has been driven by innovations in technology that have allowed companies to provide more personalized and integrated experiences.

Customizable software: Apple's iPhone, with its customizable software, offers a personalized experience for users.

Integrated experience: The market now values an integrated experience over individual products, with companies like Samsung, LG, and Chinese manufacturers catching up with Sony in terms of technological advancements.

Lack of focus on experience: Sony's focus on product development has not kept up with the changing market, resulting in a crowded and confusing product line for customers.

To stay relevant in the industry, Sony needs to adapt its strategy to prioritize user experience and innovation. By understanding changing consumer preferences and embracing innovations in technology, Sony can regain its position as a leader in the market.

Sony's Current Challenges and Missed Opportunities

Amidst fierce competition and rapid technological advancements, the company finds itself struggling to deliver groundbreaking products and keep up with its rivals.

Sony is facing challenges in the crowded market, where it has missed opportunities in product development. The company's current product line is confusing for customers, lacking a clear strategic vision that emphasizes powerful and resonant user experiences.

While Sony has impeccable engineering capabilities and R&D resources, it has failed to deliver game-changing products. In contrast, competitors like Samsung, LG, and Chinese manufacturers have caught up in terms of technological advancements.

Sony's lack of innovation has led to its struggle to keep up with competitors in the market. To regain its position as a leader, Sony needs to address these challenges and seize the missed opportunities by adopting a new strategic vision that focuses on creating integrated and user-centric experiences.

The Need for a New Strategic Vision

In order to stay competitive in the rapidly evolving market, Sony must develop a new strategic vision that prioritizes user experience and integration. To achieve this, the following steps are crucial:

1. Importance of user feedback: Sony needs to actively listen to its customers and incorporate their feedback into their product development process. By understanding their needs and preferences, Sony can create products and services that truly resonate with their target audience.

2. Embracing digital transformation: Sony must recognize the power of digital technology and leverage it to its advantage. This includes embracing new digital platforms, integrating digital solutions into their products, and exploring new business models that capitalize on the digital revolution.

The Importance of Context and Adaptability

Framing innovation and technology within the context of the current era is crucial for long-term success in the rapidly evolving market. In today's dynamic business landscape, the importance of agility and flexibility cannot be overstated.

Companies like Sony, which once dominated the consumer electronics world, have learned this lesson the hard way. The impact of market research on adaptability is significant. By conducting thorough market research, companies can gain insights into changing consumer preferences and trends, allowing them to adjust their strategies accordingly.

Sony's decline serves as a lesson in the consequences of failing to adapt to the shifting market. While the company's past success was built on delivering cutting-edge technology, its lack of innovation and inability to keep up with competitors have led to its struggles.

To thrive in the current era, companies must stay agile, flexible, and responsive to the changing needs and desires of consumers.

Apple's Impact on Sony's Decline

Apple's innovative and customizable iPhone has played a significant role in reshaping the consumer electronics market, ultimately contributing to Sony's struggles. Sony's response to Apple's impact and missed opportunities in the smartphone market have hindered the company's ability to keep up with the changing landscape.

Here are the key points:

1. Lack of Adaptability: Sony failed to adapt its product development strategy to align with changing consumer preferences. Apple's iPhone offered a personalized experience, while Sony focused on product specs rather than the overall user experience.

2. Missed Opportunities in the Smartphone Market: Sony was once known for its cutting-edge technology, but it failed to capitalize on the smartphone boom. Companies like Samsung and LG caught up with Sony in terms of technological advancements, leaving Sony behind in the market.

3. Confusing Product Line: Sony's current product line is crowded and confusing for customers. The company lacks a clear strategic vision that emphasizes powerful and resonant user experiences, further contributing to its struggles.

To regain its position in the market, Sony needs to develop a new strategic vision that prioritizes innovation and adaptability, focusing on delivering an integrated and personalized experience for its customers.

Sony's Failure to Keep up With Competitors

Samsung, LG, and other manufacturers have surpassed Sony in terms of technological advancements, leaving the company struggling to keep up with its competitors.

Sony's failure to adapt to the rapidly changing consumer electronics industry has resulted in a decline in market share. The company's marketing strategies have not effectively communicated the value of their products to consumers, further exacerbating their challenges.

In today's competitive landscape, innovation is key, and Sony's lack of groundbreaking products has hindered its ability to stay ahead. The competition in the consumer electronics industry is fierce, with companies constantly pushing boundaries and introducing new and exciting technologies.

Sony must reevaluate its marketing strategies and invest in research and development to regain its position as a leader in the industry. Only by embracing innovation and adapting to changing consumer preferences can Sony hope to regain its former glory.

The Role of Integrated Experiences in the Market

Consumers now prioritize seamless integration and a holistic experience when choosing between different brands in the market. This shift in consumer preferences has led to the rise of personalized experiences and the shift towards integrated ecosystems. To meet these demands, brands need to understand the importance of providing a cohesive and interconnected experience across all touchpoints.

1. Personalized Experiences: Consumers want products and services that cater to their individual needs and preferences. Brands that can offer personalized experiences through customization, recommendations, and tailored content will have a competitive advantage.

2. Integrated Ecosystems: Rather than standalone products, consumers are looking for brands that offer a seamless integration of various devices and services. This integration allows for a more cohesive and convenient experience for users.

3. Holistic Approach: Brands need to consider the entire customer journey and create a holistic experience that transcends individual products. This means focusing on factors like user interface, interoperability, and cross-platform compatibility to ensure a cohesive experience for consumers.

To stay relevant in the market, brands must adapt to this shift towards personalized experiences and integrated ecosystems. By prioritizing seamless integration and offering a holistic experience, brands can differentiate themselves and meet the evolving needs of consumers who desire innovation.

Sony's Lack of Innovation and Game-Changing Products

Sony's lack of innovation and stagnant product line has resulted in missed opportunities and a decline in market share. In the current era, adaptability and a strategic vision that focuses on user experience are crucial for success.

Sony's competition has caught up in terms of technological advancements, and consumers now prioritize an integrated experience over individual products. To remain competitive, Sony needs to differentiate itself in the market by integrating hardware and software and delivering game-changing products.

The impact of consumer preferences on product development cannot be ignored, and Sony must prioritize user experience to meet these changing demands. Additionally, marketing and branding will play a significant role in Sony's success by effectively communicating the company's strategic vision and differentiating its products from competitors.

The Hardware-Focused Approach and Its Limitations

The hardware-focused approach employed by Sony has limitations that hinder its ability to stay competitive in the current market.

1. Overemphasis on hardware: Sony's focus on product development and technological advancements has led to an overemphasis on hardware. This has resulted in a crowded and confusing product line that fails to prioritize the overall user experience.

2. Ignoring the importance of user experience: In a market where consumers value an integrated experience over individual products, Sony has failed to recognize the importance of user experience. While the success of the Playstation demonstrates Sony's ability to provide a good user experience through an integrated ecosystem, the company has not applied this mindset across its entire product range.

To remain competitive, Sony needs to shift its strategic vision towards a more holistic approach that prioritizes user experience and integrates hardware, software, and services seamlessly. By adapting to changing consumer preferences and emphasizing innovation in user experience, Sony can regain its position as a leader in the industry.

Lessons for Other Companies in Strategy and Adaptability

Other companies can learn valuable insights from Sony's struggles and need for change.

In a rapidly changing market, agility is of utmost importance. Sony's decline can be attributed to its failure to adapt to shifting consumer preferences and technological advancements.

The company's focus on hardware development and lack of emphasis on creating a resonant user experience have hindered its ability to compete effectively. To succeed in today's market, companies must prioritize the overall user experience and integrate their products seamlessly.

Strategies for creating a resonant user experience include understanding consumer needs, leveraging advanced technology, and fostering innovation. Companies should also have a clear strategic vision that aligns with the evolving market landscape.

Frequently Asked Questions

How Has Sony's Reputation in the Consumer Electronics Industry Changed Over Time?

Sony's reputation in the consumer electronics industry has changed over time due to the market's preference for integrated experiences. This has impacted Sony's product line and highlighted the need for a new strategic vision.

What Are Some Examples of Companies That Have Caught up With Sony in Terms of Technological Advancements?

Competing companies like Samsung, LG, and Chinese manufacturers have caught up with Sony in terms of technological advancements. Sony's lack of innovation has led to its struggle to keep up with competitors.

How Has the Market's Preference for an Integrated Experience Affected Sony's Product Line?

The market's preference for an integrated experience has greatly affected Sony's product line. The company's current offerings are crowded and confusing, lacking a clear strategic vision that prioritizes powerful and resonant user experiences.

What Are Some Factors That Have Contributed to Sony's Struggle to Keep up With Competitors Like Wii, Xbox, and Kinect?

Factors contributing to Sony's struggle to keep up with competitors like Wii, Xbox, and Kinect include a lack of innovation, failure to provide an integrated user experience, and the crowded and confusing nature of their product line. Competition has intensified in terms of technological advancements.

What Are Some Examples of Companies Outside of the Consumer Electronics Industry That Have Successfully Adapted to Changing Consumer Preferences?

Companies like Virgin Atlantic, IKEA, and Procter & Gamble have successfully adapted to changing consumer preferences. Their focus on innovation, customer experience, and strategic vision has allowed them to thrive in a rapidly evolving market.

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The Decline of Sony: A Lesson in Strategy and Adaptability

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Once a trailblazer in the consumer electronics industry, Sony has experienced a downward spiral in recent years. The company, known for its groundbreaking technology and top-notch products, is now struggling to keep up with its competitors. Apple, Samsung, and LG have surged ahead, leaving Sony behind in terms of technological advancements and user-centric experiences.

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What are you thinking? Is your business doing well just because there is more or less demand for your product? So, who's stopping you from succeeding? Do you think that things will continue like this forever? That's wrong. You are living in a bubble. Firstly, you're not updating your business. Secondly, you're not adapting to changes. And thirdly, you're not considering your small and big competitors. Many reputable and globally successful businesses have collapsed in an instant just because of this wrong concept. Take Kodak, for example."

Kodak was once one of the most successful companies in the world, known for its pioneering work in the field of photography. However, the story of Kodak is also one of failure, as the company failed to adapt to changing technologies and market trends, ultimately leading to its decline.

Kodak's story is a cautionary tale for businesses that are slow to innovate and adapt to changing circumstances. At its peak, Kodak was a dominant force in the photography industry, with a strong brand, deep pockets, and a reputation for quality products. However, as digital photography began to take off in the 1990s and 2000s, Kodak was slow to respond.

One of Kodak's biggest mistakes was its failure to embrace digital photography. Despite being one of the first companies to develop a digital camera, Kodak was hesitant to fully embrace the technology, fearing that it would cannibalize its existing film business. This decision proved to be a fatal mistake, as digital photography eventually became the dominant form of photography, leaving Kodak's film business in decline.

Another mistake that Kodak made was its inability to compete with new entrants into the photography market. While Kodak was a large, established company, it was unable to keep up with smaller, more nimble competitors that were able to innovate quickly and respond to changing market trends. Kodak was slow to develop new products, and its product development cycle was often hampered by bureaucratic decision-making processes.

Ultimately, Kodak's failure was a result of its inability to adapt to changing market conditions. The company was focused on protecting its existing business, rather than embracing new technologies and opportunities. As a result, Kodak was left behind as the photography industry shifted towards digital.

The story of Kodak serves as a reminder that no company is immune to failure, and that even the most successful businesses can be brought down by a failure to adapt to changing circumstances. To avoid a similar fate, businesses must be willing to embrace change, innovate quickly, and remain agile in the face of new challenges and opportunities. By doing so, they can position themselves for long-term success, even in the face of disruption and uncertainty.

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The Kodak Failure Story: How a Lack of Innovation Led to the Demise of a Photography Giant

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What are you thinking? Is your business doing well just because there is more or less demand for your product? So, who's stopping you from succeeding? Do you think that things will continue like this forever? That's wrong. You are living in a bubble.

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Steve Swanson, Programme Director for Sport Leadership at Loughborough University London, discusses Tottenham's new American Football agreement and London's role in the international expansion plans of two globally focused professional sports leagues.

The National Football League (NFL) recently announced a 10-year agreement with Tottenham Hotspur to play at least two regular season American Football games in London each year in their new stadium at White Hart Lane. This state-of-the art project is projected to cost more than £400 million and produce a 61,000 seat venue with a retractable grass pitch over an alternate artificial playing surface. The venture represents the first of its kind in producing a stadium built to cater for both British and American Football requirements, with completion is anticipated in time for both sports to begin hosting contests in the fall of 2018. The new deal also represents an interesting partnership between two entities previously in competition to gain tenancy of the Olympic Stadium, which is now set to become the new home of West Ham United in 2016. The NFL has been playing regular season games at Wembley since 2007 with crowds generally over 80,000, and is currently scheduled to play three more games each year there until at least 2016.

The securing of an NFL presence in London for the foreseeable future is of no great surprise, as the league has a long history of trying to grow their game internationally. From 1986-2005 the NFL played an extra pre-season game referred to as the American Bowl, which took place in various international locations such as London, Japan, Germany, and Spain. The globalisation initiative then turned to developing international clubs in London, Barcelona, and Frankfurt as part of the World League of American Football, which also included teams located in the United States. By 1997 this international presence had evolved into NFL Europe (also referred to as NFL Europa), a league with club representation in Germany, Spain, Netherlands, and the UK. At the conclusion of the 2007 season however, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell announced that NFL Europe would be disbanded immediately, citing yearly losses in excess of $30 million and limited success with player development as was originally intended. This timing also coincided with the new NFL International Series scheduled to kick-off at Wembley later that year.

NFL Expansion

It is no secret the NFL has been focusing on London to help grow their game internationally and develop a fan base to support a London-based franchise in the future. Mark Waller, the NFL Vice President International has said the league is committed to having even more games in London, and Mayor Boris Johnson has indicated that a permanent NFL franchise is indeed a goal for the city. However, despite the large success of NFL games in London over the past several years, it is interesting to note that the NFL 'International' Series has so far only taken place in one city. While London is arguable one of the most multi-cultural cities in the world, and the games do take place in a location outside of the US, it is interesting how the NFL has chosen to entrench itself in the London market rather holding contests in multiple locations worldwide. This is not to suggest that the NFL isn't simultaneously looking to grow American Football elsewhere (recent reports indicate a focus on Germany and Mexico), however it is undeniable that they have placed their bets on an increased London presence as the best way forward.

When using terms such as globalisation and international strategy in reference to professional sports leagues, there are many different initiatives which play a role in this process (e.g. games on location, television access, websites and social media, merchandise sales, player appearance, etc). However, it does now appear that the NFL is strategically positioned to be the first league which includes a team located on different continent. If (and some say when) this happens, a strong argument could certainly be made for the NFL as the leader in globalisation of professional sport.

Another Globalisation Case

The timing of the NFL-Tottenham announcement is also interesting in relation to the soon-to-be-released 2015-2016 National Basketball Association (NBA) schedule. The American-based NBA is another professional sports league which is keenly aware of the opportunities that accompany growing their brand internationally. The new schedule will also include numerous NBA games taking place outside the US, with at least one game at the O2 Arena in London. The NBA is also interested in eventually having a team based in London, though NBA Commissioner Adam Silver earlier this year said he considered the NFL to be ahead in this pursuit. In addition to the large investment that the NFL has made in London, it also has some advantages over the NBA logistically due to playing far fewer games per season (16 versus 82) and only playing one game per week.

The NBA also has a rich history of playing games overseas, with the regular occurrence of exhibition games against European teams since 1984. NBA regular season games outside of North America began in 1990 in Japan, and have continued with numerous contests in China and Europe more recently. Like the NFL, London has played a significant role in the NBA's globalisation campaign, hosting both the first international exhibition game between two NBA teams in 1993 and the first regular season contest in 2011. Last year the NBA made the decision to group all of these overseas initiatives under one banner referred to as the NBA Global Games. Unlike the NFL's International Series, this collection of competitions continues to take place across numerous different countries.

League and Sport Considerations

The NFL seems to have the inside track on becoming the first transatlantic professional sports league by establishing a London-based franchise in the relatively near future. They also have several logistical advantages in relation to teams hosting only 8-10 home games per season, and numerous football (soccer) venues suitable to host their competitions across the globe. Beyond these advantageous circumstances however, there are also some barriers they face in their international efforts. One notable issue lies with the name of the sport. With 'football' referring to the most popular sport in the world (soccer) in all locations other than the US, this is an unfortunate circumstance for promoting international exposure and growth. Furthermore, the need to refer to the sport in terms of nationality (American) brings the concept of national boundaries to mind rather than facilitate a borderless concept of the sport (e.g. Basketball Without Borders). With regard to growing the game through increased participation, the need for specialised equipment (e.g. protective pads, helmets, etc) and relatively large player numbers also presents challenges at the grassroots level. In addition, increased concerns over the associated risk of brain trauma (e.g. chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE) stand as an additional obstacle which other sports don't have to mitigate or continually manage to the same degree.

While the NBA may be a bit behind in the race for a London franchise, the landscape does seem to offer several advantages in relation to international growth. General interest in the game of basketball itself is second only to soccer in terms of worldwide appeal, with representation in many regions as one of the most popular sports overall (e.g. Lithuania, Spain, Argentina, and China). This is also evident in the fact that NBA international competitions have historically been friendlies against basketball teams which already exist in other nations. A global presence of participation is further exemplified by the existence of an international governing body (FIBA), which has more members than FIFA and exists in part to promote basketball all over the world. Furthermore, basketball's inclusion as a recognised Olympic sport (though the NFL has applied for 2020) also provides a supplementary boost to the NBA's brand in a continuous four-year cycle. Finally, the NBA also has a large capacity to leverage themselves internationally on the basis of player representation, with more than 100 foreign nationals from 37 different counties playing in the NBA last season.

It will be interesting to watch these contrasting globalisation approaches unfold over the next decade. Whether a London franchise for a US-based league indeed becomes a reality, and whether this will in turn be a catalyst for further expansion and international growth is yet to be determined. The NFL's immense wealth and current foothold in London certainly indicate increased international growth, yet the global environment seems to signal a stronger position for the NBA throughout the rest of the world. As each league has a unique history and distinct set of environmental considerations, perhaps both pathways toward internationalisation will prove successful in their own way.

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Globalisation strategies of the NFL and NBA

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Steve Swanson, Programme Director for Sport Leadership at Loughborough University London, discusses Tottenham's new American Football agreement and London's role in the international expansion plans of two globally focused professional sports leagues. The National Football League (NFL) recently announced a 10-year agreement with Tottenham Hotspur to play at least two regular season American Football games in London each year in their new stadium at White Hart Lane.

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When Robert Warzycha scored Everton's second goal in the 80th minute of their match against Manchester United on Wednesday 19 August 1992, he helped the Toffees secure all three points at Old Trafford. Mo Johnston added a third in the final minute to consign United to their second consecutive defeat of the season. Until this season, it was the only time United had lost their opening two games of a Premier League campaign. However, back in 1992-93, they went on to win the title comfortably, losing just four of their remaining 40 matches to finish 10 points clear of second-placed Aston Villa.

Warzycha's goal at Old Trafford made him the first player from outside the British Isles to score in the Premier League. The Poland international was one of only 13 foreign players in action during the opening weekend of its inaugural season. Only two of those 13 were from outside Europe - Ipswich's Canadian goalkeeper Craig Forrest and Liverpool's Israeli striker Ronnie Rosenthal.

When the current season kicked off, there were more Brazilian players (15) in the starting line-ups than the entire foreign contingent back in 1992. The original 13 foreign players represented just 5% of the starting XIs, whereas last weekend there were 128 foreign players out of the 220 starters, a whopping 58%. These 128 players came from five continents, with 34 nationalities represented.

It's a similar story in the dug-outs. In 1992-93, all 22 managers in the league were British or Irish - 15 Englishmen, five Scots, a Welshman and an Irishman. There are now a dozen foreign managers in the Premier League, and we still await an English manager winning the title.

Only one of the 22 clubs in the league replaced their manager in the first season of the Premier League, Chelsea sacking Ian Porterfield in February 1993 and bringing in David Webb. By contrast, Watford have burned through seven managers over the last two seasons.

In these days of blanket TV coverage - 200 of the 380 matches will be televised live this season - it seems odd that the opening day of the first Premier League season - when Brian Deane scored the first Premier League goal in Sheffield United's 2-1 win over Manchester United at Bramall Lane - was not. The first live broadcast was not until the Sunday of the opening weekend, when Teddy Sheringham gave Nottingham Forest victory over Liverpool at the City Ground. That was Sheringham's last goal for Forest. He moved to Tottenham shortly afterwards and added 21 more to become the season's leading scorer.

Brian Clough says goodbye to Nottingham Forest fans in 1993. Photograph: Mark Leech/Offside/Getty Images

Forest were responsible for a few Premier League firsts. When Mark Crossley shovelled a tame Colin Hendry header into his own net at Ewood Park in September, he became the first player to have the dreaded initials of OG etched against his name. And Brian Clough suffered the ignominy of being the first Premier League manager to be relegated after Forest's 2-0 home defeat to Sheffield United in May. It was the last act of his illustrious career. "Only Brian Clough could perform a lap of honour on the day his team dropped out of the Premiership," wrote Patrick Barclay in the Guardian.

At the other end of the table, Norwich City enjoyed their highest position in top-flight football by finishing third, even though they had a goal difference of minus four. No team has finished as high in the table with a negative goal difference since and Norwich have never matched that third-place finish. In their nine subsequent seasons in the Premier League they have never finished in the top half of the table and their relegation last season was their sixth from the Premier League - a record for any club.

Squeezed between champions Manchester United and Norwich were Ron Atkinson's Aston Villa, who only faded out of the title race at the death when they lost their last three matches. Villa have not reached the lofty position of second since and, in a similar vein to Norwich, their goal difference of +17 is the worst of any runner-up in the Premier League's 30 seasons.

Crowds were a lot smaller 30 years ago, with just under 10 million going through the gates in the 1992-93 season, an average attendance of just over 21,000. These figures have increased considerably, with more than 15 million attending games last season, an average of just under 40,000 per match. In 1992-93 many of the grounds were in the midst of reconstruction following the Taylor report that recommended top-flight stadiums should be all-seaters by the beginning of the 1994-95 season. For example, Arsenal's average for the 1992-93 season at Highbury was 24,000, compared to just under 60,000 at the Emirates last season.

Wimbledon had the smallest crowds in the first season of the Premier League. As tenants at Selhurst Park, they struggled to fill the ground, attracting an average crowd of just over 8,000 - a figure that was boosted considerably by a crowd of more than 30,000 for the visit of champions Manchester United on the final day of the campaign. Of Wimbledon's 21 home games in 1992-93, only six attendances were above 10,000 and they recorded the lowest ever Premier League crowd (excluding those affected by Covid restrictions) of 3,036 hardy souls for their match with Everton in January 1993.

Just 3,036 fans watched Wimbledon host Everton at Selhurst Park in January 1993. Photograph: Mirrorpix/Getty Images

Of the 22 clubs who played in the opening season of the Premier League, 13 are currently in the top flight, five are in the Championship and three are further down the Football League. Oldham Athletic, who performed a miraculous escape in 1992-93 by winning their last three matches in the space of a week, have slid furthest down the ladder. They were relegated to the National League last season after finishing 23rd in League Two, becoming the first of the founding members of the Premier League to be relegated from the Football League.

Over the last three decades, the finances of clubs have transformed dramatically. The original Sky broadcast deal was lauded as a game changer and, while it represented a significant uplift from previous deals, it is dwarfed by the current levels of broadcast revenue. That first deal was worth £191m over a five-year cycle, so less than £40m per year. To put that into perspective, the club that finishes bottom of the league this season will receive a minimum of £106m from central broadcasting rights, more than double the annual deal for all 22 clubs back in 1992.

The latest TV deal, which runs from this season, sees domestic rights stay at the same level as the previous cycle at £5.1bn over the next three years. For the first time, the Premier League will generate more revenue from outside the UK than within, as its overseas rights will be approximately £5.3bn, with only a handful of countries, such as Afghanistan, Cuba and North Korea, not taking a feed.

Little did Warzycha know that his one and only Premier League goal would be the first small, imperceptible step in the globalisation of top-flight English football.

This article appeared first on The Football Mine
Follow Richard Foster on Twitter
Richard's book Premier League Nuggets is out now

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Thirty years of growth, globalisation and goals in the Premier League

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The first season began with two defeats for Manchester United. A lot has changed but some things stay the same

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Southport park, Merseyside, shuts its doors after Storm Henk causes flooding

Follows recent closures of Prestatyn, North Wales, and Camber Sands, in Sussex

Pontins has been a much-loved British family holiday staple for nearly 80 years, but its future looks bleak after the closure of its third holiday park in a matter of weeks means fewer than a handful of sites remain.

Staff at the Southport park site in Merseyside claim they found out by text they had lost their jobs just hours before the shock announcement was made.

Pontins blamed recent flooding caused by Storm Henk saying 'after assessing the future viability of the park, we have come to the difficult decision to close our doors'.

It comes after the parks in Prestatyn, North Wales and Camber Sands, in Sussex, were immediately shut down at the end of November without warning, with the latest closure raising serious questions about the future of the once much-loved family getaway.

Pontins was bought out of administration by Britannia Hotels for £20million in 2011 with much promise from hotel tycoon Alex Langsam, dubbed the 'Asylum King', to reinvent the troubled parks into Disney-style seaside destinations.

But Britannia, named worst hotel chain for eleven consecutive years, has failed to stem the decline amid the Home Office recently denying rumours the closed down parks would be used to house migrants.

Families were evacuated from the Southport site by firefighters on New Year's Day when heavy rainfall caused the old boating lake to burst its banks and flood the park, reported the Liverpool Echo.

In less than 48 hours on Wednesday afternoon, Pontins announced on its Facebook page the park would be closing its doors for good, with The Mirror reporting furious staff were told by text message.

'It is with great sadness that we announce the closure of Pontins Southport Holiday Park,' they said in a statement.

'After assessing the future viability of the park, we have come to the difficult decision to close our doors. Unfortunately, this means that Pontins Southport Holiday Park will be closing from Wednesday 3rd January 2024.

'Customers whose bookings will be affected by these closures will be contacted by our team and refunded.

'We apologise for any inconvenience caused.'

Southport's Conservative MP Damien Moore told the BBC the closure could provide an economic boost to the area with the right investment.

'Whilst the closure of Pontins is clearly concerning for the staff who I'm sure will be shocked, it provides a fantastic opportunity for a high-quality holiday accommodation provider to take over the site,' he said.

'Given its excellent location next to Ainsdale beach, with suitable investment, it could offer a substantial economic boost to Ainsdale and the wider Southport area.'

In its heyday there were 30 Pontins scattered across the country, but with recent closures mean there are only three left standing: Pakefield, in Suffolk; Sand Bay, in Weston-super-Mare; and Bean Sands, in Somerset.

The Home Office was forced to deny the Prestatyn and Camber Sands sites would be used to house 1,600 migrants after rumours began to swirl online.

The Home Office said in December the rumours were not true - and it do not know where they came from.

The Home Office told MailOnline they are not looking to use the Pontins sites as asylum seeker accommodation - insisting that there are no plans.

A reason behind the closures have yet to been revealed with owners Britannia posting record profits this year.

It posted pre-tax profits of £33.3m for the 12 months to March 31, 2022, after falling to a loss of £9.5m in the prior year, while accounts filed to Companies House shows it achieved a turnover of £117.8m, up from just £38.4 million.

The company, whose multimillionaire boss Andrew Langsam has built up an estimated £248m fortune through Britannia Hotels, enjoys lucrative taxpayer-funded contracts to house asylum seekers across its 60 sites - at least 17 of which are said to have been block-booked.

The octogenarian tycoon launched the company in 1976 with the purchase of the Britannia Country House Hotel in Didsbury, Manchester. He also owns Pontins, which in 2021 tried to ban travellers from its holiday parks.

The entrepreneur has previously boasted of Britannia's role in safeguarding the future of some of Britain's most historic hotels, including the Adelphi in Liverpool - which was used by passengers on the Titanic - and the Grand in Scarborough.

But Britannia is now notorious for its Basil Fawlty style service, with its entry in the Which? ranking of the best and worst hotels in the country stating: 'Run-down, dirty and once again the worst hotel chain in the UK. Avoid at all costs.'

Fred Pontin first launched Pontins in 1946 offering half-board and self-catering holidays with entertainment at resorts around the country before its £56million sale to Coral in 1978.

It went through a number of new owners before it was saved in 2011 by Britannia when it fell into administration.

Shane Ritchie, Bobby Davro, Bradley Walsh, and Lee Mack are listed among its former famous bluecoats.

MailOnline has contacted Britannia Hotels for further comment.

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Is this the end for Pontins? Holiday firm closes third holiday park

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Staff at the Southport park site in Merseyside claim they found out by text they had lost their jobs just hours before the shock announcement was made.

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Neil Lancefield, PA Transport Correspondent

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TfL to receive £250m Government support in 2024

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The package will be used by Transport for London (TfL) for projects such as providing new Tube trains for the Piccadilly line.

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The "banana wars" is the culmination of a six-year trade quarrel between the US and the EU. The US complained that an EU scheme giving banana producers from former colonies in the Caribbean special access to European markets broke free trade rules.

The people of Europe peel back more than 2.5 billion tonnes of bananas every year. Now, this love of bananas has turned to war. Trade war.
The "banana wars" is the culmination of a six-year trade quarrel between the US and the EU. The US complained that an EU scheme giving banana producers from former colonies in the Caribbean special access to European markets broke free trade rules.

Only seven per cent of Europe's bananas come from the Caribbean, US multinationals which control the Latin American banana crop hold three-quarters of the EU market and the US itself does not export bananas to Europe.

Despite this, the US filed a complaint against the EU with the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and, in 1997, won. The EU was instructed to alter its rules.

What is the World Trade Organisation (WTO)?
The WTO is the only international body which deals with the rules of trade between countries, promoting free trade. Based in Geneva, it superseded the General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs, GATT, in 1994. It has the power to legislate on disputes and co-ordinate new rounds of negotiations aimed at dismantling barriers to trade throughout the world.

What is the EU's deal with the Caribbean?
Since 1975, each Caribbean country has a quota of bananas, enabling them to sell to Europe as many as they wanted to support. This, the EU hoped, would enable the economies of such developing countries to grow independently, without depending on overseas aid.

The effect of this deal has been to protect banana farmers in the Caribbean from competition from Latin America, whose bananas are cheaper because they are grown on large-scale, mechanised plantations run by giant US-based corporations.

Where does cashmere come into it all?
After the WTO ruling, the US government continued to argue that free trade in bananas had not been restored, while the EU argue it has changed its rules. The US has now imposed a retaliatory range of 100 per cent import duties on European products, encompassing everything from Scottish cashmere to French cheese.

The British Trade and Industry Secretary Stephen Byers says this action by the US was "completely unauthorised" by the WTO. The British government has been busy pressurising the Americans while the WTO has promised to investigate the matter again.

If the US doesn't export bananas direct to Europe why are they so angry?
Whether Democrat or Republican, American administrations have long championed an ideological commitment to free trade. But the "banana wars" are murkier than that clear principle.

The US government is concerned about its economy. The US trade deficit is at a nine-year high. Its current account deficit could reach $300 billion in 1999, surpassing previous record levels in 1986/7. The government feels it can't afford to allow any European protectionism, no matter how petty, to disadvantage its troubled trading balance.

The US government is also pressurised by powerful US-based multinationals which dominate the Latin American banana industry. The Clinton administration took the "banana wars" to the WTO within 24 hours of Chiquita Brands, a powerful, previously Republican-supporting banana multinational, making a $500,000 donation to the Democratic Party.

Why does it matter?
Some argue that the dispute threatens the whole future of free trade. "Free trade" has always been a delicate state of affairs negotiated between nations. It has often been an exercise in trading concessions - one nation opens up this market in return for another opening up that market.

Advocates of free trade point out that the last significant bout of protectionism and trade-based antagonism between the US and Europe triggered the massive economic depression in the 1930s.

From the small starting point that is bananas, it is easy to see how protectionism could spiral, as different trading blocs place retaliatory duties on other nations' imports. Some warn that the banana wars make global financial instability imminent.

More specifically, it matters for the thousands of people whose jobs, industries and livelihoods are at stake in Europe and in the developing world.

What will be the effects in Europe?
The import duty that the US has slapped on a range of European products works as a bond which Europe's exporters must pay to US customs to cover the cost of duties that the US administration may impose in the future, if the WTO finds in its favour again.

This threatens EU exports worth about $520m a year. Thousands of jobs are at risk, including those in the Scottish cashmere industry in the Borders. Scottish cashmere producer Clan Douglas has warned that if it loses its £1.25m US exports it may have to cut 700 jobs.

What will be the effects in the developing world?
Most immediately, bananas are crucial to the Caribbean economy. Half the population of the Caribbean rely on the banana industry to supply their basic needs such as food, shelter and education. If the EU's preferential treatment is whipped away without giving enough time for farmers to develop other ways of using the land, the Caribbean economy could collapse.

But the problem this dispute poses for the developing world could be more serious. 71 African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) states are subject to the Lome Convention, an agreement created in the 1970s which commits the European Union to promoting trade with its former colonies.

It was under the terms of the Lome Convention that the European Union offered preferential terms for banana imports from the Caribbean. If another WTO ruling forces the EU to comprehensively disavow the already strained Lome Convention, new free trade agreements are likely to be made which subject these developing ACP countries and their fragile industries to the full force of the "free" market.
Topics

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The "banana wars" is the culmination of a six-year trade quarrel between the US and the EU. The US complained that an EU scheme giving banana producers from former colonies in the Caribbean special access to European markets broke free trade rules. The people of Europe peel back more than 2.5 billion tonnes of bananas every year.

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The seven potential hidden costs of your new electric vehicle

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Running an electric car may seem like a cost-effective way of motoring in today’s era of soaring diesel and petrol prices, clean air charges and taxes. Yet there are some potential pitfalls to be aware of before you make the switch. With EV advocates pointing to the cheaper upfront running costs, linked chiefly to the vehicles’ use of electricity r…

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McDonald’s unveils US CosMc’s trial and global expansion

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The fast-food giant pilots CosMc’s and plans to open about 10,000 McDonald’s globally by 2027.

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This survey monitors consumer behaviors and attitudes in relation to food availability, affordability and confidence in the food industry and its regulators. This survey was established in November 2021. A written commentary of this data can be found on the Consumer insights tracker FSA webpage.

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One in 10 households in UK say they missed paying an essential bill

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As the cost of living crisis continues to bite, data indicate that almost one in 10 UK households failed to pay a major bill in the month to 10 November, the highest level recorded since April 2020. According to the consumer group Which?’s latest “consumer insight tracker” research, published on Monday, 9.8% of the households questioned said they had missed or defaulted on a loan, credit card, housing or household bill payment over the month.…

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Family furniture business to close after 120 years in town - here’s why

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St Neots family furniture shop Brittains (Furnishers) Ltd is to close after 120 years.

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The online furniture retailer Made.com's dream of becoming the "new Ikea" will die tomorrow when administrators are appointed, triggering about 500 job losses and leaving thousands of customers in the lurch.

It will complete a fall from grace for the London-based company which was valued at almost £800m when it listed on the stock exchange in summer 2021 and was vaunted as the future of furniture retail.

The Made.com name is expected to be sold straight away, most likely to its high street rival Next, in a cut-price deal. After a desperate hunt, no buyers interested in taking on the whole company came forward; one industry expert described it as a "basket case".

Like other online companies, Made.com's sales rocketed during the pandemic only to slump when life returned to normal. It has spent several desperate months trying to raise the extra cash it needed to continue operating.

Matters came to a head last week. Made.com's shares were suspended from the stock exchange and the company confirmed that administration was now on the cards. Insolvency experts at PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) are lined up to handle the job and are expected to be formally appointed at a court hearing on Monday morning.

There were buyers in the wings but they wanted only Made.com's brands and other intellectual property. Next, which has a large furniture and homewares business of its own, is reported to have offered about £2m for the name. However, it faces competition from Mike Ashley's Frasers Group, which has also been linked to the auction.

Frasers is a serial buyer of distressed businesses and this year alone has acquired the online retailers I Saw It First, Missguided and Studio Retail. However, it also has other bigger prizes in its sights, as it has been buying up the shares of the online fashion retailer Asos as well as the upmarket German label Hugo Boss.

Made.com was set up in 2010 by Ning Li and Brent Hoberman, who co-founded Lastminute.com, with Julien Callède and Chloe Macintosh.

Li, who stepped down as chief executive in 2016 but stayed on the board, told the Guardian in 2017 that Made.com wanted to be the new Ikea. "What we want to do is to be the pioneer of the next trend of how people shop for their home, and really become the alternative to Ikea," he said.

For a while the future at Made.com looked bright and, as for other internet-based companies, lockdown restrictions translated into a sales boom. Its sales surged as people spent more time at home during lockdowns and splashed out on furniture and homeware purchases.

However, more recently the cost of living crisis has seen households cut back on big-ticket purchases such as sofas as rising food, energy and mortgage costs swallow up their spare cash.

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Insiders say the Made.com business model was flawed. Its early success was built on a just-in-time model, with pieces shipped from manufacturers only after orders were placed. Rather than dealing with a handful of suppliers, it worked with more than 200 factories. But that model meant thatwhen the pandemic hit, causing huge supply chain disruption, manufacturers did not prioritise Made.com. More recently it had changed tack, tying up its cash to ensure its warehouses were well stocked. But the timing was wrong, as consumers cut spending when the cost of living crisis began to bite.

At the time of its flotation, Made.com employed close to 700 people but as it struggled to piece together a rescue deal in September it disclosed that more than 200 workers were being made redundant. It is estimated about 500 mainly UK-based staff remain and they are expected to be let go by the administrators.

Made.com has already stopped taking orders but customers who have already bought something face a nervous wait to be reunited with their money. After PwC are appointed, they will advise customers how to claim a refund. However, there is no guarantee shoppers will get their money back because it is likely that the company will also have other debts.

Given the situation, customers who paid for their order using a credit card are advised to contact their card provider straight away and lodge a claim under Section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act. If they paid via debit card, the advice is to claim via their bank's chargeback scheme.

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Furniture retailer Made.com to enter administration

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About 500 jobs expected to be lost and thousands of customers nervously await refunds

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Aldi claims it is increasingly shoppers’ main supermarket for weekly shop

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German discounter tries to shift ‘top up’ shop status as it opens its 1,000th UK store and reveals plan to open 500 more

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The boss of Aldi has said customers are switching to the discounter "in droves" as the cost of living crisis continues to hit struggling households.

Aldi has gained more than 1.5 million customers in 12 weeks, UK chief executive Giles Hurley told the BBC.

The discounter has recently overtaken Morrisons to become the fourth biggest supermarket in the UK.

Rival discounter Lidl has also been gaining ground as shoppers seek to lower their bills.

There has been an "unprecedented" change in consumer behaviour as inflation has soared, Mr Hurley said.

"We're seeing customers switch in their droves," he said. "Customers are prioritising value like never before and switching their shopping to Aldi."

Mr Hurley said shoppers from "all of the traditional full-price supermarkets" were coming to Aldi.

According to the retail research firm Kantar, sales at Aldi were up 19% for the 12 weeks to September compared with the same time last year. If it keeps growing at this rate, it will add up to an extra billion or so pounds in sales this year.

"We haven't seen growth rates like this since the last recession," said Mr Hurley, referring to the recession in 2008-2009.

Rival discounter Lidl is also seeing a rapid increase in sales.

Both businesses are still opening new stores, which is driving extra sales. Prices are also rising, which pushes up the value of sales.

But Mr Hurley insists that Aldi's popularity is broad-based.

"There's no doubt that some of our sales can be apportioned to new stores," he says.

"But the majority are coming from within the existing business as customers reappraise their search for value. It's not just about new shoppers, it's also about existing shoppers consolidating their shop at Aldi, and using Aldi as a first-stop shop."

Bargain hunting

Consumers are buying fewer big brands and putting cheaper own-label products in their shopping baskets instead.

According to retail research firm, Kantar, private label ranges now account for 51% of the market, compared to branded products.

Sales of the cheapest own label ranges are up by a third on last year.

More than 90% of products at Aldi are non-branded items.

Mr Hurley says the business is seeing growth across all categories, from a 20% increase in sales of its nappy range to a 29% rise in its premium Specially Selected range in the last three months.

Mr Hurley was speaking as the chain released its results for the last financial year covering the twelve months to the end of December 2021.

Aldi only racked up a small increase in sales compared with the previous year with revenues of £13.6bn, as it missed out on the online grocery boom during the pandemic.

Pre-tax profits fell by 87% to £36m. That's a net profit margin of less than a third of 1%.

Aldi says the fall was down to Covid costs, increasing staff pay and investing in prices.

Aldi is a privately-owned business, something which Mr Hurley says gives it a big advantage.

"We can look very much to the long term and not worry about short term results."

Like Lidl, the chain is part of a much bigger German-owned retailer. Both discounters are still expanding, unlike traditional supermarkets which are adding little, if any, new space.

Selling supermarket food is a highly competitive market, an industry that's driven by volume and market share.

"The bigger your sales, the more you can invest in your pricing and the better deals you can, in turn, get from your suppliers," says Duncan Brewer, head of the retail and consumer products strategy team at EY-Parthenon

"It's that flywheel effect. And of course, if your volume falls, the trickier things can quickly get. The grocery pie isn't getting any bigger so for the main supermarkets it's all about taking someone else's slice."

Aldi now has just over 970 stores. It's planning to open another 16 before the end of the year, with a target of hitting 1,200 stores by 2025.

It may be piling on shoppers, but Adam Leyland, editor-in-chief of the Grocer magazine, says Aldi isn't going to get things all its own way.

This is unlike during the financial crisis, when the big four chains raised prices too much, allowing the discounters to steal a march and begin their breakneck expansion.

"Pricing is far more nuanced than it used to be," he said. "It's not straightforward. All the established players have developed their entry-level ranges to be more competitive, with some price matching against the discounters on hundreds of lines.

"To maintain a price gap, discounter prices are around 15% cheaper than in continental Europe. It shows they're having to work a lot harder," Mr Leyland added.

Tesco and Sainsbury's have been price-matching Aldi on key products.

Asda has recently launched a revamped basic range, Just Essentials, and had to put a temporary limit on the number of products customers can buy to keep up with demand.

Aldi's big rivals are determined not to make the same mistakes again, but the cost pressures are enormous for every supermarket. Food prices on the shelves are rising at their fastest rate in more than a decade.

Mr Hurley wouldn't be drawn on how much more food price inflation is still to come, saying that the last few years had taught him it was "very, very difficult to predict the future."

Aldi's more efficient business model, he claimed, is better placed to insulate customers from rising prices right across the food supply chain.

So how much profit margin is Aldi prepared to sacrifice this year to protect shoppers?

"We always make value the cornerstone of our business. No matter what it takes," says Mr Hurley, a sign that he's determined to keep the pressure on.

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Aldi boss: Shoppers are switching in their droves

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The discounter gains 1.5 million new customers in 12 weeks, says UK chief executive Giles Hurley.

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Nissan and its partners have announced a £2bn plan to build three electric car models at its Sunderland factory.

The Japanese firm will build electric Qashqai and Juke models at the plant alongside the next generation of the electric Leaf, which is already produced there. The scheme could help preserve the jobs of about 6,000 workers directly, and thousands more across the UK.

Nissan said that alongside this, a major new battery plant known as a "gigafactory" will also be needed.

This is in addition to the current factory adjacent to the car plant, and a further gigafactory already being built by its partner, AESC.

Nissan will spend £1.12bn on preparing its UK facilities and supply chain for the new models and training its workforce.

Alongside the gigafactory the total new investment will be up to £2bn, according to the company.

Lei Zhang, chairman of AESC, said the firm had launched a feasibility study on expanding its gigafactory operations in Sunderland. The plan is expected to receive government support, though it is not clear what form that will take. Nissan has confirmed it will receive £15m in funding for its research centre in Bedfordshire.

The Unite union said the plan "secures the long-term future of the site and the thousands of skilled well-paid jobs it supports", but called for more government support for the car industry.

Earlier this year, Nissan's chief operating officer Ashwani Gupta, who has since left the firm, said that the UK would struggle to remain competitive with other car-making countries because of higher manufacturing costs, elevated by energy bills and inflation.

Alan Johnson, Nissan's senior vice president of manufacturing and supply chain, told the BBC's Today programme that the UK "can be a competitive place for car production, but everything needs to be right".

"Not just the plant itself, but the surrounding environment: energy costs, infrastructure, local government [and] national government support, needs to be right for it to work," he said.

The UK government has provided support for Nissan through the Automotive Transformation Fund, which received a £2bn top-up in the Autumn Statement on Wednesday.

Mr Johnson declined to comment on how much funding the company has received from UK taxpayers.

He said: "The support we have received in the past has been excellent and we're very grateful for the support we do receive.

"The truth is discussions are ongoing with the government, not concluded, and therefore I'm not in a position at the moment to make any announcement or any comment about any numbers."

The government's contribution to Nissan's project is understood to be about £100m, and if the gigafactory goes ahead, the funding for that will also be about £100m.

Nissan's announcement comes as an "investment zone" for North East England was confirmed by the government. The government said it will create more than 4,000 jobs over five years.

Brexit

In the summer, Mr Gupta also warned that the UK's largest car manufacturing plant in Sunderland would be "unsustainable" without a post-Brexit trade deal on tariffs.

Rules due to take effect in January next year mean there will be a 10% tariff on cars sold between the UK and EU unless carmakers have sourced at least 45% of their components by value from the UK or EU.

Batteries are the most expensive part of an electric vehicle, and some manufacturers in both the UK and EU have said they will struggle to meet the requirements, and have called for the rules to be deferred.

Mr Johnson said that Nissan exports 80% of the vehicles made at its Sunderland plant, "so of course exportation is critical to our success".

"In terms of the Brexit deal, we're just getting on with it," he said, adding that the key to Nissan's strategy is "having your major investments like battery production in the UK".

Other car makers have also expressed concerns about the tariffs.

In May, Stellantis, which owns Vauxhall, Peugeot, Citroen and Fiat, said it may have to close UK factories if the government did not renegotiate the Brexit deal.

The firm has made a commitment to making electric cars in the UK, but said that if the cost "becomes uncompetitive and unsustainable, operations will close".

The AESC plant in Sunderland is the only one in the UK currently making electric vehicle batteries, but Jaguar Land Rover owner Tata plans to build a £4bn factory in Somerset.

Some battery firms have had problems setting up in the UK.

Britishvolt, which planned to make batteries in the North East, went into administration earlier this year. It was taken over by Australian firm Recharge Industries, but that hasn't gone smoothly either, with £2.5m of the purchase price still unpaid months after it was due.

By contrast the EU has 35 plants open, under construction or planned.

In September Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced a major shift in UK green policy by delaying a ban on new petrol and diesel cars by five years, to 2035.

Nissan said in September it would not change its timetable, and that it would stick to manufacturing electric vehicles only by 2030.

The firm's boss Makoto Uchida said at the time it was the right thing to do for its business, customers and for the planet.

Postponing the ban has had a knock-on effect on the number of electric vehicles expected to be sold in the UK by 2027.

The government's independent economic forecaster, the Office for Budget Responsibility, said on Wednesday that just 38% of new vehicles sold in the UK in 2027 would be electric, lower than the 67% it predicted in March.

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Nissan to lead £2bn investment in UK electric car plant

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The Japanese firm will build three EV models at the Sunderland factory, securing 6,000 jobs.

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British Steel’s controversial £1.25b transformation plans to be showcased at public events

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December dates outlined for consultations with the communities on huge green steel plans that could mean huge job losses

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Tesco introduces new ‘magic tills’ in huge shake up for supermarket checkouts

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Supermarket giant Tesco is trialling the new technology which sees all the shelves weighed, meaning all customers will have to do is pop their purchases in their baskets

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Food giant Mars to buy Hotel Chocolat in £534m deal

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Hotel Chocolat has agreed to a £534m takeover offer from Mars, the maker of goods from Snickers bars to Pedigree dog food.

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Ex footballer scores by finding a gap in the market.

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Ex footballer scores by finding a gap in the market.

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A former Premier League footballer is going global with his turmeric shots health business after clinical trials showed the natural shots reduced injury inflammation by 75%.

Ex-West Bromwich Albion star Robson-Kanu now employs 40 people at his health business The Tumeric Co which produces the natural health shots which he credits with saving his career.

The product is now being used widely by the general public, sports club and athletes including Liverpool, Spurs, Everton, Celtic, Brentford and England Rugby.

Speaking about his journey from the football pitch to the boardroom on the Lightning 50 E-Commerce Growth Hacking Podcast, Robson-Kanu said he was thrilled by the results of clinical trials on his natural tumeric products.

He said: "We have just finished our first clinical trials on our range. The fact that we have really begun to validate our product range - The tumeric shots - through clinical research is really big for us. The main headline finding is that there was a 75% reduction in inflammation in the blood when using the product. We were high fiving when that finding came through, but we were also conscious that that was not something which the big pharmaceutical companies would be pleased about because it is a natural product.

"Everything stems from nutrition. We are creating awareness and visibility of the power of natural nutrition."

Robson-Kanu said the brand was growing fast this year and it is planning to move into retail and boost its product range.

The company based at a new site in Chatteris, Cambridgeshire which includes a research and development laboratory as well as production facilities.

Over the past two years, he has built a manufacturing facility to British Retail Consortium global standards which are the highest in the world and which will enable The Tumeric Co to make products for other brands.

It currently produce around 150,000 shots a week for the Tumeric Co but they have the manufacturing capacity to produce 1 million a week - so they could accommodate lots more manufacturing and introduce a new revenue stream to the business.

Robson-Kanu set up The Tumeric Co in 2018 when he was 29 and playing football internationally for Wales and in the Premiership for West Bromwich Albion.

He combined both careers for three years - running the business in his down-time when he had finished training from 1pm onwards most days.

Robson-Kanu chose to walk away from football in 2021 despite being offered new playing contracts by Nottingham Forest and teams all over the world because he wanted to concentrate on business.

Robson-Kanu said: "I set up the business when I was still playing. We were generating millions in revenue and impacting positively on the lives of thousands of people through our products but it was tough combining the two careers.

"Running the business over the last two years has been a huge task - building an infrastructure to take us to a global level. There is no way I would have been able to establish the business in the way I have over the past two years if I had still been playing.

"I have had to adapt to being told where to go and what to do at the highest level of professional sport, but I felt running the business was a once in a life opportunity and something really unique."

He said his football career benefitted from running a business in his spare time and the game needs to be doing more to encourage players to develop outside interests.

Robson-Kanu explained: "It is a disgrace that there is not an infrastructure in place to do more to help ex-players.

"You look at a lot of footballers and they will finish training at 1pm and then they will spend the next 14 hours playing FIFA on a games console until 3am in the morning.

"I was choosing to focus my energy on a business which I was passionate about rather than killing time playing FIFA."

What is the biggest buzz - landing a big deal in business or scoring the winner for Wales in the 2016 European Championships?

Robson-Kanu said: "They are both equally rewarding. Obviously it was amazing to score in the Euros but now I get just as big a buzz out of knowing that I am improving the lives of tens of thousands of people through my products."

* Robson-Kanu talks about his journey from the football pitch to the boardroom on the Lightning 50 E-Commerce Growth Hacking Podcast.

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A former Premier League footballer is going global with his turmeric shots health business after clinical trials showed they reduced injury inflammation by 75%

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A former Premier League footballer is going global with his turmeric shots health business after clinical trials showed the natural shots reduced injury

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Are you plagued by a noisy heat pump? Email: john.james@mailonline.co.uk

Heat pumps are too loud to be installed in millions of homes under the government's own noise guidelines, a report has warned.

As part of their commitment to Net Zero, the government has announced it wants to install 600,000 heat pumps a year by 2028.

In order to help meet this target, last month the government announced new grants of up to £7,500 for homeowners swapping their gas or oil-powered boilers for heat pumps.

However, a new report has found that most air source heat pumps are too loud for properties in built up areas as the constant hum of the outdoor units would violate noise limits set for those who wish to install one without planning permission and with a government grant.

In order to qualify for the government grant, any installations of heat pumps must meet noise regulations set out by the Microgeneration Certification Scheme (MCS) which state they should not generate a noise louder than 42 decibels within one metre of a neighbour's door or window.

But the new report, which was compiled by experts from the consultancies Apex Acoustics, Sustainable Acoustics and ANV Measurement Systems, found that none of the top heat pumps from the five main manufacturers would meet MCS standard unless they were four metres away.

It stated: 'Without the MCS there is no BUS grant and, therefore, a likely significant reduction in uptake of [heat pumps] across England and Wales.'

Heat pumps can produce a low constant hum of between 40 to 60 decibels and typically run for long periods of the winter.

This level of noise is similar to that made by the average fridge or dishwasher found in many UK homes.

The report analyzed factsheets from various heat pump manufacturers who covered around 70 per cent of the market to see how noisy they could be and how far they would have to be placed from neighbouring properties to comply with guidelines.

Amazingly, it found that some models designed to provide a higher heat output for bigger homes could have to be placed as far as 10 metres away.

In the report, Peter Rogers, of Sustainable Acoustics, said that homeowners living in terraces, flats and tenement buildings may struggle to install a heat pump under MCS guidelines.

These properties equate to 47 per cent of Britain's housing supply.

He also warned that some installations in semi-detached homes, which equate for 31 per cent of homes, could also breach guidelines.

The Telegraph reports that due to to this the report surmises that Welsh local authorities are bracing themselves for a 'sharp increase' in noise complaints in urban areas due to the pumps.

Should a homeowner wish to meet the noise regulations and still recieve grant funding the report suggests they may need to build a sound barrier which can cost as much as £5000.

Alternatively, they could choose a split system where half of the heat pump is installed within the house - however this is more expensive.

Speaking to MailOnline, Mike Foster of the Energy Utilities Alliance said the findings should prompt the government to commit to further trials on the cumulative effects of heat pump noise pollution.

He said: 'There are concerns quite rightly about the noise emitted from the outdoor units of heat pumps and as more of these appliances are rolled out obviously the likelihood of them impacting upon neighbours grows.

'The government are consulting about whether they should reduce the restrictions and regulations around the noise and for me that's a backward step.

'One of the key issues we should be looking at is the noise from a concentration of heat pumps in a neighbourhood. So if you had five or six houses in a terraced block with heat pumps for instance, all running at the same time, we don't know how loud that noise would be.

'This is why we should at the very least have a trial. If there was a village scale trial of heat pumps, so that every house in the neighborhood was told it had to have a heat pump we could see what happened.

'If products are getting quieter, that is a good thing.

'But the only way in which products continue to get quieter is if you tighten up the regulations. not relax them completely. If you relax the rules completely. then there's no need to make these products quieter.

'The government seem to be taking the opposite view. They seem to wish and hope that the products become quieter without necessarily providing the regulations to make them do so.'

MailOnline has approached the Heat Pump Association and the three authors of the report for comment.

Peter Rogers of Sustainable Acoustics said: ' This claim by the Telegraph is in inaccurate, and misleading for the public given the urgency with which decarbonisation needs to occur and with urgency.

'The work is aiming to do this with regard for the evidence.

'It is right to say that noise emissions are an important factor when selecting the right Air Source Heat Pump for the right location and the public can find guidance on this from the Institute of Acoustics website, to help the public make a choice that will neither disturb them or their neighbours.'

Jack Harvie-Clark from Apex acoustics said: 'While noise is a valid concern with heat pumps that needs to be addressed, technology improvements and proper installation can mitigate noise issues in most homes.

'The Microgeneration Certification Scheme (MCS) rules are designed to prevent disturbance. With proper siting and installation, most properties could comply with the rules, if they could identify the appropriate heat pump.

'Our paper presented in October 2023 at the Institute of Acoustics conference demonstrates how many heat pumps are too noisy for some properties. We don't believe that this is significantly constraining the roll-out yet, as there are so many properties for which noise is not a constraint at all.

'UK data shows noise complaints about heat pumps are very low. The survey reported in our IOA paper suggests about 100 complaints for 300,000 installations. Proper installation is key to preventing noise issues.

'The MCS standards provide reasonable noise limits that aim to prevent nuisance noise, rather than obstruct heat pump installations.

A Department for Energy Security and Net Zero spokesperson told MailOnline: 'These claims fail to recognise that heat pumps have got significantly quieter over the past decade, with ultra-low noise emission models now available.

'Heat pumps can be installed in the overwhelming majority of homes without the need for planning permission or additional acoustic insulation.

'We remain committed to our ambition of 600,000 heat pumps a year installed by 2028, backed by a 50 per cent increase in the Boiler Upgrade Grant - the most generous of its kind in Europe.'

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Noise experts say heat pumps could be too loud for millions of homes

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A report presented to Net Zero ministers has said heat pumps are too loud to be installed in millions of homes under the government's own noise guidelines.

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EU strikes landmark deal on law to restore and protect nature

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EU lawmakers and member states have struck a deal on a landmark law to protect nature after watering down rules that critics argued would trouble farmers. The nature restoration law, a hotly contested pillar of the European green deal, will force EU countries to restore at least 20% of the bloc’s la…

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Why the UK blocked the Microsoft-Activision Deal

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Microsoft / Activision deal prevented to protect innovation and choice in cloud gaming

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The CMA has prevented Microsoft’s proposed purchase of Activision over concerns the deal would alter the future of the fast-growing cloud gaming market, leading to reduced innovation and less choice for UK gamers over the years to come.

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Google probed by competition watchdog over ad dominance

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The Competition and Markets Authority launches an investigation into Google's advertising practices.

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LONDON, July 6 (Reuters) - Britain's antitrust watchdog is investigating Amazon.com Inc (AMZN.O) on concerns it was hurting competition by giving its own sellers an unfair advantage in its marketplace over third parties, adding to global regulatory scrutiny of the U.S. tech giant.

Britain's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said it opened an investigation on Tuesday into whether Amazon's practices that affect sellers on its domestic marketplace may be anti-competitive and result in a worse deal for customers.

"It's right that we carefully investigate whether Amazon is using third-party data to give an unfair boost to its own retail business and whether it favours sellers who use its logistics and delivery services - both of which could weaken competition," Sarah Cardell, general counsel at the CMA, said in a statement.

Millions of people across Britain use Amazon's services for fast delivery, the CMA said.

A spokesperson for Amazon said the company would work closely with the CMA during its investigation, adding that sales from the company's selling partners continued to grow faster than Amazon's retail sales.

The Amazon logo is displayed on a sign outside the company's LDJ5 sortation center, as employees begin voting to unionize a second warehouse in the Staten Island borough of New York City, U.S. April 25, 2022. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid.

The investigation follows a current European Commission (EC) probe looking at similar concerns but which does not cover issues affecting Britain following Brexit, the CMA said, adding that it seek to liaise with the EC.

EU antitrust regulators in November 2020 charged Amazon with distorting competition in online retail markets and opened a second investigation into the company's business practices.

The Financial Times on Wednesday reported that Amazon will share more data with rivals and offer buyers a wider choice of products as part of a deal with the EU. ( https://on.ft.com/3OIKYMe)

Amazon will give third-party sellers on its marketplace access to information that could help sell more products online, the FT said.

The British regulator said its investigation would focus on three main areas, including how the Seattle-based company collects and uses third-party seller data and how it sets the eligibility criteria for selling under the Prime label.

Separately, Germany's antitrust watchdog on Wednesday subjected the e-commerce giant to stricter supervision rules, saying Amazon's position is of outstanding, cross-market importance for competition. read more

Reporting by Yadarisa Shabong in Bengaluru; Additional reporting by Radhika Anilkumar; Editing by Angus MacSwan and Bernadette Baum

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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Amazon faces UK probe over suspected anti-competitive practices

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Britain's antitrust watchdog is investigating Amazon.com Inc on concerns it was hurting competition by giving its own sellers an unfair advantage in its marketplace over third parties, adding to global regulatory scrutiny of the U.S. tech giant.

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Netflix is raising prices for some of its subscription plans, despite the success of its recent crackdown on password sharing.

The streaming giant said monthly charges for its UK basic service would rise by £1 to £7.99 and the premium option will increase by £2 to £17.99.

It reflects the firm's growing confidence, after adding 8.8 million subscribers from July to September.

It was the most in more than two years.

For viewers in the US, the premium plan will cost $3 more per month at $22.99 (£19.00). In France, premium subscribers will pay an extra €2 at €19.99 (£17.40).

Netflix has been facing doubts about whether it can continue to draw in new members, as competition rises, prices climb and a Hollywood strike delays new releases.

In the first half of last year, it lost about one million subscribers, sending alarm bells ringing.

Much of the subscriber growth in the most recent quarter was driven by its move to start charging an extra fee - which amounts to a little less than half the £10.99 cost of its "standard" advert-free plan - to have more than one household on the same account.

The launch of a cheaper plan, with adverts, accounted for about 30% of sign-ups in countries where it was available, Netflix said.

"Management's working hard to squeeze every last drop of cash possible from the available subscriber base," said Sophie Lund-Yates, lead equity analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown.

"As that cup begins to run dry, it will be a lot more important to understand exactly how successful the next phase of growth can be."

Netflix said it believed it had the right mix of original hits and licensed fan favourites in its library to keep audiences coming, spotlighting Suits, the legal drama now known for starring Meghan Markle.

First released in 2011 on an American network, the series spent several weeks among the top 10 of Netflix's most-watched English television shows over the summer, racking up more than a billion viewing hours globally.

Netflix, which has been emphasising its own productions in recent years, said in its quarterly update to investors that licensing had always been important and it saw potential opportunities to license more hits "as the competitive environment evolves".

Analysts said licensed material was likely to prove increasingly important, as audiences feel the hit of the Hollywood strikes that have shut down new productions for several months.

Writers recently reached a deal, but the actors guild and the major studios, including Netflix, are still fighting over issues of compensation and artificial intelligence.

Studios are facing pressure from investors, who have grown increasingly sceptical of the big losses posted by some of Netflix's rivals in the streaming business, such as Disney.

From that perspective, Netflix is in a strong position.

It reported quarterly revenue up 7.8% year-on-year at $8.5bn, while profits hit $1.67bn.

The company has been trying to nudge customers on to the advertising-funded plan, which it sees as having big potential to drive profits. That is one reason for the price hike to its "basic" advert-free plan, which is no longer widely promoted on its website.

"They're certainly generating more revenue from the ad-tier subscribers than they are from the standard and premium subscribers," Simon Gallagher, former director of content acquisition at Netflix, told the BBC.

"So they are very motivated to push their subscribers across to that ad-funded tier."

Paolo Pescatore, analyst at PP Foresight, said he thought customers should expect to see even higher prices in the years ahead as the company looks to protect its profits and reckons with costs from licensing and new initiatives.

The company recently revealed plans to start opening a select number of bricks-and-mortar destinations for shopping, dining and Netflix "experiences", something like a Netflix version of Disney World.

"Price rises are inevitable and we can expect this most likely on an annual basis, akin to traditional pay TV and other services," he said.

Netflix shares jumped more than 10% in after-hours trade.

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Netflix raises prices despite password crackdown success

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The streaming giant raises monthly charges in the US, UK and France after gaining millions of new subscribers.

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UK inflation unexpectedly holds steady at 6.7% amid rising fuel prices

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UK inflation unexpectedly held steady in September at 6.7% as soaring fuel costs offset the first monthly fall in food prices for two years to maintain pressure on householdsamid the cost of living crisis. The Office for National Statistics said the annual inflation rate as measured by the consumer…

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Australian dessert icon, Sara Lee, known for its frozen cheesecakes, pies, puddings, and crumbles, entered voluntary administration on Tuesday.

The brand hopes to restructure and sell off the company while continuing operations.

Vaughan Strawbridge, Kathryn Evans and Joseph Hansell from FTI Consulting were appointed as voluntary administrators on October 17.

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"Sara Lee is an iconic brand which produces quality Australian made products from its manufacturing facility in Lisarow NSW, where it employs some 200 staff," Strawbridge said in a statement on Wednesday.

"We are working with Sara Lee's management team and staff to continue operations while we secure the future of the business.

"We are immediately commencing a process to sell or restructure the business and continue its long history of manufacturing in Australia.

"We expect a lot of interest in the business and will work with those parties and stakeholders to achieve an outcome soon as possible to secure the ongoing business and provide clarity to its loyal and committed staff and customers."

The company was established in Lisarow, on the NSW Central Coast, in 1971 where production has continued for 50 years - but trading has now expanded beyond Australia to New Zealand, the Middle East and South-east Asia.

The Chicago-based founder, Charles Lubin, named his first bakery after his daughter, Sara Lee, in the 1930s, a name his prolific dessert company would adopt in the following decades, according to Bidfood.

It reports that Sara Lee developed freezing processes which led the industry in the 50s, and began launching iconic advertising campaigns in Australian Women's Weekly throughout the early 70s.

By the 80s, the company was making 50,000 cheesecakes a day, and in 1992 it became the 7th largest company to supply goods to Australian supermarkets.

The best-selling Sticky Date Pudding was launched in 1997, and in 2013 the company was acquired by McCain Foods.

Now, the company makes 200,000 cakes and pastries a day - a hefty production administrators hope to continue as they look for a buyer.

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Aussie dessert icon Sara Lee collapses after more than 50 years

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The dessert company known for filling the freezer is now going bust.

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Microsoft given go-ahead to buy Call of Duty maker in biggest ever tech deal

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Microsoft’s $69bn (£56bn) takeover of Activision Blizzard has been approved by Britain’s competition regulator after an earlier decision to block the deal was overturned. The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said it would approve the merger after Microsoft stripped out the Call of Duty maker’…

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Massive Fire Engulfs London Luton Airport Car Park, Halts Flights

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In a significant development, London Luton Airport has suspended all flights and advised people not to travel to the airport due to an extensive fire that has engulfed the terminal car park. The blaze, which began in Terminal Car Park 2, has severely impacted 80% of the car park’s third floor, leadi…

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John Lewis chairman to leave next year - making her the briefest serving boss in its history

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The chairman of the John Lewis Partnership will leave the business next year, it has been announced, just weeks after it warned of a two-year extension to its turnaround plan.

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‘The Economics Of’ unpacks innovative businesses, brands and products that have revolutionized modern life.

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bloomberg television business news financial stock bond currencies anchor wall street money nyse nasdaq futures technology innovation ipad iphone samsung elo...

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Bloomberg Originals offers bold takes for curious minds on today's biggest topics. Hosted by experts covering stories you haven't seen and viewpoints you haven't heard, you'll discover cinematic, data-led shows that investigate the intersection of business and culture. Exploring every angle of climate change, technology, finance, sports and beyond, Bloomberg Originals is business as you've never seen it.

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Fifa to EA Sports FC: Name change is big gamble for UK's best-selling game

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Fifa to EA Sports FC: Name change is big gamble for UK's best-selling game

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Fifa to EA Sports FC: Name change is big gamble for UK’s best-selling game

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The Fifa football video games are rebranded after a reported disagreement with the governing body.

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Aldi reports record UK sales as shoppers change habits in cost of living crisis

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Aldi has reported record sales in the UK last year, which the chain attributed to shoppers hunting for discounted groceries as food costs soared during the cost of living crisis. The retailer said it had attracted an extra 1 million customers to its 1,000 UK stores over the past year, in what it sai…