We have been sifting through the business sections of the major newspapers each day in order to bring you the highlights of this week’s news. Why not let us do the work for you every week? Get your free update each Friday.
The Financial Times
Business leaders of some of the world’s biggest companies stepped up pressure on the G8 with a call for action on climate change, one month before the Gleneagles summit. Leaders from 24 companies including, Ford, BP and British Airways urged G8 nations to set up a global system for curbing greenhouse emissions. The business leaders called for a cap and trade system or similar market-based system that would set limits on how much greenhouse gas countries could emit and ‘define greenhouse gas emission rights’.
Businesses are wasting £3 billion each year by failing to implement energy efficiency measures to control their use of electricity, water and materials. The Environment Agency said that although businesses has helped to make rivers and bathing areas cleaner than they had been since records began, they were still ignoring opportunities to cut waste and inefficiency.
Business is getting better at tackling late payments as a majority now operate formal credit management procedures, according to research commissioned by the Better Payment Practice Group. The survey found that 52 per cent of companies have a written credit policy compared with 35 per cent a decade ago.
Daily Telegraph
Google has overtaken Time Warner on the New York Stock Exchange and is now the world’s biggest media company. The company behind the internet’s most popular search engine floated on the stock market 10 months ago and is now valued at $81 billion (£44 billion) and shares in the company are selling at $293.12. The company’s stock-market success has defied critics who said that the company was overvalued when it came to market at $85 per share.
Supermarket giant Wm Morrison has surprised the City with its fifth profits warning since it bought Safeway for £3 billion last year. The company has announced that it could make as little as £50 million before tax this year, this comes after forecasts by some analysts who predicted the company would make £600 million profit in this financial year.
The Royal Bank Of Scotland became the fourth major financial institution to warn that bad debts are rising among UK consumers. The comments from the RBOS follow similar comments from Barclays, HSBC and HBOS.
The Times
Footwear manufacturers are demanding measures to prevent the rising tide of shoes and slippers being imported from China. Figures released by the European Commission show that since the quotas were removed last year exports of footwear from China have risen by 700% and 1000% in some categories. Currently Peter Mandelson is trying to persuade China to voluntarily limit its exports of T-shirts and flax yarn, he is said to be ready to go to Beijing where the topic of footwear will doubtlessly be discussed.
The Department of Transport pulled documents from its website that revealed it had considered re-nationalising Railtrack before the company was forced into administration. The documents showed that officials were asked to explore both re-nationalisation and turning the company into a not-for-profit organisation. The revelation that the government was exploring options gives weight to the argument of those who believe that the Government engineered the company’s downfall.
The Guardian
The British insurer, Britannic, has agreed a merger with Resolution Life to create a business estimated at about £1.8bn. The merged business will be called Resolution and the group will control more than £40bn of assets, £35bn of which are held in so-called "zombie" funds. These are the millions of pension and endowment policies operated by companies that have closed to new business. Heavy stock market losses in recent years and tougher funding rules have encouraged about a fifth of Britain's long-term insurance market, or nearly £200bn, to close to new business.
Interest rates are to remain at 4.75% for the tenth month running, the Bank of England announced this week. The announcement came among fears that consumer spending is slowing down. The decision by the Bank caused few surprises given ‘weak data’ on house prices and consumer sales.
The Independent
Sales at McDonalds have fallen in Europe despite the introduction of healthy options such as salad and fruit. Poor sales in Germany and the UK are the main reasons for the 1.4% decline in the fast food chain’s European profits. The figures were released one day after company veteran Russ Smyth, who headed Eurpoean arm of the business, left the company and was replaced by Denis Hennequin.