Sky Business News Articles

The British perfume brand Jo Malone has “deeply apologised” to Star Wars actor John Boyega after he was cut out of the Chinese version of an advert he helped create.
Originally, the commercial featured the London-born star walking around Peckham, the neighbourhood where he grew up.

The video, entitled London Gent, also made reference to his Nigerian heritage.
However, the ad shown in China saw Boyega replaced with the Chinese star Liu Haoran – a move that the company has now admitted was a misstep.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, the actor only found out what had happened when the reshot advert was posted on Twitter.

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In a statement provided to the US website, Jo Malone said: “We deeply apologise for what, on our end, was a mistake in the local execution of the John Boyega campaign.

“John is a tremendous artist with great personal vision and direction. The concept for the film was based on John’s personal experiences and should not have been replicated.”

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The company also said that it recognised “this was painful and offence was caused”, adding: “We respect John, and support our partners and fans globally. We are taking this misstep very seriously and we are working together as a brand to do better moving forward.”
This isn’t the first time that Boyega has been deleted from a China-based ad.
In Star Wars: The Force Awakens, he played the leading role of Finn – but despite that, Chinese posters promoting the movie removed or diminished him and other non-white characters.
Boyega has also spoken out about racism in Hollywood. Speaking to GQ magazine, he said black characters have been “pushed to the side” in Disney’s Star Wars franchise.

A pack of turnaround investors, private equity funds and food groups are vying to snap up Hovis, one of Britain’s best-known food brands, in a deal that could be worth well over £100m.
Sky News has learnt that firms including Endless, Epiris – the buyout firm which recently snapped up restaurant chains Bella Italia and Café Rouge – and Aurelius Equity Opportunities are among roughly half a dozen parties which have lodged indicative offers for Hovis.

The 134-year-old bread producer, which is partly owned by London-listed Premier Foods, was put up for sale three months ago by its controlling shareholder, The Gores Group.
Sources said this weekend that Gores’ advisers’, RW Baird, had also received indicative offers from at least one European food producer and further private investors.
Premier Foods, which owns Mr Kipling, Bisto and Angel Delight, is likely to use the sale process as an opportunity to sell its 49pc stake in the company, Sky News reported in June.

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It wrote off the remaining value of its Hovis stake four years ago.

The auction has been timed to coincide with a turnaround in Hovis’s fortunes, which has been accelerated by a boost to sales during the coronavirus pandemic.

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Hovis employs more than 2,700 people and is focused on its bakery operations, having sold two flour mills in 2018.
A surge in demand for ambient food brands during the UK lockdown is understood to have benefited all of the major bread producers: Hovis, Kingsmill, which is owned by Associated British Foods, and family-owned Warburton’s.
Neither of its principal UK rivals would be likely to be permitted to acquire Hovis for competition reasons.
Food analysts have said they expected Hovis to command a price tag of between £100m and £150m.
Established in 1886, Hovis became one of Britain’s best-known food brands, cultivating a home-grown image with its famous 1973 television advert showing a boy pushing his loaf-laden bike up a steep hill.
It was named the UK’s most iconic TV commercial in a poll last year.

Image: Hovis is one of Britain’s best known bread brands
Like other producers, however, Hovis faces stiff challenges with the category in long-term structural decline as a growing number of consumers switch to bread-free diets.
The company has an estimated 28% market share in branded and pre-packaged bread, with the UK’s broader bakery market said to be worth £4bn in annual sales.
Under the deal struck with Premier in 2014, Gores paid £30m for its stake, of which half was deferred and contingent on future performance.
It added that approximately £200m would be invested in Hovis over the next five years to improve its operational infrastructure and reinvigorate the brand.
The deal was motivated in part by Hovis’s declining fortunes and Premier’s strained balance sheet, which has also prompted it to sell other well-known brands during the last decade.
Hovis is now run by Nish Kankiwala, a former Pepsico and Burger King executive.
In its results for 2018, the latest period for which figures have been published, Hovis Limited recorded revenue of £460.9m.
The company said that while bread volumes were down 1.5% year-on-year, profit margins had improved and earnings before interest, depreciation, tax and amortisation soared by 80% to £14.6m.
Its most recent results are expected to be published shortly.
Hovis and the bidders declined to comment on the details of the process.

Around 30% of workers in Wales could regularly work from home even after the coronavirus pandemic, the Welsh government has said.
During the worst of the crisis, people from across the UK were told to work at home if possible, a move that resulted in less road congestion and pollution as well as limiting the spread of the coronavirus.

Ministers in Wales have said working remotely can also improve the work-life balance and potentially drive regeneration and economic activity in communities.

The plan is for staff to work in the office, at home, or in remote working hubs within easy distance of their homes.
It comes after the UK government instructed workers to return to the office last month, concerned about the economic effect of commuters being absent from city centres.

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Lee Waters, deputy minister for economy and transport, said: “The UK government instruction for everyone to go back to the office is not one we are repeating in Wales.

“We believe many people will want to continue to work remotely in the longer term and this could be a step-change in the way we work in Wales.

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“We are also conscious of the needs of those for whom – for various reasons – home working is not a viable option, and will be exploring how a network of community-based remote working hubs could be created in communities.

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“We have an opportunity to make Wales a country where working more flexibly is integral to how our economy functions, embedding a workplace culture that values and supports remote working.
“We aim to see around 30% of the Welsh workforce working remotely on a regular basis.”
Helen Mary Jones, shadow economy secretary for Plaid Cymru, said home working can benefit organisations and employees but the right tools were needed, such as further investment in broadband and other communications.
“It also has to be a choice,” the member of the Senedd for Mid and West Wales said.
“Working from home is simply not an option for many – be that because of cramped housing or a range of other reasons.
“Equally for many the office can be a refuge from problems at home or a place to develop new friendships.
“This pandemic will undoubtedly change the way we work. The Labour government need to make sure our economy and infrastructure is ready for that.”

The John Lewis Partnership is plotting the takeover of a fast-growing recipe box provider backed by the former Wimbledon champion Sir Andy Murray as it seeks to tap into consumers’ post-pandemic penchant for subscription services.
Sky News has learnt that Waitrose is in detailed negotiations to buy Mindful Chef, which provides meal-kits to thousands of customers and has seen sales explode during the coronavirus crisis.

This weekend, it emerged that Waitrose, the supermarkets division of Britain’s best-known retail mutual, is facing competition to acquire Mindful Chef from Nestle, the consumer goods behemoth.

Image: Waitrose is plotting bid for recipe box star Mindful Chef
A takeover of the five year-old company would represent a bold step for Waitrose, whose parent company has launched a strategic review that will define its future on Britain’s high streets.
John Lewis, its department store business, has announced the closure of eight outlets, triggering the loss of more than 1000 jobs.

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The decision to shut its Birmingham store sparked a public row with Andy Street, the West Midlands mayor who previously ran the chain.

Under Dame Sharon White, the JLP chair, it has promised to take a radical approach to ensure it can emerge from the structural changes reshaping the UK retail industry.

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Waitrose recently announced the launch of a partnership with Deliveroo to make more than 500 products available to customers within as little as 30 minutes.
Like Britain’s other major supermarkets, Waitrose has seen an explosion in online orders since the country went into lockdown in March.
Its long-running relationship with Ocado has just come to an end, obliging it to seek new ways of forging ties with shoppers.
Both Waitrose and John Lewis have appointed new managing directors, while the partnership is seeking a seasoned retailer to work with Dame Sharon as the partnership’s deputy chair.

Coronavirus: Waitrose to trial groceries on Deliveroo as pandemic accelerates changes to retail

Announcing the first phase of its strategic review in July, Dame Sharon said in relation to Waitrose: “Outside of their regular grocery shop, we also know that our customers are spending a lot on food delivery services.
“We see significant scope for us to grow in this area, and are actively exploring early opportunities.”
She added that JLP would “create partnerships with other businesses who respect our ethos and can bring resources or capabilities we don’t have”.
She added: “We are already in a number of commercial discussions and are also looking at acquisitions.”
The cost of a deal to buy Mindful Chef outright was unclear this weekend, with some sources suggesting it could be between £35m and £50m.

Image: John Lewis is understood to be plotting to buy Mindful Chef
JLP is understood to have drawn up plans to finance such a deal, although the details are uncertain.
One former employee, said it was questionable that it was considering spending tens of millions of pounds on an acquisition at a time of substantial layoffs from its 80,000-strong workforce.
Some retail executives believe the soaring sales trajectory enjoyed by meal-kit providers during the pandemic is not sustainable over the longer term.
However, people close to JLP said that Mindful Chef was “exactly the sort of deal it should be looking at if it wants to survive”.
Mindful Chef was established five years ago by a trio of Devon school friends, and markets itself on its supply of fresh meat, fish and produce sourced from independent UK farms.
The company sends weekly healthy recipe boxes, filled with recipe cards and pre-portioned ingredients to its subscribers.
To date, it has sent more than 8-million meals to about 145,000 customers.
It raised money from Sir Andy and his fellow Olympic champion, cyclist Victoria Pendleton, in a crowdfunding round in 2016.
Last year, it sold a £6m stake to Piper, a private equity firm specialising in investments in branded consumer businesses.
Mindful Chef said on Saturday: “In May this year, healthy recipe box brand Mindful Chef, announced it was commencing its Series B round of fundraising, under the direction of KPMG.
“The direct-to-consumer business has reported an unprecedented increase in sales since the coronavirus outbreak, including a +452% spike in new recipe box customers and a +387% spike in frozen meal sales (based on sales week on week).”
It said it anticipated seeing full-year sales more than treble from £16m last year to £50m in 2020.
“Mindful Chef can confirm that on the back of its successful results there has been a great deal of interest,” the company added, saying it could not identify its suitors.
It said the fundraising process “is still progressing and no party is in exclusivity”.
Insiders expect a deal to be concluded within weeks.
LDC, the private equity arm of Lloyds Banking Group, is also understood to have been in contention to buy the recipe box provider.

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A spokesperson for the John Lewis Partnership said this weekend: “We don’t comment on commercially sensitive matters.
“We’re conducting a strategic review, and as part of that we’re considering a number of commercial opportunities.”
Nestle declined to comment.

Here’s the irony: up until recently, if there was one part of the European Union which most Conservatives said they actually rather liked, it was the state aid regime.
This, after all, was the one bit of the single market that Britain put most store by. Indeed, back in the 1980s when it was being tailored over successive summits, Britain, more than any other country, really wrote it.

And for good reason: the whole point of state aid rules is to prevent other countries from unfairly supporting their national champions.

Gove on Brexit: ‘We operate within rule of law’

This makes lots of sense within a single market where people are supposed to be competing on a level playing field.
How can British yoghurt makers or car manufacturers compete with their French and German rivals if those rivals are being supported by the state?

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So while British politicians have occasionally moaned about the small print associated with those state aid rules they have, for the most part, seen them as one of the most attractive features of EU membership.

Indeed, all too often, state aid rules provided a useful excuse when businesses came begging for bailouts: “Oh, we’d love to help you but unfortunately those annoying Brussels bureaucrats won’t let us.”

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That’s the first ironic thing about the current situation, where Number 10 is holding up the state aid regime as the main reason it is considering leaving the EU without a deal. How can we create national champions, they ask, if we are constrained by these rules?

‘Government lurching from crisis to crisis’

The second ironic thing is that it’s not altogether clear the rules do prevent you from creating national champions.
After all, even within the EU, Britain spent far more on state aid – providing grants and supports for its companies – than most of its European neighbours. There is nothing in the treaties or case law to prevent it, say, supporting a car battery manufacturer in the future. We know as much because France and Germany already do precisely that.
Some economists presume the row over state aid must therefore be part of a grand negotiating strategy aimed at showing Brussels that this country is indeed serious about leaving without a deal if need be. Yet the documents produced this week suggest the government is indeed serious.
For them, state aid is another area where national sovereignty trumps any deal to be done with Europe. Yet economists argue that the new rules posited by Downing Street will open the door to a less efficient economy, as the government attempts to pick winners, much as it did in the 1970s.
It is possible that this all evaporates in the coming weeks, if Boris Johnson can somehow agree a deal with his European counterparts, but insiders are increasingly pessimistic about this prospect.
It all points towards a bumpy few months for the UK.

The Post Office is in talks to offload its telecoms arm and is exploring a sale of its insurance business as its new chief executive puts his stamp on the centuries-old institution.
Sky News has learnt that the government-owned company has appointed bankers to oversee and auction of its telecoms division, which boasts 500,000 customers and annual revenues of approximately £150m.

City sources said on Friday that PJT Partners, the investment bank, had been hired to run the auction, which is expected to command a price tag of more than £100m, following a number of unsolicited expressions of interest.
They added that a sale would not proceed unless a satisfactory price was obtained.
Another City firm, Fenchurch Advisory Partners, has separately been appointed to conduct a strategic review of the Post Office’s insurance division.

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The insurance business is a regulated intermediary that has roughly 300,000 customers spread predominantly across travel, home, motor and protection products.

The prospective disposals of the two operations follow a comprehensive review of the company led by Nick Read, who joined the Post Office as its chief executive last year.

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Economy remains 11.7% below pre-pandemic peak
Economy remains 11.7% below pre-pandemic peak

Mr Read’s appointment came amid an escalating row over the multi-million pound scandal which resulted in a number of its sub-postmasters – or branch managers – wrongly sent to prison.
The crisis led the Post Office to agree last December to pay nearly £58m to settle a legal claim brought by a group of 550 sub-postmasters.
At the time, the network, which has around 11,500 branches across Britain, apologised, with Mr Read’s predecessor, Paula Vennells, the target of particularly fierce criticism over her handling of the issue.
In May, the Post Office launched a scheme to provide redress to current and former postmasters who were not part of the litigation settlement but who believe they were adversely affected by earlier versions of the Horizon computer system.
The company has now committed to appointing one of its army of postmasters to its board for the first time – a decision which has been approved by UK Government Investments (UKGI), the agency which oversees the taxpayer’s interest in it.

Image: The Post Office is separate to Royal Mail but their pair have a close working relationship
One source said that move was “an olive branch” from Mr Read as he tries to repair relations with the Post Office’s stakeholders.
Those relations were strained by a scandal involving the use of a faulty IT system called Horizon, which led to some branch managers being wrongly accused of theft, fraud and false accounting.
Mr Read, who previously ran the Nisa convenience store group, joined the Post Office nearly a year ago.
His decision to explore a sale of the telecoms and insurance divisions will enable the company to focus on handling mail and parcels, as well as providing cash and banking services, according to an insider.
The Post Office is an entirely separate company from Royal Mail Group, which was privatised in 2013 and floated on the London Stock Exchange.
The two businesses have a close commercial relationship, however, with negotiating a new ten-year agreement between them among Mr Read’s priorities.
As with other physical retailers, the coronavirus pandemic has provided a stiff test for the Post Office’s management.

Where jobs have been lost in UK economy
Where jobs have been lost in UK economy

More than 90% of its branches remained open during the crisis, and the network made a number of guaranteed hardship payments to postmasters during April and May.
The Post Office also repurposed part of its foreign exchange cash delivery business to enable the overnight delivery of sterling cash to meet demand.
The chief executive’s other main focuses over the next year will include the delivery of a renewed partnership with Britain’s major banks and building societies, while travel and bill payment services are also expected to receive substantial investment.
A Post Office spokesman declined to comment on Friday.

President Trump says he will not be extending the 20 September deadline for TikTok’s parent company ByteDance to sell the popular video-sharing app.
The sale has been forced by an executive order prohibiting US companies from engaging in any transactions with ByteDance as the US administration applies pressure on what it described as “untrusted” Chinese apps.

Speaking to reporters, the president said “we’ll see what happens, it’ll either be closed up or they’ll sell it,” as he confirmed there would not be any extension on the deadline his executive order imposed.

TikTok: What data does it collect on its users, and how do other apps compare?

The wording of the executive order does not make clear exactly what kind of prohibition would be applied to TikTok if it remains in Chinese ownership, but it could be that US-based Google and Apple will be banned from hosting the app on their stores.
The allegations against the app include that it “automatically captures vast swathes of information from its users, including internet and other network activity information such as location data and browsing and search histories”.

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Such data collection is standard for most social media apps, but the executive order warns: “This data collection threatens to allow the Chinese Communist Party access to Americans’ personal and proprietary information.”

Despite the executive order claiming that the US had “credible evidence” that TikTok was being used to undermine US security, the company denied sharing data with the Chinese state.

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ByteDance has stressed that its data on US users is stored in America, which is also where its biggest investors are located, and is currently suing the US administration to prevent the forced sale.

August: ‘I don’t mind’ if Microsoft buys TikTok, says Trump

A number of American companies have been linked with a purchase of the US-based operations of the app, with Microsoft suggested to be interested in acquiring the company’s global business.
In August, the president said he would support the sale of TikTok’s US operations to Microsoft as long as the US government got a “substantial proportion” of the sale price.
“I did say that if you buy it, whatever the price is that goes to whoever owns it, because I guess it’s China essentially … I said a very substantial portion of that price is going to have to come into the Treasury of the United States because we’re making it possible for this deal to happen,” he said.

Image: TikTok has rapidly grown in popularity over the past year
ByteDance is reportedly opposed to selling its assets outside of those in the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, according to the Financial Times.
Other companies suggested to have an interest in the app include Twitter, and Oracle – an enterprise data management company whose chief executive Larry Ellison has been a prominent Silicon Valley supporter of the president.
Experts who have analysed the app suggest its threat to US security was principally theoretical, and say there is no evidence that “personal and proprietary information” has been acquired by the Chinese state.

A former partner at one of the City’s most prominent law firms who was fined after engaging in sexual activity with a junior colleague has resurfaced at a London-listed property company.
Sky News has learnt that Ryan Beckwith, who resigned from his role at Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer last year, has been appointed as head of special situations at the flexible office provider IWG.

His appointment will draw interest among the City’s close-knit legal profession, which has seen several senior lawyers punished for inappropriate personal conduct amid intensifying scrutiny of workplace behaviour.

Economy remains 11.7% below pre-pandemic peak
Economy remains 11.7% below pre-pandemic peak

A source said that Mr Beckwith’s role at IWG would be focused on identifying acquisition opportunities in a commercial property market which has been hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic.
Earlier this year, the FTSE 250 company raised £315m from shareholders to enable it to buy assets from financially challenged players in the sector.

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It was unclear on Friday whether Mr Beckwith had any connection to IWG or its chief executive, Mark Dixon, before being appointed to what a source close to the company described as “a newly created role”.

Mr Beckwith resigned from his role as a restructuring and insolvency partner at Freshfields after being found to have breached the legal profession’s rules by sleeping with a junior female colleague who subsequently complained about the incident.

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Where jobs have been lost in UK economy
Where jobs have been lost in UK economy

He was fined £35,000 by a Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal last October, and ordered to pay £200,000 in legal costs.
Mr Beckwith, who was married at the time of the tribunal, is appealing against the fine at the High Court, having argued that the encounter was a consensual one.
He escaped being struck off or suspended, prompting the Solicitors Regulation Authority to say that it was considering an appeal.
In February, it said it would not do so.
An IWG spokesman declined to comment on its own and Mr Beckwith’s behalf on Friday.

The boss of a top Australian mining firm is stepping down following the company’s destruction of two sacred Aboriginal sites.
Rio Tinto chief executive Jean-Sebastien Jacques will leave the Anglo-Australian mining giant by March over the destruction of the 46,000-year-old caves to access iron ore.

Last month, Mr Jacques apologised at an Australian Senate inquiry into the destruction of the caves in May, saying there was no doubt the company could have made better decisions.

Image: Jean-Sebastien Jacques will leave the Anglo-Australian mining giant by March at the latest
The blasts, which enabled Rio to access £75m (A$132m) of high-grade iron ore, drew international condemnation and damaged the miner’s reputation for dealing with indigenous groups in its worldwide operations.
The rock shelters at Juukan Gorge in Western Australia had shown evidence of continuous human habitation dating back 46,000 years.

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The site was destroyed against the wishes of the Puutu Kunti Kurrama and Pinikura (PKKP) people, the traditional owners.

In a statement, Rio Tinto said stakeholders had expressed concerns “about executive accountability for the failings”.

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The board said Mr Jacques would remain as the chief executive until March or until a successor was appointed, and that the search for a new CEO is already under way.
Iron ore boss Chris Salisbury, and Simone Niven, head of corporate relations, the unit responsible for dealing with indigenous communities, will also depart.
In August an internal review financially penalised all three, but did not call for them to be fired.
Mr Jacques lost payouts totalling £2.7m, while Mr Salisbury and Mr Niven took hits of £600,000 and £525,000.
The high-profile departures come amid heightened sensitivity in Australia to its treatment of Aboriginal people, who are over-represented in the country’s prisons and suffer poorer health and shorter-than-average lifespans.
Brynn O’Brien, executive director of activist investor the Australasian Centre for Corporate Responsibility, said the executive changes “should be a wake-up call for the Australian iron ore sector and mining companies worldwide”.
The Puutu Kunti Kurrama and Pinikura (PKKP) people said they had no comment on the executive changes, but would continue to work with Rio Tinto.
“We cannot and will not allow this type of devastation to occur ever again,” the PKKP said in a statement.

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Australia’s largest pension fund, AustralianSuper, said it was satisfied that “appropriate responsibility” had now been taken by Rio Tinto executives, although it added that nothing could undo the destruction of the culturally significant sites.
Western Australian state laws that approved the destruction are also being revised.
Representing traditional owners, the National Native Title Council (NNTC) welcomed the move but called for further law reform.
“Traditional owners are not anti-economic development. They just want to be able to protect their most significant cultural heritage sites.”

A list of Pizza Hut restaurants that are to close permanently has been revealed in the wake of restructuring plans announced this week.
The company said on Wednesday that 29 of its 245 outlets were to go – placing 450 of its 5,500 staff at risk of losing their job – as it aimed to secure its future following the coronavirus lockdown.

It made the announcement shortly after a report by Sky News said the company – the main franchisee of the Pizza Hut brand and separate to Pizza Hut UK – was proposing to change the way it pays landlords under its rescue plans.

Image: Pizza Express has also moved to shore up its finances
News of the closures were made just days after rival Pizza Express secured approval for the closure of 73 of its ownsites, hitting 1,100 workers.
The following Pizza Hut restaurants have been earmarked for closure:

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Basingstoke Retail Park

Brighton City Centre

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Bury St Edmunds
Cambridge, Regent Street
Cardiff, Culverhouse Cross

Where jobs have been lost in UK economy
Where jobs have been lost in UK economy

Chelmsford, Moulsham Street
Croydon, North End
Cumbernauld
Dunstable
Glasgow, Great Western Retail Park
Grantham
Gravesend

Economy remains 11.7% below pre-pandemic peak
Economy remains 11.7% below pre-pandemic peak

Huddersfield, John William Street
Leicester, Haymarket
London, Leyton Mill
London, Stratford
Maidenhead
Maidstone
Newcastle-under-Lyme
Oxford
Plymouth Royal Parade
Salisbury
Scarborough
Sheffield, High Street
Sheffield, Penistone Road
Stafford
Thornton Cleveleys
Weston-Super-Mare
Worcester