Summer fruit and salad growers in the UK are having difficulty recruiting pickers saying they don’t know if they will have enough migrant workers to harvest their crops. About 80,000 seasonal workers a year pick and process British fruit and veg, most of them are from the EU, mainly Romania and Bulgaria. British Summer Fruits,…
Former three-time Wimbledon champion Boris Becker has been declared bankrupt by the Bankruptcy and Companies Court. The bankruptcy application was made by Arbuthnot Latham, firm of private bankers. Becker’s lawyers asked for a final chance to pay with the funds from re-mortgaging a property in Majorca, however, the court registrar said there was not enough…
Organisations increasingly face investigation for corporate manslaughter and the number of convictions is expected to dramatically increase in the coming years. The Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act (CMCHA) 2007 made it easier to secure convictions against organisations for their liability for workplace deaths. An organisation can be convicted of someone’s manslaughter if its mismanagement…
Shares in DFS Furniture have plunged by 22% after it issued a profit warning. It blamed the general election for contributing to a sharp fall in demand in the second half of its financial year. It now expects its annual profits to be between £82m-£87m, below the £94.4m it reported in the previous 12 months.…
Profits at Sir Philip Green’s retail empire, which includes Topshop, dropped by 79% last year. The failure of BHS and tough competition in the clothing market contributed to the poor performance. A report filed with Companies House by Taveta Investments showed pre-tax profits to £36.8m, down from £172.2m the previous year. Taveta is the holding…
Annual profits at Halfords have been hit by the weak pound despite a strong rise in sales. It reported pre-tax profits fell 10.5% to £71.4m for the year to March. Revenue was up 7.2% to nearly £1.1bn, boosted by the acquisition of upmarket bike business Tredz/Wheelies. Like-for- like revenues rose 2.7%. Halfords said higher import…
IKEA is to create more than 1,300 new jobs in three new stores. A new outlet will open in Sheffield later this year, while stores in Exeter and Greenwich will open in 2018, the firm said. The jobs will increase IKEA’s workforce in the UK and Ireland by 12.5% to about 11,700, the company said.…
Accounting firm PwC has been fined a record £5m and severely reprimanded over its auditing of collapsed property services group Connaught by The Financial Reporting Council (FRC). Social housing specialist Connaught had £220m of debt when it went bust in 2010. The FRC found evidence of misconduct by PwC and retired partner Stephen Harrison. Mr…
BT is to shed 4,000 jobs worldwide over the next two years and is stripping the chief executive of his annual bonus. The job cuts would fall on back-office and managerial sectors as it simplifies its Global Services operations. The move follows an accounting scandal at the Italian part of Global Services that cost BT…
Airbus’ profits have fallen due to continued problems with certain projects. Airbus stated that there were still issues over “meeting contractual capabilities” securing export orders, cost cutting, and commercial exposure. It also said that technical problems with engines for its new A320neo aircraft were still to be resolved. The warnings came as Airbus posted quarterly…