Commercial news round-up: RBS, John Lewis, LSE, Fairtrade, Cheesegrater, BHS, Jaguar Land Rover
updated on 02 March 2017
As you’ll learn, being a good lawyer is so much more than advising on legal technicalities – it is understanding and absorbing what drives your client and then helping them with practical solutions that resonate with their unique set of business concerns and constraints. Want to know what some of those things might be? Read on:
- RBS has released dismal profit news, with losses in 2016 that were treble those of the previous year, and amounted to nearly £7 billion. This is the ninth year in the row that the bank has failed to make a profit.
- John Lewis is expected to make 800 redundancies in its biggest ever round of job cuts. Most jobs lost will be in the store’s restaurants and admin departments. Operating profits dropped significantly by 58.3% in the six months to the end of July 2016.
- The merger between the London Stock Exchange and Deutsche Boerse is now thought to be under threat, with news that the European Commission would not approve the deal unless LSE sold one of its trading platforms.
- Sales of Fairtrade food is on the rise, as consumers plump for ethically sound bananas and coffee, among other things.
- Could this become the most expensive cheesegrater ever sold? The Leadenhall building in the City – aka, The Cheesegrater – is up for sale by its owner British Land and is expected to fetch as much as £1 billion.
- The BHS pension scandal is finally on its way to being resolved; Sir Philip Green has agreed to pay £363 million of his own money to make up the shortfall in the company’s pension fund and ensure that workers receive what they are owed.
- In good news for British manufacturing, Jaguar Land Rover has pledged its “heart and soul” to the UK, as it reveals that its latest Range Rover model is to be built exclusively at its plant in Solihull.
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