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Friday newspaper round-up: Tata, Post Office, John Lewis, KPMG

(Sharecast News) - Members of a steelworkers' union have voted to take industrial action in protest at planned job losses at Tata. The company last month rejected a plan by unions to keep open a blast furnace at the Port Talbot steelworks, ending hopes of avoiding as many as 2,800 job losses. - Guardian A barrister who advised the Post Office to stop prosecuting branch owner-operators told a public inquiry he was "now sure" that the state-owned company "must have deceived" him because it failed to provide him with "highly relevant material". Simon Clarke, who worked for the law firm Cartwright King when it was advising the Post Office, was being questioned on Thursday as part of the judge-led hearings looking into the Horizon IT scandal. - Guardian

John Lewis has shed 3,800 jobs over the past year, as it races to cut costs across its stores. New filings reveal the number of staff working for the John Lewis Partnership, which runs department stores and Waitrose supermarkets, dropped to 70,500 at the end of January, compared to 74,300 a year earlier. This coincided with the company saving around £26m in employment costs over the year. - Telegraph

KPMG missed multiple red flags in the run-up to the 2018 collapse of Carillion, with auditors at the Big Four firm joking to each other that their work was "more Mills & Boon than Shakespeare", a report by the City watchdog has concluded. The Financial Reporting Council hit the company with a record £21 million fine last October for what it called "textbook" failures when signing off the construction and facilities outsourcer's accounts. - The Times

Thousands of international travellers who used to visit the UK for VAT-free shopping have turned to luxury retailers in Paris and Milan after the British government scrapped the tax incentive in 2021. New research has found that 162,000 visitors from non-EU countries sought VAT refunds in the UK in 2019. Now 20 per cent of those tourists are claiming tax rebates in EU countries which still have shopping schemes. - The Times

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Thursday newspaper round-up: CMA, Riverford, Lloyds, Arm Holdings
(Sharecast News) - The appointment of the former boss of Amazon UK to lead the competition watchdog poses a threat to its independence and pledge to hold big tech to account, according to a group including tech companies and the former business secretary Vince Cable. The group - which includes the News Media Association, the Firefox developer Mozilla, the consumer group Which? and the Future of Technology Institute - has written to the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, to raise concerns about the appointment of Doug Gurr as the interim chair of the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA). - Guardian
Wednesday newspaper round-up: Thames Water, Johnson & Johnson, BoE
(Sharecast News) - Thames Water may need as much as £10bn in debt and equity investment to repair its finances, according to a representative of creditors hoping to lend the struggling utility another £3bn. London's high court heard evidence on Tuesday that suggested the UK's largest water company may need significantly more resources than the roughly £6.3bn it has previously indicated. - Guardian
Monday newspaper round-up: Zero-hours contracts, Barclays, Asos
(Sharecast News) - Hundreds of thousands of British workers are on zero-hours contracts despite being with the same employer for years, according to analysis from the TUC. The majority of zero-hours contract workers have been with their employer for more than 12 months, while one in eight have not been granted regular employment rights after more than a decade working in the same place, the organisation said. - Guardian
Friday newspaper round-up: Apple, Daily Mail, OpenAI, Homebase
(Sharecast News) - Apple slightly beat analysts' expectations in its first-quarter earnings for fiscal year 2025 on Thursday. The iPhone-maker's revenue rose by 4%, coming in at $124.30bn, barely above estimates of $124.12bn. Earnings per share were $2.40, just ahead of analysts' expectations of $2.35. Shares rose more than 8% in extended trading after CEO Tim Cook indicated in an earnings call on Thursday that Apple is on the trajectory for revenue growth next quarter. - Guardian

Important information: This information is not a personal recommendation for any particular investment. If you are unsure about the suitability of an investment you should speak to one of Fidelity’s advisers or an authorised financial adviser of your choice. When you are thinking about investing in shares, it’s generally a good idea to consider holding them alongside other investments in a diversified portfolio of assets. Past performance is not a reliable indicator of future returns.

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