Thursday newspaper round-up: Drax, French air traffic, Arm

(Sharecast News) - Drax has been accused of costing consumers more than £600 million after choosing not to run a biomass power plant unit that would have supplied electricity at well below market prices during the energy crisis. Instead it burnt biomass in three other units that were able to cash in on high market prices and also profited by selling some biomass pellets to other companies instead of burning them, an investigation by Bloomberg claimed. - The Times Strikes by French air traffic controllers have fuelled a sharp rise in flight delays across Europe, creating chaos for passengers and threatening to dent the sector's recovery. Walkouts by staff have pushed up the number of delayed flights on the continent by 36pc in the year to date, according to figures from air traffic manager Eurocontrol. Air traffic control (ATC) capacity and staffing issues accounted for more than half of the disruption, Eurocontrol has found. - Daily Telegraph

The owners of British chip designer Arm are seeking a record float valuation for a UK company when it lists in New York. Softbank, Arm's Japanese owners, are hoping for the firm to be valued at £55billion when the chip maker is returned to the public stock markets possibly as early as next month. Sources said the British company, whose products feature in about 90 per cent of the world's smartphones, could be worth between £50billion and £55billion as SoftBank drums up interest from investors. - Daily Mail

More people in the UK are missing payments for essential bills, including for energy, water or council tax, according to a consumer group, as the cost of living crisis continues to hurt household finances. Which?'s consumer insight tracker found that 2.4m UK households missed or defaulted on essential payments, including for housing, loans or credit cards, in the month to 13 July, returning to the high levels seen last winter. - Guardian