Costain shares crash as firm hits up investors for £100m March 11, 2020 Shares in engineering firm Costain plummeted 34 per cent today as it revealed plans to launch a £100m fund raise to bolster its balance sheet. Costain’s stock slumped to 104.8p after the announcement, which came off the back of a £6.6m loss before tax in 2019 – compared to a £40.2m profit in 2018. The [...]
Jet2 dodges airlines malaise as budget carrier raises profit forecast March 11, 2020 Jet2 owner Dart Group today bucked the current airlines malaise, raising its profit forecast for the second time in six months despite the pressure being exerted on the aviation industry by the coronavirus outbreak. In a trading update, the airline said that until “very recently” customer demands for its package holidays had remained “consistently strong” [...]
EXCLUSIVE: London mayor hopeful Rory Stewart pledges to fund Hammersmith Bridge repairs March 11, 2020 Rory Stewart will guarantee funding for the £95m Hammersmith Bridge repairs if elected mayor. The independent candidate today pledged to underwrite the cost of repairing the bridge in his first week in office from Transport for London’s (TfL) capital account. A bid for government funding has been lodged with the Department for Transport (DfT). However, [...]
Budget 2020: Government to review Air Passenger Duty March 11, 2020 The government has announced that it will undertake a review of Air Passenger Duty (APD) as a part of its new Budget, after calls from the aviation industry to scrap the tax. It said that it would “consider the case for changing the APD treatment of domestic flights, such as reintroducing a return leg exemption, [...]
Budget 2020: Government announces £27.4bn roads revamp March 11, 2020 On the back of new chancellor Rishi Sunak’s announcement of £27.4bn in investment for the UK’s roads in today’s budget, the Department of Transport has published its strategy for revamping the UK’s motorways and “A” roads. The funding will go towards the both the enhancement and repair of existing roads as well as completing a [...]
Silvertown Tunnel contract costs increase by £200m March 11, 2020 The cost outlay for the controversial Silvertown Tunnel appears to have risen by £200m to £1.2bn. Transport for London (TfL) last night publicly released the contract it had finalised with the Riverlinx Consortium in November. The twin bore road tunnel, which is opposed by many environmental groups and local councils, will connect Greenwich with the Docklands [...]
Cathay Pacific predicts substantial loss due to ‘unprecedented’ coronavirus hit March 11, 2020 Hong Kong’s flag carrier Cathay Pacific has said that the “unprecedented challenge” of coronavirus will see it suffer a substantial loss this year after the outbreak forced it to ground over half its fleet. The airline has been one of the carriers which has been worst affected by the outbreak, which came on the back [...]
First Group begins sale of North American businesses after investor pressure March 11, 2020 Bus operator First Group has today announced that it will sell its North American businesses after a long-running campaign by prominent investors finally paid off. Coast Capital, an activist hedge fund with a 10 per cent stake in the firm, as well as British-Iranian property tycoon Robbie Tchenguiz, have been pressuring First Group to divest [...]
Heathrow Airport passenger numbers sink in February as coronavirus hits demand March 11, 2020 Passenger numbers at Heathrow Airport declined nearly five per cent year-on-year in February as a lack of demand due to the coronavirus outbreak began to take its toll on the transport hub’s footfall. The monthly fall to 5.4m passengers was largely down to a falling demand on Asian and European routes, which have been the [...]
Lookers shares dive as suspected fraud delays financial results March 11, 2020 Shares in car dealership chain Lookers plunged this morning after the firm announced suspected fraud had delayed the publication of its financial results. Lookers’ share price dropped more than 18 per cent after it revealed last night that it had “identified potentially fraudulent transactions”. Lookers, which was scheduled to publish its 2019 results this morning, [...]
