Tuesday evening business bulletin
Jul 8 2008 By The Journal
The UK reeled under the latest blizzard of dire news from the housing market today as business leaders warned the country was on the brink of recession.
The British Chambers of Commerce’s (BCC) warning came as housebuilder Persimmon cut 1,100 jobs amid plummeting sales and Government figures showed house price growth falling for the seventh month in a row.
The growing pessimism spread to the stock market to push London’s FTSE 100 Index into ``bear market" territory - with shares at one point trading more than 20% below last June’s peak.
Prime minister Gordon Brown insisted at the G8 summit in Japan he was determined to lead Britain through the current economic downturn, but acknowledged the ``very difficult times" faced by the country.
The BCC said the UK was ``at serious risk" of recession as falling orders and rising costs tighten the squeeze on business, after its latest quarterly survey showed ``alarming" declines.
The City watchdog called on listed companies today to take steps to help protect shareholders from illegal scams.
The Financial Services Authority and the Institute of Chartered Secretaries and Administrators have updated their leaflet warning about ’boiler rooms’, and they are urging companies to send it to their shareholders.
’Boiler rooms’ are illegal schemes, often based overseas, that use high pressure tactics to sell shares that are overpriced, non-tradable and even non-existent to investors, before vanishing, leaving people heavily out of pocket.
The FSA has taken action against seven firms operating as ’boiler rooms’ or working on behalf of the scams during the past 18 months.
The leaflet provides information on how to identify ’boiler rooms’ and what investors should do if they are contacted by one.
People are urged to check that anyone selling shares is authorised by the FSA, meaning they have access to complaints procedures and compensation if things go wrong, and it is calling on them to report any firms that cold call them offering to sell shares.
Jonathan Phelan, FSA head of retail enforcement, said: ``Boiler rooms remain a significant problem in the UK and people lose a shocking amount of money to these scams every year.
No-frills airline easyJet revealed no major cuts to its winter schedule for six regional airports today, despite ever-increasing oil costs.
Unveiling flight plans at Manchester, Edinburgh, Belfast, Glasgow, Liverpool and Stansted airports, Luton-based easyJet said there were no major cuts ``outside of seasonalities", when some summer routes are switched to take advantage of popular skiing destinations.
The winter schedule, which so far does not include flights from Luton and Gatwick, boasts two new flights from Manchester to the skiing gateways of Sofia and Geneva.
Last week the airline - on track to fly more than 40 million passengers this year - rolled out its winter flights from Bristol, East Midlands, Manchester and Newcastle airports. Together the two groups of regional hubs comprise around half of easyJet’s operations.
A spokeswoman said today: ``There are no major route culls. The schedule is in line with seasonality."
EasyJet’s Luton and Gatwick schedule is released next week.
The pound at 5pm was US$1.9687 compared to US$1.9695 at the previous close while the euro at 5pm was £0.7953 compared to £0.7944 at the previous close.
