Wednesday lunchtime business bulletin

Aug 27 2008 By Karen Dent

Taylor Wimpey shares declined 6% today after the UK’s biggest housebuilder failed to end uncertainty about its financial position.

As well as announcing £1.5bn of valuation write downs, Taylor Wimpey said it was still in talks with banks about overhauling its debt burden of £1.7bn.

The news unsettled housebuilding shares, but the rest of the London market was steady after a resilient session on Wall Street last night. By mid-morning, the FTSE 100 Index stood 6.6 points lower at 5464.1, helped by stronger commodity-focused stocks.

In the FTSE 250 Index, Taylor Wimpey fell 2.75p to 49.25p after the UK’s biggest housebuilder by volume said first-half underlying profits dived 96% to £4.3m and it reported bottom-line losses of £1.54bn.

The chairman of the John Lewis Partnership today ruled out job cuts at the group this year to weather the current squeeze on the high street.

John Lewis, which owns the department store chain and supermarket Waitrose, is owned by its 69,000 staff or "partners".

Last week it emerged that bitter rival Marks & Spencer is slashing its redundancy terms for staff, which unions fear is a precursor to possible job losses.

But John Lewis chairman Charlie Mayfield said : "There will be no job cuts. We are a business, we believe in pursuing a long-term approach to growing the business - we’re not into making knee-jerk cuts in staff costs just to protect short-term profit."

Mr Mayfield highlighted the differences between the partnership and other listed companies which are accountable to its shareholders.

Car dealership group Lookers today unveiled a drop in both new and used car sales this year after the economic slowdown put off buyers.

The Manchester-based firm said like-for-like new and used car sales were down 6.5% and 5% respectively during the first half of 2008 - with trade deteriorating in May and June. The performance contributed to a 28% fall in the firm’s pre-tax profits to £13m during the period.

Lookers also said trading remained challenging since June 30, with no imminent improvement expected.

In another sign of harder economic times, the group said buyers were switching to cheaper and more fuel efficient vehicles to combat rising fuel and road duty costs.

The pound at midday was US$1.8468 compared to US$1.8380 at the previous close, while the euro at midday was £0.7996 compared to £0.7975 at the previous close.