SSE Sees Profit Up 9.6% Amid Price Hikes

Energy giant SSE has seen its full-year adjusted pre-tax profit rise by 9.6% to £1.55bn, just months after announcing price increases.

But it saw the retail division operating profit fall 28.6% to £292m in the year to March 31 as energy usage plunged during the mild winter.

SSE is Britain's second largest provider of household energy and announced it would increase prices last autumn.

It said increased output from renewable energy helped its wholesale arm's operating profit rise to £634.6m - up 24.8%.

During the last year SSE has topped several customer complaint league tables compiled by consumer groups.

SSE lost 370,000 customers during the year - more than 1,000 a day - in a drift towards smaller and independent providers.

In a swipe at the likely backlash over profits, it pointed to a report by accounting giant PwC which found that in the previous financial year the energy firm contributed £9.1bn to UK gross domestic product and supported 112,000 jobs.

Sky's Eamonn Holmes interviewed SSE Group managing director Will Morris after the results were released.

Asked by Holmes if the company would reduce prices for consumers amid reducing wholesale prices, Mr Morris said: "It has been a tough year.

"We will look constantly and if there is a sustained fall ... We know customers care most about having certainty and peace of mind."

A political and consumer backlash over energy firms raising prices saw SSE decide to freeze its energy tariffs last March, until January 2016.

The company's electricity transmission operating profit however, rose by nearly half due to a major increase in investment which its chairman Robert Smith said would continue with a net investment of around £5.5bn over four years in the network.

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Royal Mail Launches Sunday Parcel Deliveries

Royal Mail is to start delivering parcels and opening delivery offices on Sundays, in response to the rapid growth of online shopping.

The recently-privatised firm says parcels will be delivered on Sundays later this summer to addresses within the M25. 

Around 100 of the busiest delivery offices will open on Sunday afternoons as part of the pilot.

The group's express parcels business, Parcelforce Worldwide, will also launch a Sunday delivery service in June for online shoppers through participating e-retailers.

Parcelforce Worldwide will make the service available to contract customers across the UK.

Shoppers who choose the Sunday service through registered retailers will receive a text message between 30 and 90 minutes before delivery.

Royal Mail said the changes were being introduced under an agreement with the Communication Workers Union (CWU).

Chief executive Moya Greene said: "Through these new Sunday services we are exploring ways to improve our flexibility and provide more options for people to receive items they have ordered online."

Union support for the move had enabled the company to "respond quickly to a changing market", she added.

CWU deputy general secretary Dave Ward said: "Royal Mail's announcement about expanding delivery and collection services to seven days a week is an exciting innovation which we welcome.

"We appreciate that in order to stay competitive in a broadly unregulated sector, Royal Mail has to expand its services to its customers.

"We believe that offering Sunday delivery and collection services is the right response from the company.

"With ever-increasing numbers of people opting to shop online, Sunday services are necessary to deal with the growing demand in parcel delivery.

"The union is negotiating with Royal Mail nationally to ensure that postal workers who are affected by these changes receive good terms and conditions and, where appropriate, that work is performed on a voluntary basis."

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UK Retail Sales Growth Hits 10-Year High

A late Easter helped boost UK retail sales to a 6.9% growth rate for the year, the highest since May 2004.

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) said retail sales volumes jumped by 1.3% on the March figure.

A consensus among economists had forecast the rise to be around 0.5% on the month and 5.2% on the year.

The ONS said food sales jumped 3.6% in April compared to March, and 6.3% on the year, taking the rate to its highest level for more than 12 years.

It said the spike was due to better weather and promotions in-store.

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M&S Annual Profits Drop For Third Year In A Row

Marks and Spencer has a revealed a 3.9% drop in full-year underlying pre-tax profit to £623m.

It was the third annual profit fall in a row for the high street icon.

The company said its like-for-like UK sales for general merchandise, which includes clothes and furnishings, were down 1.4% in the year until March 29.

In the same period its like-for-like food sales outperformed the wider market and were up 1.7%.

Mr Bolland has been in the top job at M&S since 2010

M&S has invested heavily during the last three years to try and revive its general merchandise business.

For the first time the profit outcome is below the annual profit made by faster growing fashion rival Next.

Total UK sales were up 2.3% in the year but general merchandise remained at 0%.

Multi-channel sales, including online and mobile, were up 22.8%.

It said the company's newly launched website would take up to six months "to settle in" and therefore revenue for the current quarter is expected to be adversely affected.

Chief executive Marc Bolland said: "We are focused on improving our performance in general merchandise and were pleased to see early signs of improvement.

"Our food business had a very strong year, consistently outperforming the market."

Last week Mr Bolland, who has now been in the job four years, announced a new campaign to push 19 million customers online.

He added: "Three years ago, we recognised the scale of investment required to transform our business, investing to strengthen our foundations and improve our customer offer.

"We are making solid progress on this journey and are now focused on delivery."

Sales at M&S were down for the eleventh quarter in a row last quarter, although clothing purchases did rise slightly.

The company was able to reduce its net debut by 6% in the year, to £2.46bn.

It said 2013/14 was a "significant year on our journey" as it seeks to transform itself from a traditional UK chain to "an international, multi-channel retailer".

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Consumer Inflation Rises In April To 1.8%

The consumer prices index (CPI) for April hit 1.8%, according to officially released figures.

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) said it was a rise of 0.2% on the March figure.

The rise was more than expected, up from its lowest level in more than four years.

The ONS said the late Easter break helped push up the cost of travelling.

Fuel prices were flat in April, compared to a 2.1p per litre month-on-month fall recorded in 2013.

Food prices, especially for vegetables, helped cap the rise.

Core CPI, which excludes food and other household components, rose 2% - the strongest rate since September.

The Bank of England (BoE) target for inflation is 2% and the CPI has now been below that figure for five months.

The CPI's six-month period of falls has now come to an end.

Weaker price growth has helped salaries and wages recoup lost ground since the 2008 financial crisis, however the latest figure show wage increases at 1.7% have now lost out to inflation again.

Meanwhile, the ONS said house prices were up 8% in March, year on year, slowing from a 9.2% figure in February.

The low level of inflation is helping the BoE to keep the base rate at its historic low of 0.5%.

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Help To Buy: Cameron May Consider Changes

House prices rose in the year to March by 8% official figures show, as David Cameron said he will "consider" changes to the Help To Buy scheme if advised to do so by the Bank of England.

While the increase is down on the 9.2% rise in February, according to the Office for National Statistics, the continued strong price growth, particularly in London and the South East, is set to fuel criticism of the Government scheme underwriting home loans for people without large deposits.

It comes after the Bank of England governor Mark Carney told Sky News the housing market had "deep, deep" problems

In an interview with Sky's Murnaghan show on Sunday, Mr Carney warned rising house prices represented the biggest current risk to the economy.

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Britain's Richest 1,000 People Now Worth £519bn

Billionaire Britain: Rise Of The Super-Rich

Updated: 7:07am UK, Sunday 11 May 2014

More than 100 billionaires are now living in Britain - the first time the milestone has been reached.

According to this year's Sunday Times Rich List, 104 billionaires with a combined wealth of more than £300bn are now based in the UK - more than triple the number from a decade ago.

Britain has more billionaires per head of population than any other country, while London has more than any other city with 72.

Top of the list are the Indian-born brothers Sri and Gopi Hinduja, who have an £11.9bn fortune.

The pair run the global conglomerate Hinduja Group and saw their wealth increase by £1.3bn in the last year.

In second place is Russian business magnate and Arsenal shareholder Alisher Usmanov, who fell from the top spot after his fortune decreased to £10.65bn.

The richest Briton is the Duke of Westminster, who is 10th on the list with a fortune of £8.5bn.

Chris Dawson, who owns The Range discount store chain, saw his wealth rise by £695m in the last year to £1.28bn.

Jon Hunt, the founder of estate agents Foxtons, has a fortune of £1.07bn, a rise of £145m from 2013.

Mike Ashley, the founder of Sports Direct, and Virgin businessman Sir Richard Branson are also among the wealthiest 25 billionaires.

Ten years ago, a fortune of £700m was required to be among Britain's 50 wealthiest people.

Now it is £1.7bn - the first time since 2008 the minimum wealth of the top 50 has been more than £1.5bn.

The combined fortune of Britain's richest is now ahead of pre-recession levels of 2008.

Last year there were 88 billionaires, worth a total of more than £245bn.

A decade ago the number was 30, with a combined fortune of £65bn.

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Co-Operative Members Back Radical Reform

Members of the struggling Co-op have unanimously backed a major overhaul of the group.

It paves the way for radical reforms proposed by former City minister Lord Myners to go-ahead.

A timetable for carrying out the changes will be agreed at a board meeting later this month, as the Co-op warned tough times lay ahead.

Some reforms will need rules to be altered, and so require further votes.

Co-op Group chair Ursula Lidbetter, who announced she will step down after a transitional period, said the mood at the annual general meeting was "thoughtful and sober".

She hailed the vote as a "highly significant moment" for the group.

Speaking ahead of the vote, Ms Lidbetter told delegates "catastrophic failure of governance" had taken place at the Co-operative Group - but it was in its own hands to "make this business work again".

Lord Myners has said the Co-op is "not fit for purpose"

She said 2013 had been a "disaster waiting to happen".

Sky's City Editor Mark Kleinman said no-one had been expecting a unanimous vote, and Co-op executives were "breathing a sigh of relief" at the result.

After the vote Lord Myners said: "My job, when I was asked by the board, was to do a thorough review of governance and I have done that.

"Quite forthright, that upset some people, but I think it was necessary to be frank and straightforward, and people have obviously listened with care."

He has proposed a shake-up of the 150-year-old business which reported losses of £2.5bn for 2013.

The plans include sweeping away the existing 20-strong board of representatives from the Co-operative Group, who currently include an engineer, a plasterer and a retired deputy head teacher.

He wants to replace this with a slimmed-down "plc and beyond" structure staffed by professionally-trained directors.

Euan Sutherland left the Co-op, saying it was "ungovernable"

The former Marks & Spencer chairman was appointed a director of the Co-operative Group in December, but is to leave following the vote.

He said it was apparent to him from the first time he attended a board meeting that not one of its members had the ability to address the complex issues faced by a group burdened with £1.4bn of debt.

Lord Myners believes that the Co-op will survive but faces the prospect of having to sell assets such as its £1bn funeral care business, in order to meet the demands of its lending banks, if it does not adopt reform.

Resistance to the changes saw chief executive Euan Sutherland leave the group earlier this year, saying it was ungovernable.

The decision on the reforms was taken by representatives of its independent societies and affiliated organisations - who hold 22% of the vote - and others voting on behalf of its regional membership boards making up the remaining 78%.

Ms Lidbetter said: "There is a huge task ahead of us if we are to deliver the reforms necessary to restore the Group's reputation and return it to health but the board will work hand-in-hand with our members to ensure that we seize this opportunity.

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Carney: 'House Prices Biggest Risk To Economy'

By Ed Conway, Economics Editor

The British housing market has "deep, deep" problems, according to the Governor of the Bank of England.

In an interview with Sky's Murnaghan show to be broadcast in full later this morning, Mark Carney warns that rising house prices represents the biggest current risk to the economy.

And the number of large mortgages being approved to house buyers is on the rise, he adds.

Mr Carney says that the UK is in need of new house building.

He says that compared to his home country of Canada, for example, the UK built half the number of new homes every year despite having twice the population. 

Canada builds around 200,000 new homes a year compared to just 133,000 similar properties that were built in the UK last year.

Mr Carney said: "The issue around the housing market in the UK … is there are not sufficient (numbers of) houses (being) built."

Mark Carney has issued a warning over the UK housing market

Asked if more houses need to be built, Mr Carney replied: "That would help us out.

"We're not going to build a single house at the Bank of England. We can't influence that.

"What we can influence … is whether the banks are strong enough. Do they have enough capital against risk in the housing market?"

Mr Carney said they could also check lending procedures "so people can get mortgages if they can afford them but they won't if they can't".

"By reinforcing both of those we can reduce the risk that comes from a housing market that has deep, deep structural problems," he added.

Mr Carney said there was evidence that large mortgages, where lenders approve loans of more than four times people's salaries, are on the rise again.

"We don't want to build up another big debt overhang that is going to hurt individuals and is very much going to slow the economy in the medium term," he said.

"We'd be concerned if there was a rapid increase in high loan-to-value mortgages across the banks. We've seen that creeping up and it's something we're watching closely."

In an separate interview for Murnaghan David Cameron admitted the Government needed to build more houses and said Mr Carney was "absolutely right".

However, he added: "The building of houses is going up. If you talk to any housing developer at the moment or builder they will tell you that the help to buy scheme the Government has put in place has been hugely helpful in bringing forward more development or house building.

"We are training apprentices in the building trade to make sure that we can deliver on these houses but we do need more, yes."

Last week, Mr Carney surprised many by playing down the chances of an imminent rise in interest rates despite fears of a growing house price bubble.

But he admitted the issue was the biggest current threat to the economy.

"The biggest risk to financial stability, and therefore to the durability of the expansion, centres on the housing market and that's why we're focused on that," he said.

Prices are currently rising at more than 10% a year across the country.

Analysis by Sky News has shown the number of £1m properties has doubled since 2008.

Earlier this month, the OECD think tank called on the Bank of England to impose measures to help quell rising house prices.

Both the coalition and Labour are committed to building hundreds of thousands of new homes.

However, construction still lags behind Government targets.

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Dixons And Carphone Warehouse Merger Agreed

Dixons Carphone Eyes The World Of Future Tech

Updated: 11:53am UK, Thursday 15 May 2014

By Tom Cheshire, Technology Correspondent

It all sounds pretty retro.

The new company to be formed by the merger of Dixons and Carphone Warehouse will be called Dixons Carphone - very 1980s.

And one of its businesses is PC World - which feels slightly more recent, but is still about as dated as an episode of Friends.

But the £3.7bn merger could be the future of how we buy technology in the UK.

And it's all about internet-enabled toasters.

Let me explain.

For some time now, technologists have been prophesying the "internet of things".

This is the quasi-nirvana whereby physical objects in the real world - including toasters, but also cars, thermostats, washing machines, front doors - all become part of the network of networks that is the internet.

These devices all talk to each other, machine-to-machine, and are all controllable digitally - from the web, your smartphone or Google Glass. (The Sonos home music player, built into ceilings but controlled from your smartphone, is an existing example of this.)

According to research firm Gartner, 26 billion "things" will join the internet by 2016.

Tom Coates' house is what the internet of things looks like in the real world. A British designer working in San Francisco, he has installed sensors around his home - and given his house a Twitter account, @houseofcoates.

Weighing scales, light switches and thermostat all chip in, resulting in tweets like: "Tom just weighed himself. I'm going to leave it up to him to tell you if it's good news though."

The house is a playful first step towards an internet of things. It's easy to imagine where to goes next: lawn sprinklers which turn on if the house detects it has been days without rainfall, toasters that start toasting when your morning alarm goes off, lights that turn off when you're not in the room - or the weighing scales to go online and order healthier food if Mr Coates' weight increased too much. Then beyond.

Mr Coates is an early adopter. Recently he wrote: "For me the most important change is the move from Internet of Things concept cars and interaction design experiments, to a new world where the things we're building are simply, cleanly useful."

He cites Nest - the smart thermostat and alarm maker recently bought by Google - as an example of this.

At tech show CES this year, Samsung also showed off smart fridges and washing machines.

And this is where Dixons Carphone comes in. After all, you need somewhere to buy all this gear.

Carphone Warehouse has long excelled at reinventing itself with each wave of mobile technology, from carphones through mobiles, smartphones, tablets and the wearables to come.

The next stage is the integration of these mobile devices with the household - the territory of Currys and PC World.

The new company will be able to offer not just standalone products, but integrated, personalised systems.

It might help with some of the more complex installations in your house.

Rather than catching up with new consumer tech habits, Dixons Carphone is looking to get ahead of them.

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