Tata Steel reports net loss Tata Steel has just released its latest financial results, showing it made a net loss in the last quarter as it made provisions for restructuring costs in the UK. The steel producer has reported a loss after tax of 6,511 Crores for the July-September quarter, or 65 billion rupees (£644m). The company says it has “assessed” the potential impact of its plans to restructure in the UK, decarbonising its activities and moving to an EAF (electric arc furnace), adding: We have taken an impairment charge of Rs 12,560 crores (£1.25bn) in standalone financial statements and Rs 2,746 crores in consolidated financial statements. In addition, we have taken a charge towards restructuring & other provisions of Rs 3,612 crores in consolidated financial statements. Although Tata’s Indian operations were profitable, it made an EBITDA loss of £242m in Europe. I can’t see any details of the expected job cuts at Port Talbot in the release, though, following the delay to today’s announcement. On the Welsh steel plant, Tata says: In September, Tata Steel announced plans to invest in a state-of-the-art scrap based EAF at Port Talbot, UK at a cost of £1.25bn with a government grant of £500 million, subject to relevant regulatory approvals, information and consultation processes and finalization of detailed terms & conditions. The transition to EAF based steelmaking will result in reduction of 50 mn tons of direct carbon emissions over a decade Closing post Time to wrap up. Here’s the latest on the situation at Port Talbot: Tata Steel has pulled an announcement that had been expected to detail steep job cuts at its Port Talbot steelworks, in a dramatic last-minute reprieve that has left workers in the dark over the plant’s future. Workers had been braced for confirmation of the closures of the two blast furnaces after a board meeting on Wednesday. However, Tata communicated after the board meeting that it would not be releasing a statement on its plans. Unions have been left in the dark over the reasoning and whether Tata is likely to make an announcement or not in the coming days or weeks. Tata Steel’s latest financial results also show it made a loss, on an EBITDA basis, in the UK of 1,367 crores (or £135m) in July-September. That’s an increase on the previous quarter, even though raw material costs fell. Tata Steel has canceled a press conference where the firm was expected to announce the shuttering of blast furnaces at its UK steel plant alongside thousands of job cuts, Bloomberg reports, adding: The Indian company was due to hold a press conference after its quarterly earnings report on Wednesday, but canceled it on short notice for “unavoidable reasons,” according to a spokesperson. People familiar with the matter had said the firm was set to announce the restructuring of its operations at the Port Talbot site in south Wales. Tata Steel reports net loss Tata Steel has just released its latest financial results, showing it made a net loss in the last quarter as it made provisions for restructuring costs in the UK. The steel producer has reported a loss after tax of 6,511 Crores for the July-September quarter, or 65 billion rupees (£644m). The company says it has “assessed” the potential impact of its plans to restructure in the UK, decarbonising its activities and moving to an EAF (electric arc furnace), adding: We have taken an impairment charge of Rs 12,560 crores (£1.25bn) in standalone financial statements and Rs 2,746 crores in consolidated financial statements. In addition, we have taken a charge towards restructuring & other provisions of Rs 3,612 crores in consolidated financial statements. Although Tata’s Indian operations were profitable, it made an EBITDA loss of £242m in Europe. I can’t see any details of the expected job cuts at Port Talbot in the release, though, following the delay to today’s announcement. On the Welsh steel plant, Tata says: In September, Tata Steel announced plans to invest in a state-of-the-art scrap based EAF at Port Talbot, UK at a cost of £1.25bn with a government grant of £500 million, subject to relevant regulatory approvals, information and consultation processes and finalization of detailed terms & conditions. The transition to EAF based steelmaking will result in reduction of 50 mn tons of direct carbon emissions over a decade Mass lawsuit against Apple over iPhone batteries can go ahead, London tribunal rules Apple has lost a bid to block a mass London lawsuit accusing it of hiding defective batteries in millions of iPhones by “throttling” them with software updates. Reuters has the details: The tech giant is facing a lawsuit brought by consumer champion Justin Gutmann on behalf of iPhone users in the United Kingdom, which the Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT) ruled can proceed. Gutmann’s lawyers had argued Apple concealed issues with batteries in certain phone models and “surreptitiously” installed a power management tool which limited performance. Apple, however, said the lawsuit is “baseless” and that it strongly denies batteries in iPhones were defective, apart from in a small number of iPhone 6s models for which it offered free battery replacements. The CAT ruled Gutmann’s claim should be certified to continue, but that there was “a lack of clarity and specificity” in the case which needed to be resolved before any trial. Charlotte Brumpton-Childs, GMB national officer, says: “GMB expects a full and meaningful consultation before any detailed plans are announced. “We are working at pace with our experts Syndex to analyse the company’s proposal and offer a viable and reasonable alternative that safeguards jobs and creates a genuinely ‘just’ transition. “This was fed back to the company this morning and remains the position of the unions.” The Unite union are calling on the government to take a stake in the UK steel industry, to help protect jobs. Speaking before the announcement expected today was delayed, Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said: “Unite condemns Tata’s consideration of mass redundancies. We do not accept the need for one single job cut. “The strategy of successive government’s has failed. Taxpayers should not be footing the bill for new investment unless that is linked to binding job guarantees. “Tata’s sole purpose is serving its shareholders, not UK steel communities. Only by the government taking a stake in the company, will the right choices be made for the UK’s economy. “The UK steel industry is at a crossroads and there is a clear political choice. Politicians need to decide now whose side they are on. Unite’s plan for steel would see the UK once again become a world leader in steel, doubling production, safeguarding employment and creating thousands of new jobs. “Both the government and the Labour party now need to go much further and back the Workers’ Plan for Steel. Unite is committing significant resource in our fight to save our steel industry.” Tata Steel jobs cuts announcement pulled at last minute BREAKING: Tata Steel has pulled an announcement that was expected to detail steep job cuts at its Port Talbot steelworks at the last minute. Workers had been braced for an announcement following a board meeting on Wednesday, as we reported this morning. However, Tata communicated after the board meeting that it would not be making an announcement today. Unions have been left in the dark over Tata’s reasoning - and whether Tata is likely to make an announcement or not. Workers are hoping that the company may be considering alternatives to closure of the blast furnaces that unions put forward. However, any permanent reprieve would come as a major surprise, as Tata executives in Port Talbot had got as far as preparing initial plans for the closure. US private payrolls miss expectations in October, says ADP Over in the US, companies added fewer new workers last month than expected. US private payrolls rose by 113,000 jobs last month, the latest National Employment Report from ADP showed on Wednesday. That’s weaker than the 150,000 new jobs which economists had expected, but is an increase on September’s 89,000. Nela Richardson, chief economist at ADP, explains: “No single industry dominated hiring this month, and big post-pandemic pay increases seem to be behind us. “In all, October’s numbers paint a well-rounded jobs picture. And while the labor market has slowed, it’s still enough to support strong consumer spending.” September’s data was unrevised, despite the official US Non-Farm Payroll showing the economy added 336,000 jobs in September. We get October’s NFP on Friday. A government aide has told the Financail Times that the recent agreement reached with Tata “secures the long-term future of steel in South Wales”. Without significant government support, “there was a risk of closing Port Talbot altogether”, said the aide, adding: “All 8,000 Tata employees could have lost their jobs and an additional 12,500 in the supply chain.” We’re still awaiting details of the expected announcement of a restructuring of Tata’s UK operations. Steel unions have warned there could be a ‘major industrial dispute’ over plans to lose thousands of jobs in Port Talbot and close its two remaining blast furnaces. Roy Rickhuss, general secretary of the Community union, said: “The unions do not accept the closure of the heavy end and we continue to believe the blast furnaces are crucial to the transition to green steelmaking. “We will never accept Tata and the Government’s plan to close down our iron and steelmaking facilities and supply our mills with foreign steel for however many years it takes for them to build an electric arc furnace (EAF). “Closing down our industry to import dirty steels from abroad, giving our jobs and our order book to competitors overseas, is not a green plan and we will oppose it with everything we’ve got. “Experts at Syndex have been working tirelessly to review the company’s plans and develop potential alternatives, and we are convinced we can both decarbonise steelmaking and deliver a just transition for the workforce. “We call on Tata to pull back from the brink and commit to working with the unions and our experts to agree the way forward and head off a major industrial dispute.” We have previously reported on the UK losing ground globally in conducting clinical trials, which are needed to test new medicines on patients. There is some good news today: London-based ViroCell Biologics is now able to manufacture and export globally viral vectors from a Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH) facility, the Zayed Centre for Research, for use in clinical trials. The centre has just been granted a licence to manufacture viral vectors. Viral vectors are tools designed to deliver genetic material into cells. There has been a shortage of certain viral vectors in the cell and gene therapy market where they are used to genetically modify human cells to create new treatments. ViroCell said it should be able to relieve the strain on clinical research caused by the vector shortage. Claire Booth, Mahboubian Professor in gene therapy and paediatric immunology at GOSH, and clinical academic lead for the cell & gene therapy service at GOSH, said: “With our state-of-the-art facility and ViroCell’s international network of collaborators, vectors for both UK and global projects can be manufactured at the Zayed Centre for Research, unclogging the industry-wide bottleneck, accelerating cell and gene therapy clinical trials and expanding the novel treatments that we can offer to our patients.” Here are two charts from Nationwide, showing how house prices picked up in October but were still lower than a year ago: