Record number of UK manufacturers to raise prices, says CBI – business live | Business

Carnival Corporation, the British-American cruise ship operator, has reported worse-than-expected quarterly revenues.

A rise in Covid-19 infections due to the highly contagious Omicron variant held back cruise bookings during the first three months of this year.

Several infections were identified among passengers on board ships owned by Carnival in December and January.

The company said the Omicron wave of infections had an impact on bookings for its near-term sailings in the first quarter, including higher cancellations as more people tested positive for Covid-19 before they were able to go on their cruise.

Carnival’s revenues rose to $1.6bn between January and March, compared with $26m a year earlier when few people travelled because of the pandemic. Analysts on Wall Street had forecast $2.3bn. The company managed to shrink its net loss to $1.89bn from $1.97bn a year earlier.

NatWest is to join the booming but controversial “buy now, pay later” market this summer, becoming the first UK high street bank to announce a move into the multibillion-pound sector, reports my colleague Rupert Jones.

The bank is still majority taxpayer-owned – though only just, as the government stake is now about 51% – after a state bailout during the financial crisis. Its 18 million-plus customers may be surprised to learn it is to offer this form of unregulated credit, which lets people delay payment for items ranging from clothes to pet food.

However, NatWest said there was “a clear demand” for buy now, pay later (BNPL), and it was determined “to make it better and safer”.

And here’s our full take on the CBI manufacturing survey, which shows record numbers of UK manufacturers are raising prices as the war in Ukraine gives an added twist to inflationary pressures.

The employers’ lobby group, the CBI, said 82% of firms were expecting to raise prices in the coming months against just 2% predicting a fall.

Here’s our full story on the Russian oligarchs’ superyachts:

And here’s the latest in the P&O saga.

P&O Ferries could face prosecution over the sacking of 800 workers, the UK business minister, Paul Scully, warned before a government ultimatum to the company.

The transport secretary, Grant Shapps, has said he will review all government contracts and dealings with the company and its owners, DP World.

On Tuesday, the RMT union said seafarers from abroad had been brought in to replace the 800 sacked British crew and were being paid as little as £1.80 an hour.

P&O Ferries disputes the figures but it declined to discuss the rates or give alternative rates and would not confirm whether it paid the minimum wage.

The latest in our Russian asset tracker series:

Alisher Usmanov, the Russian oligarch once said to be the UK’s richest person, claims to have placed hundreds of millions of pounds of his assets into an irrevocable trust, potentially leaving them outside the sanctions regime established by western governments, reports my colleague Simon Goodley.

The tycoon – a former 30% shareholder in Arsenal football club who has also ploughed millions into sponsoring Everton and is subject to sanctions – can today be revealed as connected to at least six luxury UK properties and one central London office building, collectively worth more than £170m and held via a complex web of offshore companies and family members.

EasyJet has become the latest airline to announce a relaxation of its mask-wearing policy.

From Sunday, passengers and crew will no longer need to wear masks onboard if this is not legally required at either end of the route.

This means mandatory mask-wearing will be dropped on UK domestic flights – excluding routes to and from Scotland, where face covering rules remain in place – and on flights between the UK and Denmark, Gibraltar, Iceland and Hungary.

The Luton-based airline said:

As a pan-European airline operating between over 30 countries, we must continue to ensure that we and our customers follow the legal requirements of all the countries we fly to.

This means when flying to or from countries where mask requirements remain in place, we will follow the relevant legal requirements.

We urge European governments to have a coordinated approach on the removal of the requirement where possible, to make it easy and clear for customers. We will aim to provide clear information to customers, including while onboard, detailing the specific mask requirements on their flight.

Several other airlines have relaxed their mask-wearing rules in recent weeks, including British Airways, Jet2.com and Tui Airways.

Barclays said the disruption in energy markets since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine (which began nearly four weeks ago) could hamper its ability to meet its carbon emission reduction targets, while it toughened its climate commitments.

In a notice ahead of its annual investor meeting, the UK bank also said it was planning more restrictive polices on coal, including final exit dates on a “progressive phase-out” of thermal coal financing.

Other banks, such as HSBC, have also firmed up their climate commitments, under pressure from climate activists, who are often supported by major shareholders. Last week, HSBC said it would further reduce the financing it provides to the fossil fuel industry, publish more data on how it is implementing its goals, and link executive pay to progress made on that front.

Barclays said it would phase out financing of thermal coal mining by 2030 in 38 OECD countries and by 2035 in the rest of the world. The lender will also no longer take on new financing clients that generate more than 5% of their revenue from thermal coal mining from the start of next year.

However, Barclays also warned that the Ukraine crisis could undermine its efforts.

We should recognise that the conflict currently taking place in Ukraine has greatly exacerbated existing supply pressures on energy systems, particularly in the UK and the EU.

In the near term, the current disruptions may increase volatility in our progress towards our 2025 and 2030 emission reduction targets.

The bank said shareholders will be given a “Say on Climate” vote at its annual meeting in Manchester on 4 May.

As part of our Russian asset tracker series, an ongoing project, Simon Goodley has taken a look at Roman Abramovich’s £250m property portfolio.

The sanctioned Chelsea FC club owner, Roman Abramovich, and his family have amassed a UK property collection worth more than £250m, numbering about 70 homes, buildings and pieces of land.

And David Conn has looked at how the Russian businessman made his money: From poor orphan to billionaire oligarch.

Roman Abramovich’s journey from an impoverished, orphaned childhood to Chelsea-owning billionaire was forged in the chaotic transformation of Russia itself, in the years after the iron curtain fell.

His elevation into an oligarch is unusually well documented, chronicled in painstaking detail in an English high court judgment of Lady Justice Gloster in 2012, when Abramovich succeeded in defending a lawsuit brought by his former mentor, Boris Berezovsky.

In the case, both men described their careers, and routes to becoming billionaires, as “a uniquely Russian story”.

The owner of B&Q and Screwfix is handing workers a pay rise as the company’s boss forecast that demand for energy-saving kit and the shift to working from home would keep fuelling the DIY boom, reports our retail correspondent, Sarah Butler.

Pay for B&Q workers will increase by 6.5% to £9.80 an hour while Screwfix is increasing minimum staff pay by 5.4% to £9.70 an hour from 1 April, putting both chains just ahead of the new legal minimum of £9.50 which starts next month.

In other news, the national lottery operator, Camelot, has been fined £3.15m for three errors on its mobile app, which affected tens of thousands of players.

The first involved up to 20,000 users who were told their winning tickets had lost when they scanned a QR code between November 2016 and September 2020, the Gambling Commission said.