Ineos to cut hundreds of jobs as carmaker struggles with debts
The carmaker owned by the billionaire industrialist Jim Ratcliffe will make hundreds of job cuts across the company’s global workforce as his heavily indebted empire comes under increasing pressure,Ineos Automotive did not specify an exact number of losses from its 1,700-strong workforce, saying only that it would shed “several hundred” head office staff across multiple locations, including the UK and parts of Europe,The company owned by Ratcliffe, who also co-owns Manchester United, said the “strategic measures to structure its business” would help to simplify its head office and improve efficiency,The Guardian understands that the cuts are unlikely to affect the company’s automotive plant in Hambach, France, which is building the Ineos Grenadier, an off-road vehicle that pays homage to the discontinued Land Rover Defender,Ratcliffe has struggled to turn his vision into a profitable business after a string of problems at the French factory, which led the company to recall more than 7,000 of its Grenadier vehicles in the US over faulty doors.
Donald Trump’s decision to impose higher tariffs on imports of cars into the US, the Grenadier’s biggest market, has piled further pressure on the business.Ineos Automotive is part of a sprawling business empire focused on chemicals manufacturing.Last month Ineos closed two chemical factories in Germany and said it would cut a fifth of jobs at its East Yorkshire plant, blaming “sky-high” energy costs and “dirt-cheap” imports from China.The company has accused Europe of carrying out “industrial suicide” by imposing green policies that Ineos claims raise the cost of energy.The group is also scrambling to file anti-dumping cases to block the import of cheap chemicals products into the EU in an attempt to protect its core petrochemicals business from further financial strain.
But the company has already lost the confidence of credit rating agencies and debt investors.The Guardian revealed earlier this year that two leading credit ratings agencies had raised red flags over the Ineos Group, which could lead to its debt pile climbing to almost €12bn (£10bn) this year.Fitch Ratings and Moody’s, which provide financial health checks for most big companies, said in February that Ratcliffe’s chemicals business had racked up debts that were between five to six times larger than the company’s annual earnings.Its debts have since climbed to eight times their annual earnings, according to Fitch.Sign up to Business TodayGet set for the working day – we'll point you to all the business news and analysis you need every morningafter newsletter promotionRatcliffe, who has a net worth of £17bn, according to this year’s Sunday Times rich list, built Ineos by using debt to make strategic acquisitions in the chemicals industry, including a deal to buy an Antwerp chemicals facility from BP in 1998.
In recent years the prominent Brexit backer has expanded beyond the chemicals industry to invest in a string of sporting teams as well as the leather jacket maker Belstaff, and his automotive venture.In 2023 he took a minority stake in Manchester United, which has made a £300m loss over the past three years.Ratcliffe sold Belstaff in September to the sportswear group Castore.
Global markets fall after tech sell-off and fears over Chinese economy
Global markets have fallen after a tech sell-off that fuelled Wall Street’s worst day in a month and weak economic data from China showed an unprecedented slump in investment.The FTSE 100 fell by 1.1% on opening, losing about 100 points, as bellwether banking stocks tumbled. Barclays, Lloyds and NatWest slumped by between 3% and 3.5%
US markets struggle amid tech sell-off and economic uncertainty
Wall Street came under pressure on Thursday, enduring its worst day in a month as a sell-off of technology stocks intensified.After an extraordinary rally around hopes for artificial intelligence that propelled global stock markets to record highs, fears that tech firms are now overvalued loom large.Investors are also braced for the release of a batch of official data on the state of the US economy, amid heightened uncertainty over its strength during the federal government shutdown.The benchmark S&P 500 and the Dow Jones industrial average each closed down 1.7% in New York on Thursday, while the tech-focused Nasdaq Composite dropped 2
EU investigates Google over ‘demotion’ of commercial content from news media
The EU has opened an investigation into Google Search over concerns the US tech company has been “demoting” commercial content from news media sites.The bloc’s executive arm announced the move after monitoring found that certain content created with advertisers and sponsors was being given such a low priority by Google that it was in effect no longer visible in search results.European Commission officials said this potentially unfair “loss of visibility and of revenue” to media owners could be a result of an anti-spam policy Google operates.Under the rules of the Digital Market Act (DMA), which governs competition in the tech sectors, Google must apply “fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory conditions of access to publishers’ websites on Google Search”.Commission officials said the investigation was not into the overall indexing of newspapers or their reporting on Google Search, just into commercial content provided by third parties
Anthropic announces $50bn plan for datacenter construction in US
Artificial intelligence company Anthropic announced a $50bn investment in computing infrastructure on Wednesday that will include new datacenters in Texas and New York.“We’re getting closer to AI that can accelerate scientific discovery and help solve complex problems in ways that weren’t possible before,” Anthropic’s CEO, Dario Amodei, said in a press release.Building the massive information warehouses takes an average of two years in the US and requires copious amounts of energy to fuel the facilities. The company, maker of the AI chatbot Claude, popular with businesses adopting AI, said in a statement that the “scale of this investment is necessary to meet the growing demand for Claude from hundreds of thousands of businesses while keeping our research at the frontier”. Anthropic said its projects will create about 800 permanent jobs and 2,400 construction jobs
Bomb squads on stacked benches are making it even more crucial to control rugby’s aerial battle | Ugo Monye
Rugby union is a sport of trends and of unintended consequences and what I expect to be the two most decisive factors in England’s clash with the All Blacks on Saturday are inextricably linked. Much has been made of England’s firepower on their bench – New Zealand’s isn’t bad either – and when coaches are able to call upon such quality replacements, often en masse, then the kicking battle becomes all the more important.Because the international game is not currently as fluid as it has been. That isn’t necessarily a criticism, it’s just the way things are at present; a little bit like the Premier League where set pieces and long throws are dominating. Of course we would all love to see flowing, attacking rugby but it’s really difficult because all elite sides favour having 13 or 14 men in the line, they all seem to adopt a blitz defence and the sheer level of physicality means it can be hard to have possession
From conscience to platforming Trump: inside the slow death of ‘woke’ ESPN
“What happened to the Redskins, by the way?” Donald Trump asked in an interview on the Pat McAfee Show that notably did not stick to sports. His call-in appearance on Tuesday’s program to mark Veterans Day was meant to be a major coup for ESPN, the first time Trump had been interviewed on the network as a sitting president. But viewers could have just as easily been mistaken into believing they were watching Fox News.Trump took his usual shots at Joe Biden, claimed credit for the Department for Veteran Affairs’ high approval ratings and declared victory over the Democrats in a government shut down that dragged on for a depressing 43 days. Rather than push back against the political self-promotion, McAfee cheered Trump on before opening the floor to his lackeys to ask him which NFL coach would make a great president
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