Aston Martin looks to raise £210m after second profit warning in two months

Aston Martin has announced it is hoping to raise £210m to help boost growth and drive its electrification strategy, shortly after issuing its second profit warning in two months.The British luxury car manufacturer said it aims to raise £110m through new shares and a further £100m by taking on new debt to “increase its financial resilience”.The announcement came shortly after Aston Martin issued a profit warning, with the company now expecting to post profits of up to £280m for the 12 months to the end of December, down on last year’s £305.9m figure.The company blamed delays in the delivery of half of its new Valiant supercars as the reason for the lower-than-expected profits

Harvester and Toby Carvery owner says it will take £100m hit from tax changes

The owner of Harvester, Toby Carvery and All Bar One, Mitchells & Butlers, has become the latest hospitality business to warn it will take a £100m hit as a result of the tax changes outlined in the October budget.The pub and restaurant group said it was facing “cost headwinds” in its current financial year, which began at the start of October, because of the increases in the national minimum wage and employer national insurance contributions (NICs) announced by Rachel Reeves, which are due to take effect from next April.The company said these measures, which would result in wages rising “sharply”, would account for the most “significant increase” to its costs, adding an extra 5% to current levels, it said.This comes as its general costs are calming after a period of high inflation, while pandemic-related disruptions have eased. The group said input costs for food and drink prices had cooled and its energy costs had stabilised

Just Eat to delist from London Stock Exchange to cut costs

The food delivery company Just Eat Takeaway is to delist from the London Stock Exchange to cut costs, in a further blow to the UK’s international financial standing.Just Eat will now only be listed on the Amsterdam stock market, where the company is headquartered. The company said the London delisting resulted from restarting a review into where its shares should be listed.It cited the “administrative burden, complexity and costs associated with the disclosure and regulatory requirements of maintaining the LSE listing”, low liquidity and the trading volumes of its shares on the London market.Europe’s largest meal delivery company has been grappling with the end of the pandemic-fuelled boost to online food orders and tough competition from other delivery services

Supermarket loyalty cards give genuine savings, says watchdog

Shoppers signed up to supermarket loyalty schemes can make “genuine savings”, the competition watchdog has found, but it urged consumers to shop around to secure the cheapest prices.The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said it had reviewed 50,000 products with loyalty price options and found 92% offered a saving against the supermarkets’ usual price.The watchdog said a year ago it would investigate the effect on consumers of the rise of loyalty card price cuts amid concerns they could limit competition and lead to price increases for shoppers not signed up to the schemes.On Wednesday, the watchdog said shoppers could make an average saving of between 17% and 25% buying loyalty-priced products at the five supermarkets examined: Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Waitrose, the Co-op and Morrisons.However, the CMA called on the supermarkets to include the wider population in the schemes, including under-18s and those who do not have smartphones

Trump’s tariff plan will send prices ‘through the roof’, warn US firms

Donald Trump set the business and political world alight late on Monday. The incoming president said he would impose a 25% tariff on goods from Mexico and Canada and hit China with more levies on day one of his term.“This Tariff will remain in effect until such time as Drugs, in particular Fentanyl, and all Illegal Aliens stop this Invasion of our Country!” he wrote on Truth Social.Scott Harris has been here before. Eight years ago Catoctin Creek, the Virginia whiskey distillery he runs with his wife, Becky, was generating 11% of its sales in Europe – and expecting to more than double its business there the next year

US grocery workers hit by rising prices: ‘We’re at the bottom of the food chain’

Grocery prices have surged in recent years, rising by almost 27% since the months before the pandemic. Workers inside grocery stores have been hit particularly hard.“We’re often the people down at the bottom of the food chain when it comes to wages,” said Conor Watson, a meat cutter at a Kroger-owned Fred Meyer store in Ellensburg, Washington. “And we’re very, very impacted with these rising prices.”Witnessing inflation’s rapid rise on shelves was “incredibly frustrating”, he said