the times | Tuesday March 15 2022 2GM 43Business
model, to listing the business on Aim,”
Dass, 50, said. “After a decade with the
business, now is the right time to move
on following an orderly handover to
David.”
He said that he remained a “suppor-
tive shareholder” and he was thanked
by Neil Sachdev, the group’s chairman,The co-founder of Cake Box is stepping
down as the retail chain’s finance
chief, weeks after admitting that its
full-year accounts contained a number
of “inconsistencies” and “transcription
errors”.
Pardip Dass, who set up the egg-free
cake business with his cousin 14 years
ago, said that he was leaving at the end
of the month to “pursue other inter-
ests”.
David Forth, 68, a veteran stand-in
finance chief, will take over Dass’s
responsibilities on an interim basis.
Forth has taken on similar temporary
roles at AB Sugar, Wincanton, the
logistics group, and Dr Martens in
recent years. A decision on the Dass’s
long-term replacement will be made
later.
“I am extremely proud of what we
have achieved at Cake Box, from first
beginning to franchise the businessBentley has
the luxury
of making
record profits
Robert LeaArm, one of Britain’s biggest techno-
logy companies, is to cut hundreds of
jobs after the collapse of its $40 billion
sale to Nvidia, the American techno-
logy company.
Rene Haas, Arm’s new chief execu-
tive, told staff yesterday that the redun-
dancies would affect 12-15 per cent of its
global workforce, with most of the job
losses in the UK and United States.
Arm said that it was “continually re-
viewing its business plan”. It added:
“Unfortunately, this process includes
proposed redundancies”.
Based in Cambridge, Arm employs
about 6,400 people globally with 3,500
in the UK. The planned job cuts, first re-
ported by The Telegraph, raised con-
cerns among union bosses.
Mike Clancy, general secretary of theProspect union, said: “We always knew
there was a risk once the sale to Nvidia
fell through that the company would
seek to restructure or cut costs. We
urgently need leadership from govern-
ment now to protect British jobs and
R&D spending.”
Nvidia agreed to buy Arm from Soft-
Bank, the Japanese technology con-
glomerate, in September 2020 in a
$40 billion cash and shares deal. How-
ever, SoftBank halted the sale last
month amid scrutiny from regulators
over competition concerns.
Arm’s technology is used by chip-
makers, including Samsung Electron-
ics and Apple, to produce processors. Its
designs are used in smartphones and
other connected devices.
In an email to staff, seen by The Tele-
graph, Haas said it “is going to be a
tough time for everyone”.Arm cuts hundreds of jobs
after $40bn deal shelved
Alex RalphCake Box co-founder heads for the exit
Tom Howard for his “immense contribution” to the
business.
Dass and his cousin, Sukh Chamdal,
60, Cake Box’s chief executive, opened
their first store in 2008 in east London.
There are now 174 shops around the
country.
The shares have doubled in value
since the company was floated on Aim,
London’s junior stock market, in the
summer of 2018. However, they are
down by more than a third this year
after a blogger picked apart its annual
accounts. Cake Box acknowledged the
errors in a stock exchange announce-
ment and brought in accountants from
BDO to help it to improve its internal
processes.
The shares rallied by almost 16 per
cent yesterday to close up 31½p at 230p,
valuing the business at about £90 mil-
lion. That was after management said
in an accompanying update that
trading had “ continued strongly” in
recent months.Pardip Dass is leaving Cake Box having
co-founded the company in 2008vehicle plans across Europe
T
he full extent of
the failure of the
2012 coalition
government to
persuade Ford
that Britain should be
at the centre of its plans
and that the UK could be a
zero-emission global hub in
the electric automotive
revolution is being laid bare
(Robert Lea writes).
Ten years ago Forddecided to send a century of
history to the scrapyard and
close its Transit van
manufacturing plant in
Southampton. It was its last
vehicle production facility
in Britain.
Ford had first come to the
UK at the dawn of the
motor industry and by 1911
the American company was
making the Model T, the
famous people’s car,in an old tram factory in
Trafford Park, Manchester.
The closure of
Southampton came after its
decision a decade earlier to
end car production in
Britain when the last Ford
Fiesta rolled off the
assembly line at the once-
mighty Dagenham plant. At
the time, with Ford of
Europe hopelessly
lossmaking, there seemed tobe an inevitability to the
decision to concentrate its
European commercial
vehicle production in low-
cost Turkey, a strategy that
Sir Vince Cable, as business
secretary, appeared not
bothered about trying to
reverse.
Trade unions called the
decision a betrayal of the
1,400 workers who lost their
jobs and a disloyalty toBritain, which had stayed so
loyal to the Ford brand that
the Cortina, Escort,
Mondeo, Focus, Fiesta and
Transit had outsold
all-comers since the 1970s.
If the passing of the
Transit to Turkey was
greeted with not much
more than a shrug, then, ten
years later, the full might-
have-beens are becoming
obvious. Ford is doubling
down on its investment in
Turkey with the
construction of its own
gigafactory in league with
SK On, of South Korea, and
is developing a sister plant
at Craiova in Romania to be
at the centre of all its
electrified plans.
In Britain, Ford has a
facility at Halewood that
will make power units for
Ford’s main car production
plant in Cologne, a research
and engineering centre for
its commercial vehicles at
Dunton in south Essex, and
Dagenham, which now
manufactures diesel engines
for Ford vans, a time-limited
exercise given the shift of
regulatory and public
opinion and its commitment
to make only full-electric
vehicles by 2035.
Ford insists that
Dagenham still has a “very
important” part to play as
the company winds down
diesel production over the
next decade. There has
been talk of Dagenham
being an “incubator” for
new technologies and of
being revitalised by the
creation of a nearby
Freeport on the Thames.
What Ford’s electric
dream looks like is another
in the staggering array of
missed opportunities in the
21st-century UK automotive
industry.MICHAEL FRESCO//GETTY IMAGES ; FORDThe £40,000 Mustang
Mach-E is Ford’s only zero-
emissions vehicle on sale in
Europe. Its plant in
Dagenham, east London,
used to employ 40,000Bentley has motored to its biggest
annual profit, with the figure of
€389 million being more than double
anything it has reported before in its
century-long history.
The profit comes after a record
production run, with 14,659 luxury cars
rolling off its assembly line in Crewe
last year, and the fat margins it is mak-
ing on its £150,000 Bentayga 4x4s and
other models. They set up the business
for €3 billion of investment to turn it
into an all-electric marque by 2030.
Bentley Motors is one of the high-
end brands owned by Volkswagen,
alongside Porsche and Lamborghini.
The German group acquired it at the
turn of the century in the complicated
break-up of the Vickers engineering
group, in which Rolls-Royce Motor
Cars, Bentley’s sister company at the
time, was acquired by BMW.
Bentley employs 4,000 people at its
Pyms Lane factory, where Merlin
engines were made for Spitfires in the
Second World War.
Bentley’s profit on revenue of
€2.84 billion means it is trading on
operating margins of more than 13 per
cent. The last time it was enjoying
double-digit margins was when it hit its
previous record, €167 million on sales
of €1.67 billion, in 2013.
“These results represent a major
achievement against a continued
backdrop of economic uncertainty,”
Adrian Hallmark, the chief executive,
said.
Most of Bentley’s production goes to
China and the United States. Plug-in
hybrid versions of its bestselling
Bentayga made up nearly 10 per cent of
its output and plug-in versions of its
Flying Spur range are about to go on
sale.
Bentley has committed to producing
one new all-electric model a year
between 2025 and 2030. “We are re-
inventing all our products, all our tech-
nologies and our factory,” Hallmark, 59,
said.
It has been able to overcome the
semiconductor shortages that have
blighted some other manufacturers
because amid the supply chain disrup-
tion, VW prioritised inventory toward
its higher-margin businesses.