the times | Friday May 27 2022 43
Business
Hundreds of industrial scientist jobs
around the UK appear to have been
saved after Johnson Matthey sold the
high-performance electric car battery
business it had threatened to close.
The disposal to EV Metals (EVM),
the Saudi-Australian company, was
announced as Johnson Matthey re-
ported a plunge into the red.
The full-year results laid bare the
internal pain at the company, which led
to the removal of its chief executive last
autumn, the relegation of the British in-
dustrial technology stalwart from the
FTSE 100, and left it the subject of take-
over speculation.
Johnson Matthey had become a
leading supplier of materials used in
catalytic converters for vehicles. It also
developed eLNO, a proprietary lithium
and nickel oxide technology, and set in
motion plans to construct gigafactories
in Europe to produce batteries for elec-
tric cars capable of travelling hundreds
of miles on a single charge.
responsibility to support customers at a
time when households are seeing sig-
nificant rises in the cost of living,” he
said. “Despite the high levels of infla-
tion, we expect no increase in average
household water bills in our region in
the coming financial year and we are
offering more financial support to
customers in need than ever before.”
The group unveiled a £280 million
package of support measures to help
more than 200,000 households across
the northwest until 2025.
The money would be put towards
support schemes including funding
reduced tariffs for those unable to pay,
said Louise Beardmore, its customer
service director.
Emma Clancy, chief executive of the
Consumer Council for Water, said that
United Utilities had a “long-standing
record of helping customers” and
encouraged anyone who was
struggling to contact the company.Johnson Matthey offloads battery business
Robert Lea Industrial Editor However, after years of development
and hundreds of millions of pounds
spent on research, the company per-
formed a screeching U-turn last
autumn, saying it would no longer be
pursuing eLNO and ditching chief ex-
ecutive Robert MacLeod.
EVM is paying £50 million cash for
Johnson Matthey’s battery technology
centres and laboratories in Oxford and
Billingham, Co Durham, as well as its
patents and intellectual property rights
and a gigafactory under construction in
Poland. Johnson Matthey will take an
undisclosed minority stake in EVM.
Ian Constance, who as chief execu-
tive of Britain’s Advanced Propulsion
Centre is the government’s main agent
for the industrialisation of battery tech-
nology and the decarbonising of the
UK economy, said: “The UK has signifi-
cant expertise in battery materials
processing. It is great news that EVM
intends to maintain operations here.”
Liam Condon, the new chief execu-
tive of Johnson Matthey, announced a
new strategy for the group as it reported
write-off-afflicted losses for the year of
£217 million to the end of March on rev-
enue up 4 per cent to £16 billion.
“We are shifting gears and moving
from playing not to lose towards play-
ing to win,” said Condon, 54, who joined
the business this year from Bayer, the
German chemicals group.
Patrick Thomas, Johnson Matthey’s
chairman, admitted that the company’s
performance had been a disappoint-
ment to shareholders and assured them
his new chief executive would drive “a
more performance-oriented culture”.
Condon said the company would
focus on its chemistry expertise in plati-
num, palladium and rhodium, used as
catalysts in the removal of harmful
emissions in the automotive, chemicals
and energy industries, as well as betting
on hydrogen as the sustainable fuel and
fuel cell technology of the future.
With the company also reporting a
patchy operational performance, the
shares fell more than 3.6 per cent, down
85p to £22.66, valuing the group at
£4.2 billion.Customers will not pay for
United Utilities’ dry spell
Jessica NewmanPre-tax profit at United Utilities fell
more than 20 per cent in the 12 months
to the end of March as a result of higher
costs.
The FTSE 100 group, which supplies
water to millions of customers in north-
west England, reported a dip in profits
from £551 million to £440 million.
Meanwhile, the company endured a
75 per cent jump in finance expenses to
£187.8 million because of “significant”
cost increases in power and chemicals.
The company forecast revenue
growth of about 1 per cent this year, but
warned that underlying operating costs
were expected to be about £100 million
higher compared with last year.
Despite the pressures, Steve Mog-
ford, chief executive, ruled out a price
rise for its customers until at least the
end of the 2022-23 financial year.
“We are very conscious of ourA
s a heart-throb
who made his
name in the boy
band NSync
before striking
out on his own to become
one of the best-selling
artists in modern pophistory, Justin Timberlake
is no stranger to attention
(David Byers writes).
Now having grown up
and reached middle age,
the Memphis-born singer
has decided to cash in.
Timberlake, 41, has
decided to sell his entire
song catalogue for
$100 million in the largest
purchase so far by the
music investment company
Hipgnosis Song
Management, a London-
based fund backed by cash
from private equity firm
Blackstone.The deal, the latest in a
string of similar
arrangements, is a coup for
the former pop manager
Merck Mercuriadis, the
Hipgnosis fund’s founder. It
is his third transaction so
far this year, after he
bought an 80 per cent
interest in the country
singer Kenny Chesney’s
royalties and the late
Leonard Cohen’s catalogue
for undisclosed sums.
The deal for Timberlake’s
work gives Hipgnosis full
ownership and control over
the pop star’s interest insome 200 songs he wrote or
co-wrote spanning his
career to date as a boy band
frontman, as a solo artist
and for film soundtracks.
His albums have sold more
than 150 million copies
worldwide, including
88 million as a solo artist
and 70 million when he was
with NSync.
The finance industry has
been attracted to investing
in music rights in recent
years because of their
steady and predictable yield
compared with increasingly
volatile stock markets. LastDecember, Bruce
Springsteen sold his
catalogue to Sony for
$550 million while in 2020,
Bob Dylan sold his to
Universal Music Publishing
for more than $300 million.
Tina Turner sold hers for
about $50 million to BMG
in October.
Timberlake’s hits include
Cry Me a River, SexyBack,
Can’t Stop the Feeling and
NSync songs such as Bye
Bye Bye. The singer said: “I
am excited to be partnering
with Merck and Hipgnosis
— he values artists.”Timberlake
sells his song
rights to tune
of $100m
KEVIN WINTER/GETTY IMAGESCost-of-living
crisis leaves a
nasty taste at
Fridays chain
Dominic WalshThe company behind the Fridays
restaurant chain warned investors it
was being buffeted by “extreme eco-
nomic headwinds” after a significant
weakening of consumer confidence.
Shares of Hostmore, which started
trading at 147p last November via a
demerger from Electra Private Equity,
fell by 7p, or 13.7 per cent, to close at
42¾p as like-for-like sales fell by 6 per
cent on 2019 levels in the past 20 weeks.
The company said the invasion of
Ukraine had contributed to the cost-of-
living crisis, and Robert Cook, 56, the
Hostmore chief executive, admitted
“we are not where we expected to be”.
He said that for the rest of the year,
the group was now forecasting an 8 per
cent decline in comparable dine-in
volumes compared with 2019, although
half that fall would be offset by a price
increase.
The slowdown came as a surprise to
investors given that in January the
chain delivered a positive start to life as
a standalone quoted company, fore-
casting that full-year earnings would be
“well ahead” of market forecasts.
Although Hostmore has partly miti-
gated food and drink cost inflation,
which is currently running at about
10 per cent, Cook said the combination
of cost increases and lower volumes
would restrict the underlying profit
margin this year to low double digits
rather than its medium-term target of
mid-teens.
Despite the headwinds, Hostmore
said it remained confident over its
prospects and it was pressing ahead
with expansion of not just its core
Fridays brand, but also its Fridays and
Go fast-casual concept and 63rd+1st
cocktail bars.
Recent openings include its first Fri-
days and Go outlet in Dundee and a Fri-
days in Chelmsford together with three
more new sites later in the year. Its am-
bition is to almost double the size of its
estate from 89 over the medium term.
Numis, the broker, said it was cutting
its earnings forecast for the year by
about 20 per cent due to the softer trad-
ing. It pointed to the return of VAT to
20 per cent as another headache.