(^) Daily Mail, Thursday, March 5, 2020
Waitrose to close two stores
STAFF at two Waitrose branches
have been told their stores will
close – becoming the first casu-
alties in swingeing cuts pro-
posed by the John Lewis Part-
nership’s new chairman.
Dame Sharon White, 52, who
joined last month from regula-
tor Ofcom, said she would have
to make ‘difficult decisions
about stores and jobs’.
Staff at branches in Waterloov-
ille, Hampshire, and Helens-
burgh, in Scotland, were told
this week their stores would
close, putting hundreds of full
and part-time jobs at risk. It will
form part of today’s announce-
ment to go with annual results
expected to show profits ‘signifi-
cantly lower’ than in 2018.
There may also be charges
worth hundreds of millions due
to a massive writedown on the
value of its properties. Underly-
ing pre-tax profits for the group
are predicted to drop 40pc to
£95m, compared with 2018, says
retail analyst Nick Bubb.
The results mean staff face los-
ing their bonus for the first time
since 1953. John Lewis Partner-
ship employs more than 80,000
people at 50 John Lewis shops
and 338 Waitrose supermarkets
and convenience stores.
It closed 12 unprofitable super-
markets in 2019, axing 1,100
jobs. In September it said under-
lying pre-tax losses were £25.9m,
compared to profits of £800,000
for the same period in 2018 – the
first half-year loss in its history.
Over Christmas Waitrose like-
for-like sales went up by just
0.4pc while sales at John Lewis
d r o p p e d b y 2 p c. Wa i t r o s e
declined to comment.
METRO Bank asked its new interim chief risk
officer to leave just days before he was due to
take up his responsibilities.
Grahame McGirr joined on February 10 but was
ousted just two weeks later, five days before he
was due to fill the role on March 1.
A source close to the bank said McGirr was ‘not
a good cultural fit’, but declined to give any fur-
ther information.
The lender said: ‘The bank has asked Aileen Gil-
lan, chief risk officer, to remain until the end of
March, while it recruits a new interim.’
The departure comes at a tumultuous time for
Metro Bank after the departures of chief execu-
tive Craig Donaldson and chairman Vernon Hill.
÷ B ARClAys has announced changes it says will
lead to the loss of 250 jobs. Workers from sev-
eral sites are being brought together, while a
site in leeds is closing following the landlord’s
decision to sell it for residential development.
Metro risk boss out
after just two weeks
BRITAIN’S economy is growing at the fastest
pace for nearly 18 months as it leaves major Euro-
pean rivals in its wake.
Research group IHS Markit said its activity
index for the UK economy, where scores above 50
show growth, rose from 52.8 in January to 53 last
month, the strongest reading since September
2018, adding to evidence that the economy perked
up following the General Election.
The UK score was also higher than those regis-
tered in Germany, France, Italy and Spain.
But the report found that manufacturing and
services industries increasingly felt the impact of
the coronavirus outbreak as February wore on.
It is feared that the epidemic could tip econo-
mies around the world into recession.
Chris Williamson, chief business economist at
IHS Markit, said: ‘UK business activity grew at
the fastest rate for almost one-and-a-half years.
Whether this can be sustained is starting to look
increasingly at risk. A key question will be the
extent to which Covid-19 affects the economy.’
British economy
outshines rivals
Hedge fund pins hopes
on Sirius bidding war
by Francesca Washtell
THE hedge fund managed
by millionaire Crispin Odey
is talking up the prospect of
a bidding war breaking out
for Sirius Minerals.
Sirius shareholders on Tues-
day approved a £405m rescue
takeover of the Yorkshire pot-
ash firm by FTSE 100-listed
miner Anglo American.
But Odey Asset Management,
which has a 1.4pc stake in Sirius
and like many retail shareholders
opposed the Anglo deal, has not
given up hope of a better offer.
The hedge fund believes another
group such as Canadian potash
producer Canpotex could swoop.
Henry Steel, a portfolio man-
ager at Odey, said: ‘Now comes
the fun part where we wait and
see if Canpotex or the Belaru-
sians turn up to take control of
this project.’ He added: ‘We could
end up in a bidding war.’
Analysts were sceptical, however.
John Meyer, mining specialist and
head of research at corporate bro-
ker SP Angel, said the prospect of
another bid ‘seems relatively
unlikely’. He added: ‘Building the
mine is a technical challenge which
should not be underestimated.
‘The marketing and sale of 10m
tons a year of Sirius’s fertiliser
product is an even bigger chal-
lenge than the mining.
‘You can have all the sales con-
tracts you want but if the farm-
ers decide they don’t want to
buy that much new fertiliser,
then they won’t and your prod-
uct will go unsold.
‘A d d e d t o t h a t , i n t h e
s h o r t - t e r m t h e c o r o n a v i r u s
outbreak means acquisitions
are not top of anyone’s agenda at
the moment.’
He added: ‘Everyone’s batten-
ing down the hatches.’ The vote
to approve Anglo’s takeover
ended a tense stand-off between
many retail shareholders – who
wanted a better deal – and the
company, which supported the
5.5p a share offer.
Odey joined forces with pri-
vate investors in slamming
Anglo’s bid for being too cheap
- branding it a ‘mockery’.
He built up a 1.4pc stake in the
company in the run-up to this
week’s crunch vote and voted
against the takeover, saying
Anglo’s offer should be at least
7p per share.
The average price Odey paid
when it bought Sirius stock was
4.9p – cheaper than the 5.5p
Anglo bid.
Odey could have made as
much as £1m from the deal but
would stand to make even more
if a higher offer came in.
Sirius needed rescuing after it
failed to secure £400m worth of
funding last September.
This was crucial to unlocking
another £1.9bn that it needed to
finish building its £4bn Wood-
smith mine, close to the seaside
town of Whitby, which would
feature a tunnel leading to a
processing plant on Teesside.
After the bungled funding
round Sirius said it would go
back to the drawing board and
either bring on a strategic inves-
tor or work out another way to
tap the City for cash.
Anglo swooped in with its pro-
posal in January, after it declined
to become a strategic investor
and said it wanted to buy the
whole thing.
Under the current timetable
Sirius’s shares will be delisted
from the stock market on Mon-
day, March 16.
Anglo got the approval of 80pc
of Sirius shareholders who voted
on the deal.
It needed to secure at least
75pc of the votes.
Sirius shares had languished
below 5p per share in the days
running up to the vote, indicat-
ing there was some unease
about whether the deal would
go through.
But its stock jumped last night
by 17.5pc, or 0.82p, to 5.49p.Chief pockets £6.8m
from Anglo takeover
sIRIUs Minerals chief execu-
tive Chris Fraser (pictured)
walks away from the deal
with £6.8m for 124m shares.
When the stock peaked at
nearly 44p in 2016, his hold-
ing was worth £54m.
He was handed the bulk of
his shares when he reversed
his company, york Potash,
into a firm called sirius that
was already listed on the
london stock Exchange.
Fraser, 45, was paid £18.6mfor york Potash by sirius in
2011 and stays in his role for
at least a year once the
takeover completes.
Anglo American has said
there will be no changes to
his salary, set to be £486,400
in 2019. He will earn the
same in benefits and pen-
sion, which were £13,000 and
£8,000 respectively in 2018,
as well as being eligible for
annual bonuses and long-
term incentive plans.Page 82