Below are the key morning press headlines, featuring the The Times, The Telegraph, The Daily Mail & more - see the full Press section here.
Royal Dutch Shell ‘B’ (RDSB) has revealed that it paid no corporate income tax in the UK in 2018 despite raking in $731m (£557m) of pre-tax profit on revenues of $108bn in the country. The new report, published on Tuesday, is the first time the oil and gas titan has released public details of the corporate income tax paid in countries and locations across all its businesses. Shell said it would disclose the amount paid in an attempt to be “more transparent”. It also admitted that it did not pay any corporate income tax in the Netherlands last year, apart from at its gas joint venture with ExxonMobil, as its profit was offset with losses from previous years. - The Telegraph
Boeing’s decision to halt production of its bestselling 737 Max wiped nearly £300 million from the value of three leading British aerospace components manufacturers yesterday as investors worldwide sold out of companies linked to the American aviation group. Senior (SNR) suffered the sharpest fall, with its shares losing 11%. Boeing accounted for 11% of the group’s revenue last year and the company expected to make $354,000 in sales on every Max built. Melrose Industries (MRO) fell by 1.1%. The company makes windows, wing tips and engine casings for the Max and had expected to make $400,000 a jet. Meggitt (MGGT) makes seals and composite parts for the Max’s control systems and expected to make $155,000 revenue per Max. Its shares declined by 1.5%. Senior said it “continues to work closely with Boeing” and that it would give an “update on the potential implications to its 2020 performance once it has clarification”. Melrose declined to comment and Meggitt did not respond to requests for comment. - The Times
Persimmon (PSN) has been accused of shoddily building homes that left its customers exposed to an “intolerable risk” in the event of fire. An independent review of the company published on Tuesday found Persimmon had a “systemic nationwide failure” to install fire-stopping cavity barriers. Persimmon has been at the centre of political and public anger over the poor quality of its homes and the vast bonus paid to its former boss Jeff Fairburn The review, which the company commissioned following a deluge of customer complaints, said the failure to meet minimum building standards was “a manifestation of poor culture” at the firm. Jeff Fairburn’s £75m bonus at Persimmon is infamous, and here’s the ugly twist. Some of the homes the company was building in the bonus-accumulation period were shoddy. That damning finding comes via an independent review that reads as genuinely independent, which isn’t always the case with board-commissioned reports. Stephanie Barwise, a QC at Atkin Chambers, and representative of some of the Grenfell Tower victims, set the tone with this arresting line: “Persimmon has traditionally been more of a land assembler and house-seller rather than a housebuilder.” - The Guardian
The housing tycoon behind Berkeley Group Holdings (The) (BKG) cashed in on the ‘Boris bounce’ by selling £50.5m worth of shares. Tony Pidgley sold just over 1m shares in his company for 5040p each on Monday, according to regulatory filings. It takes his total haul from share sales since April 2017 to £216million. And it reduced his stake to 1.3%, meaning he is now longer a top ten shareholder. That stake is worth around £82millionThe 72-year-old moved after Berkeley surged 10% higher on Friday, as markets welcomed the Conservative election victory. - The Mail
Muddy Waters issued a 34-page report yesterday on NMC Health (NMC) raising “serious doubts” about statements, including its asset values, cash balance, reported profits and debt levels. The report sent shares in NMC down by a third to £17.47½, wiping £1.75 billion off its market value. Muddy Waters alleged that NMC had “invested in large assets at costs that we find too high to be plausible — including from parties we believe are de facto under common control”. The company was founded in the 1970s in Abu Dhabi by Bavaguthu Raghuram Shetty, 77, an Indian pharmacist, and has expanded through acquisitions. Dr Shetty’s other ventures include Finablr PLC (FIN) , the foreign exchange company, which floated in May with a valuation of about £1.2 billion. Its shares closed down 10.8% at 187¼p. - The Times
Huntsworth (HNT) failed to impress with its trading update yesterday. It said profits would be in its expected range of between £38.5million and £41million, and it had returned to growth in its marketing arm. But investments in its property and hiring will slightly squeeze profitability. It added: ‘Despite some currency headwinds as a result of the strengthening in sterling, management is confident about future trading.’ - The Mail
Petrofac Ltd. (PFC) has reported a further decline in its order backlog as it struggles to win new business. Shares in the company fell by 6.6% yesterday after it said that it had won only $3 billion of new orders this year, compared with $5 billion at this point a year ago. Its backlog of work was $7.4 billion at the end of November, down from $10.2 billion a year earlier, as it failed to win enough orders to offset its completed work. The company previously said that it had lost out on billions of dollars of new work in the first half of the year after the bribery conviction of one of its former executives. It added yesterday that it had seen “delays in engineering and construction bidding processes in the second half of the year”. - The Times
Dove and Vaseline owners Unilever (ULVR) says trading challenges in multiple international markets mean sales growth both this year and next will be lower than expected. The consumer goods giant says a combination of weakening economic growth in South Asia, poor trading conditions in Africa mean sales growth will be below its 3% to 5% range. This forecast comes despite sales in North America showing signs of improvement, though it warned that a full recovery there will ‘will take time.’ Unilever has faced challenging conditions in India, with a slowing economy, monsoons and four-decade high unemployment hurting sales. The Indian economy expanded by 4.5% year-on-year in the third quarter this year, its weakest growth for six years. - The Mail