Tuesday newspaper round-up: UK steel, Google, BT
By Michele Maatouk
Date: Tuesday 24 Jan 2023
(Sharecast News) - The companies running Britain's four remaining steel blastfurnaces have been offered £600m in government support to help fund the switch from coal and invest in lower-emissions technology. The chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, is expected to confirm £300m each for British Steel and Tata Steel in an announcement as soon as this week, although the timing will depend on them accepting the offers. The BBC first reported the government offer to both companies. - Guardian
Google staff are overpaid and the tech giant must cut thousands more jobs, a British activist investor has said. Sir Chris Hohn, who previously donated to Extinction Rebellion, wrote in a letter dated January 20 that Google's 12,000 layoffs did not cut deep enough to reduce bloat at the tech giant. The billionaire founder of The Children's Investment Fund Management (TCI) , who holds a $6bn stake in Google-parent company Alphabet, wrote to chief executive Sundar Pichai, warning: "Ultimately management will need to go further." - Telegraph
BT is facing a fresh investigation into whether it obscured inflation-busting price rises in its contracts, as customers brace for a sharp increase in their bills. Ofcom said it will examine whether the telecoms giant had failed to provide clear warning of upcoming price increases to customers of its broadband subsidiary Plusnet. - Telegraph
The government's strategy for Britain's £94 billion life sciences sector is at risk of failing unless ministers act to stem a loss of manufacturing investment, jobs and exports to international rivals. In a report, the Medicines Manufacturing Industry Partnership warns that there has been a significant loss of traditional medicines manufacturing capacity over the past 25 years and that the global proportion of capital investment has fallen "dramatically". - The Times
The Bank of England's staff pension scheme assets lost £1.5 billion in value in six months as part of its liability-driven investment policy. In response to a freedom of information request, the central bank disclosed that the fund's investments in gilts, bonds and derivatives had dropped from £5 billion to £3.5 billion in the half-year to September 30 as the mini-budget of Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng triggered panic in the gilts market. - The Times
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