Business News Round Up (11/11/2024)
Glasgow set to miss net zero target by 40%
Glasgow is set to miss a 2030 zero carbon target by up to 40%, officials have admitted. The cost to the city to try and reach the green milestone is predicted to be at least £23bn, depending on what methods are used. The city’s Scottish Green councillors have released a statement calling for immediate action to get Glasgow back on track for its 2030 targets, after the issues were highlighted in a report. The Scottish Government has scrapped its climate change targets admitting that cutting emissions by 75% by 2030 was out of reach. In Glasgow two possible pathways leading towards a net zero goal have been put forward in a paper to be presented to next week’s net zero and climate progress monitoring city policy committee. A ‘projected pathway’ costing £23.5bn and an ‘accelerated pathway’ needing £36.8bn investment have been developed.
https://www.insider.co.uk/news/glasgow-set-miss-net-zero-34080668
North West profit warnings climb in Q3 – equalled total seen across the first half
Listed firms in the North West issued 11 profit warnings during the third quarter of 2024, marking the region’s highest Q3 total since 2000, according to EY-Parthenon’s latest Profit Warnings report. The volume of warnings issued by companies in the region almost doubled year-on-year, from six in Q3 2023. However, this follows a resilient first half of 2024, in which North West warnings were down 21% year-on-year. Nationally, the proportion of UK-listed companies that have issued a warning over the last year now stands at 19.2% – the highest rolling 12-month percentage since the pandemic and, before that, since 2001. The FTSE sectors with the highest number of profit warnings across the UK in Q3 were industrial support services – which encompasses business service providers, industrial suppliers and recruitment companies – with ten warnings issued, and technology hardware and equipment, with eight.
https://www.insidermedia.com/news/north-west/north-west-profit-warnings-climb-in-q3-ey
Hospitality firms warn of Budget cuts and closures
More than 200 industry leaders have signed a letter from trade group UKHospitality to Ms Reeves outlining the impact of her first budget. Among its board members are the chairman of pubs group Mitchells & Butlers, and the chief executives of Whitbread, and Crerar Hotels. Big retailers, such as Sainsbury’s and Marks & Spencer have already stated that the increase in employers’ national insurance contributions and the minimum wage will add millions of pounds to their costs. Tesco has said the hike will cost it £1 billion over the course of the parliament. Co-op said the bill for its 55,000 employees would rise by “tens of millions of pounds per year”. As well as threatening the survival of firms and jobs, the letter from UK Hospitality says the effect of the changes will also mean that caterers will struggle to meet important public sector contracts schools, hospitals and prisons.
Two Scots businesses feature in Deloitte’s 2024 UK Tech Fast 50 awards
Two Scottish companies, Utopi and LendingCrowd, secure spots in Deloitte’s 2024 UK Technology Fast 50. With Glasgow’s Utopi ranking in CleanTech and Edinburgh’s LendingCrowd in FinTech. Deloitte has today announced the winners of the 2024 UK Technology Fast 50 awards, with two Scottish companies among the ranking, and a Glasgow company placing third in the CleanTech category. The awards recognise and rank the 50 fastest-growing technology companies in the UK based on average revenue growth over a three-year period, and are sponsored by Citi, Oracle NetSuite and Tipalti. The 2024 Fast 50 winners have a collective average three-year growth rate of 2,468% and generated total revenues of £1.93bn in 2023/24. Almost three quarters (70%) of the 2024 Fast 50 winners hail from London, including four of the top five, as the UK capital remains the hub for technology startups and investment in the UK.
https://www.digit.fyi/two-scots-businesses-feature-in-deloittes-2024-uk-tech-fast-50-awards