Yes bye to Unilever is the tip of a huge iceberg.
Unilever is significant o
Kbecause it’s the UK’s third-biggest company ( value £105bn). The decision to choose Rotterdam over London is a huge blow for the government. Yes only 50 out of 7,500 jobs are going immediately. However this departure is a sign of declining confidence in the U.K.
A letter was sent to all Unilever's UK employees before the referendum, saying
"It is not for us to suggest how people might vote. Many factors need to be considered. We respect that. But in taking this hugely important and irreversible decision, we feel a responsibility to point out that Unilever in the UK....would be negatively impacted if the UK were to leave the European Union."
So yes, Brexit IS a significant factor.
It is not a coincidence that many companies are closing,moving, restructuring, giving profit warnings or making redundancies. The referendum triggered a fall in the £. Signs of the consequences appear on a daily basis. It’s undeniable.
My incomplete list of other victims of the referendum, the weaker pound and the loss of EU membership appears below.( As partly posted on another thread.)
This is serious.Whilst some of the business may have had variable profit before, the referendum was the death knell to several household names. They may have survived were it not for our act of self harm.
#Brexit #Unilever
t.co/Bq2PYiAhul via @financialtimes
•Waitrose and John Lewis profits down 77 %
•Store closures M and S.
•Debenhams - future uncertain, store closures and redundancies.
•New Look- mass closures 90 stores and 900 + jobs at risk.
Other recent serious Profit warnings or omens at:
House of Fraser
Homebase
Marks & Spencer
Next
Post Referendum collapses
•Carillion- liquidation
•150 jobs from Merck.
•Jaeger-gone
•East clothing-gone
•Travis Perkins- decline, restructure , profit warnings
•Monarch-gone
•Shoe Zone - 84% profit fall
Brantano/ Shoe city 73 stores and 64 concessions employing 1,086 staff- Administration.
Jones Bootmaker-100 shops and about 800 employees, is also at risk of administration
Rivington pink wafer biscuits- gone
Southern salads- gone
Lowcostholidays -gone citing Brexit
Hewden gone citing Brexit
Maplin- gone
Toy R Us - gone
Feather & Black - gone
Multiyork - gone
Reductions , warnings closures
Oliver Bonas
Jamie Oliver
Prezzo
Chimichanga
Cafe Rouge and Bella Italia
Byron -rescue sale
Moves or reductions
Hiscox
Goldman Sachs
jP Morgan
Standard chartered
UBS
Not forgetting moves if EU hubs at
•Standard Life Aberdeen, to Dublin.
•Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group Inc. to Frankfurt
Daiwa Securities Group To Frankfurt
•Insurer Admiral Group to Spain
•T Rowe etc to Luxembourg’s f
•Barclays EU headquarters to Dublin.
•JPMorgan chase to Dublin
•Bank of America to Dublin.
•Lloyd’s of London to Brussels
•LONDON - Mizuho, one of Japan's "Big Four" banks,to Frankfurt
•Travelers Europe to Dublin
•US insurer AIG to Luxembourg
•Citigroup Inc to Frankfurt
•Frankfurt also Standard Chartered
•Deutsche Bank trading and investment-banking assets from London Frankfurt.
•Nomura Holdings Inc -Frankfurt
•EMA to Amsterdam
•Paris -European Banking Authority
•Rapid Medical is a high-tech start-up moved R&D to France to protect EU grant funding.
•Structural steelwork maker Severfield blames Brexit uncertainties for job cuts in Bolton. Roughly a third of the workforce laid off.
BUT some good news:
• Alcohol companies are <a class="break-all" href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/jan/26/johnnie-walker-diageo-profits-pound-smirnoff-guinness-dollar" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">doing well</a>- seriously!
•The French utility EDF still going ahead (?) with approved a project to build a nuclear power plant authorised by the gov funded by France and China.
•Qatar going invest more than $6 billion in the Transport, property and technology sectors.
Many more small businesses going than usual though :
https://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/business/brexit-uncertainty-is-leading-cause-of-business-closures-for-young-entrepreneurs-says-survey-1-8538867
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/brexit-latest-news-uk-restaurants-closing-bust-20-per-cent-leave-eu-a8023576.html