Royal Mail posts HUGE loss as it wrestles with strikes and modernising service

ROYAL MAIL has swung to a £1billion loss and said it will take two more years to make a headline profit as it wrestles with modernising its postal service.

The business, clunkily rebranded to International Distributions Services, said it was dragged down by a £539million writedown of its value, and 18 days of strikes that cost it £198million.

 It also spent £33million on voluntary redundancies. And Russian hackers cost it £20million by preventing it sending international parcels.

Royal Mail recently reached a pay deal with unions and a working hours agreement after a year-long battle.

It yesterday called for the Government “to work with us” to protect its universal service obligation, which states it must provide six-days-a-week deliveries.

Aston’s China cash

GEELY has doubled its stake in Aston Martin and gained a seat on its board.

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The Chinese firm, which also makes London’s black cabs, has spent £234million to reach 17 per cent after buying shares from chairman Lawrence Stroll.

Geely, which has tried to buy the luxury car manufacturer several times in the past, is now its third biggest shareholder.

Shares revved 12.5 per cent higher to 260p yesterday on the back of the deal although investors are still heavily out of pocket from its disastrous listing at £19.00-a-share in 2019.

Aston Martin is well known for being James Bond’s favourite car, and in 2021 the brand returned to Formula One racing for the first time in 61 years.

Focus on greedy food-makers

POLITICIANS have put supermarkets in their crosshairs when it comes to rampant food inflation.

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 But why isn’t attention being paid to the massive profit margins of big food companies who could be doing much more to absorb the pain of rising bills for hard-pressed shoppers?

Premier Foods, maker of Bisto, Ambrosia and Mr Kipling, yesterday showed that despite rising cost pressures it was able to keep churning out profit margins of 15.7 per cent by hiking the price of its food ranges. The rises are extraordinary.

 Even with average food inflation at a 45-year high of 19 per cent, Premier Foods is stuffing shoppers with increases three times that.

Lib Dem leader Ed Davey has argued that supermarkets are profiteering. But Sainsbury’s and Tesco’s recent results show that their profits and margins have actually fallen in the past year.

Supermarkets by tradition make wafer-thin margins of around 2 per cent.

The big question is how quickly they will lower prices when cost pressures ease. We’ve seen a few pennies off pasta, oil, milk and butter as wholesale prices fall.

But what we’re hearing from big food manufacturers is that while prices may stop rising by as much, they’re unlikely to fall back soon. They are the ones gobbling our cash in this greedflation crisis.

‘Berry’s check on tourists

THE boss of Burberry has repeated calls for the Government to bring back tax-free shopping for tourists.

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Chief executive Jonathan Akeroyd said the UK was at a “competitive disadvantage for global shoppers”.

Burberry chairman Gerry Murphy told the PM last month that scrapping VAT refunds was a “spectacular own goal” for the British economy.

The fashion brand said sales in London to tourists rose by 19 per cent in the last three months. But that paled next to the “triple-digits” jump in Paris and a 43 per cent lift in Milan.

Mr Akeroyd recently hired Bradford-born Daniel Lee to replace Italian Riccardo Tisci as its new chief designer.

Sales rose from £2.8billion to £3billion last year, while its profits rose by almost a quarter to £634million.