Good morning: It looks set to be a difficult week for former executives of Carillion and the Pensions Regulator. The work and pensions select committee, which is due to quiz the executives and regulator this week, has released letters overnight about the company’s pension scheme.
Frank Field, chairman of the work and pensions select committee, says: “It’s clear that Carillion has been trying to wriggle out of its obligations to its pensioners for the last ten years. The purported cashflow problems did of course not prevent them shelling out dividends and handsome pay packets for those at the top.”
Meanwhile the Financial Reporting Council has announced this morning that it will investigate KPMG’s audit of the financial statements of Carillion. It states: “The FRC will conduct the investigation as quickly and thoroughly as possible.” Which hopefully means that it will take months rather than years.
Markets snap
The Nikkei closed down 0.01 per cent at 23,629.34. The FTSE 100 closed at 7,665.54 on Friday. At 6.45am Brent crude was trading at $70.39 a barrel and the pound was trading at $1.412 against the dollar and at €1.138 against the euro.
We also have the latest CBI financial services survey, which suggests that optimism among financial companies deteriorated in the last quarter of 2017, the third quarter in a row. The survey found that a balance of -22 per cent of firms were optimistic about the future, compared with -6 per cent over the previous three-month period.
The war of words continues this morning between GKN and corporate stalker Melrose. GKN has “updated” shareholders on its pensions, warning that “an adverse change in covenant strength would be expected to increase the technical provisions deficit”.
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Anglo American has announced that it has sold its New Largo thermal coal project in South Africa and there is finally some good news for shareholders in Petra Diamonds, which says that it expects to meet City expectations. Petra, which runs five former De Beers mines, has been hit by labour difficulties and a row with the Tanzanian government.
In the US the earnings season continues with quarterly results from Lockheed Martin, the lead contractor on the F-35 fighter jet project alongside BAE Systems.
Please do keep sending your thoughts and observations to me at richard.fletcher@thetimes.co.uk and don’t forget to follow me on Twitter @fletcherr for regular updates.
Have a great day,
Richard
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