Battery manufacturer Britishvolt has gone into administration owing £120 million to their creditors. A new battery factory in the Northeast was seen as a flagship project for the British Government with £100 million of funding lined up. A number of companies have expressed an interest in purchasing the company’s assets including Jaguar Land Rover owner Tata and DeaLab, an Indonesian private equity firm. An Australian start-up Recharge Industries has also shown an interest.
The UK car industry had a bad year in 2022 with only 775,014 cars built; the lowest total since 1956. Since the pandemic, when output was disrupted by lockdowns, the industry has suffered supply chain issues including a global shortage of computer chips and the interruption of supplies from Ukraine.
More details available on The Guardian website
An Atradius economic outlook report sees a number of economic challenges that are bringing the world economy to the brink of recession in 2023. The toughest challenge is stagflation: high inflation and low GDP. Atradius predicts that GDP growth will decrease from 2.9% in 2022 to 1.2% in 2023. The hope is that this downturn is short lived, with growth expected to return to 2.9% in 2024.
Average inflation is predicted to reduce from 7.9% in 2022 to 5.3% in 2023, although energy and food prices will remain volatile due to the war in Ukraine.
In the UK, Atradius are expecting a 0.7% contraction in 2023 followed by a 1.8% rebound on 2024.
Administrators have been appointed to Toucan Energy which owns 53 windfarms run by financier Liam Kavanagh. It has been reported that Thurrock Council invested £655 million over four years to buy the windfarms which are valued at less than the amount needed for the authority to recoup their money. The scandal, which could cost the taxpayer £200 million, has forced the leader of Essex Council to resign.
Nexus CIFS Risk Underwriter, Derryck Blackman, has published an update on Christmas trading in the retail sector. Despite the backdrop of the cost-of-living crisis, spiralling energy costs and economic instability, the results were better than expected. The biggest winners were Aldi and Lidl, but Marks and Spencer, Sainsburys and Tesco also did well. Although sales are up, margins could be affected if retailers are unable to pass on increased costs.
Shoppers returned to the high street with footfall up according to the British Retail Consortium, while on-line retailers saw a decline, possibly due to the postal strike.
Famously Proper Ltd, who owns Byron Burger and Mother Clucker, has entered into a pre-pack administration. It will close nine stores and cut 218 jobs. The remaining 12 sites and 365 jobs will be transferred to a new company, Tristar Foods Ltd, operated by the existing owner Calverton. The administrators blamed sky-high inflation and a reduction in customer spending.
In December there were 320 corporate insolvencies in the food service industry – restaurants, pubs, cafes and catering firms.
More details available on BBC News:
Flybe, which operated from Belfast, Birmingham and Heathrow across the UK and to Amsterdam and Geneva, has entered administration. All flights have been cancelled, and 75,000 bookings will not be honoured. 276 workers were made redundant. Flybe first went into administration in March 2020.
More details available on Reuters:
In December, WTW announced Evan Freely as Head of the Global Financial Solutions Division that includes the Trade Credit & Political Risks teams. At the start of 2023 WTW also announced Pieter Van Ede as Global Head of the Trade Credit Team.
WTW are holding a breakfast seminar on 1 March 2023 to discuss the risks associated with disruption to supply chains, a topic that has become increasingly relevant over the past few years since the pandemic.
There were 5,995 (seasonally adjusted) company insolvencies in England and Wales during the fourth quarter of 2022. This was 7% higher than the previous quarter and 30% higher compared to the same period last year.
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