Flights at Luton airport suspended until at least 3pm after fire; Birkenstock to float in New York business live

October 11, 2023
MediaIntel.Asia

The aftermath of the Luton Airport fire. You can see where the car park has completely collapsed inside. Early indications are that it was a car fire that spread. As many as 1,200 vehicles were in the car park at the time. pic.twitter.com/3MJcHbTwXj
It is Britain’s fifth-busiest airport after Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted and Mancheter, and it handled 13.3 million passengers last year, according to the Civil Aviation Authority.
There are also worries about potentially deliberate damage to the Baltic connector gas pipeline between Finland and Estonia. Oil prices are settling, but a barrel of the benchmark Brent Crude is trading at just under $88 dollars a barrel, up sharply from the price before the attacks in Israel. Although initial supplies aren’t affected, there are still worries about potential knock-on effects if there is contagion across the wider Middle East region.
There are concerns creeping back in about higher energy prices, causing fresh inflationary pressures by pushing up fuel bills and potentially causing havoc with central bank forecasts. UK and European gas prices shot up over supply concerns, edging down only a little and still hovering around six-month highs. The jitters came after Chevron was told to shut down production at the Tamar natural gas field in Northern Israel due to the violence.
We believe any rally may be short-lived, given today’s outcome doesn’t allow us to lower our total Zantac liability – we have a 50% of a $5bn liability – and given GSK’s decision to again settle, suggest the company is likely to have to pay out on many of the outstanding cases.
The UK’s second-biggest drugmaker GSK is one of the biggest risers on the FTSE 100 index, with the shares up 1.3%. It announced that it had reached a confidential agreement on a lawsuit in California which alleged that its discontinued heartburn drug Zantac caused cancer.
Extensive damage to an undersea gas pipeline and communications cable connecting Finland and Estonia “could not have occurred by accident” and appears to be the result of a “deliberate … external act”, Finnish authorities have said.
Gas prices have also retreated after yesterday’s spike, when UK gas jumped 15% and European gas soared 16% after the gas pipeline “Baltic Connector” between Finland and Estonia started leaking.
Oil prices are pushing higher on concerns that the war between Israel and Hamas and rising tensions in the region could affect the output of major producers. Brent crude hit $89 a barrel on Monday and is trading 0.6% higher at $88.17 a barrel at the moment. US crude is up 0.6% at $86.46 a barrel.
The aftermath of the Luton Airport fire. You can see where the car park has completely collapsed inside. Early indications are that it was a car fire that spread. As many as 1,200 vehicles were in the car park at the time. pic.twitter.com/3MJcHbTwXj
It is Britain’s fifth-busiest airport after Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted and Mancheter, and it handled 13.3 million passengers last year, according to the Civil Aviation Authority.
2h ago 03.09 EDT LVMH reports slowing growth
The French luxury goods giant LVMH (Moët Hennessy-Louis Vuitton) has reported slower growth, as it has taken a hit from rising inflation and growing global financial instability.
The company, whose brands include Christian Dior, Louis Vuitton and Stella McCartney fashion, alongside TAG Heuer watches and Bulgari and Tiffany jewellery, reported revenue of €20bn (£17.25bn) between July and September – a 9% rise. That compares with a 17% increase in the previous quarter.
Pauline Brown, the former chair of North America at the luxury group, said a number of factors are at play.
The issue we’ve had with inflation is not just that it is here, but that it came on quite suddenly, or quite quickly. And we, as a society, we got used to a few decades of, really, really low inflation. So it’s still hitting us as a bit of a shock.
But geopolitical developments, namely the war between Israel and Hamas, have become a bigger concern, she said.
If I were sitting on the board at LVMH, or any of the other luxury companies would really be rattling me is that geopolitical destabilisation around the world. And let’s just take what happened this last week in Israel. Why is that important here? Number one, because luxury goods and services is a psychological purchase. Nobody needs a glass of champagne. Nobody needs a watch or a diamond necklace. And in order for you to buy for yourself or as a gift, you really have to be in the right mood state. And when we see atrocities happening as we are right now, the appetite to spend on what might be perceived or experienced as frivolous, goes way down And then on a more pragmatic level, you know, there was still very strong growth in Middle Eastern buyers, whether they were buying it locally, in Dubai and elsewhere in the region, or they were travelling and and the concerns that started in the Middle East are now spreading and changing the social dynamic, even within the Middle Eastern regimes. That’s going to lead to a slowdown in in how people spend and where they spend. And that is not the only corner of the world right now.
One of the worst hit divisions at LVMH is wines and spirits, which posted a 14% decline in sales over the quarter, as sales of cognac declined.
Unlike say champagne, cognac is really an aspirational consumers drink. Most collectors who might buy from Napa Valley or from Bordeaux, are less prone to be collecting cognac. That was hit hard in markets like China and North America. Because that aspirational consumer is just not spending with the same enthusiasm that the high net worth is, and the high net worth are continuing to spend even with some of the macro conditions that we’re all noting.
CEO of LVMH Holding Company, Antoine Arnault and his wife Russian model Natalia Vodianova pose during a photocall ahead of the Christian Dior fashion show as part of the Paris Fashion Week in September. Photograph: Julien de Rosa/AFP/Getty Images

This data comes from MediaIntel.Asia's Media Intelligence and Media Monitoring Platform.



Original URL: Click here to visit original article