At least three Ryanair Boeing 737s have been grounded due to cracks between the wing and fuselage but this was not disclosed to the public, the Guardian can reveal. The budget Irish airline is the latest to be affected by faults in the “pickle fork” structure, which has sparked an urgent grounding of 50 planes globally since 3 October. While other airlines, such as Australia’s Qantas and America’s Southwest, have disclosed the number of their planes affected by the cracks, Ryanair Holdings (RYA) – which operates the largest fleet of 737s in Europe – has previously refused to confirm how many of its planes have been affected.
The £4bn takeover of British defence manufacturer Cobham (COB) by the US private equity firm Advent has hit a new delay after the business secretary said she needed more time to consider the deal’s national security implications. In a parliamentary written statement published on Tuesday, Andrea Leadsom wrote that she needed “further full and proper consideration of the issues”. The new delay may mean that a potentially controversial decision on thetakeover is not made until after the general election on 12 December. Leadsom’s statement said: “The full legal process will continue to be followed throughout the general election period.”
The UK betting industry has devised five safer gambling commitments, as the embattled sector attempts to avoid having new regulations imposed on it by central government. The announcement comes in the same week that shares in UK gambling firms lost nearly £1.2bn in value, after the Guardian revealed that MPs had recommended curbs on online casino games worth more than £2bn a year to the industry. It also follows years of criticism that betting companies have failed to take seriously the risk their products pose to some customers. Chief executives of 10 of the UK’s best-known gambling groups – including Bet365, William Hill (WMH) and the Ladbrokes and Coral owner GVC Holdings (GVC), said the commitments represented “the most comprehensive set of measures from a wide group of leaders across the sector to support the UK Gambling Commission’s national strategy to reduce gambling harms”.
Mothercare (MTC) is to close all of its 79 UK stores and its online business with the potential loss of 2,800 jobs after calling in administrators from PricewaterhouseCoopers on Tuesday. The administration will not include Mothercare’s profitable overseas operations, which have more than 1,000 stores in more than 40 countries – all run via franchise agreements. Only 50 UK head office staff will remain to deal with running the international business. Zelf Hussain, the joint administrator and PwC partner, said Mothercare’s stores would be closing over the coming “weeks and months” with the loss of 2,485 retail jobs. The administration also affects 384 head office and distribution staff and there could be further job losses at the retailer’s outsourced warehousing and call centres.
Primark is to step up expansion in the US and move into Poland after reporting a rise in annual sales that defied a difficult period for clothing retailers around the world. The cut-price clothing chain, which does not sell online, said sales were up 4% and it planned to open 19 stores around the world in the year ahead. They include a 65,000 sq ft store in the former Bhs outlet in Manchester’s Trafford Centre and its first shop in Poland. George Weston, the chief executive of Primark’s owner Associated British Foods (ABF), said the retailer had signed up to open four more stores in the US – including in Florida, Chicago and Philadelphia – and was in negotiations on several more. He said the group, which has opened nine stores in the US since 2015, was confident it had the right store format, product range and management team in place across the Atlantic. “We’ve earned the right to open more stores,” he said. “We’re hoping to open a handful a year over the next few years.”
