Anglo American (AAL) is considering a £386m lifeline bid to rescue Sirius Minerals (SXX) from collapse, but experts have warned that the company’s Yorkshire site could still remain dormant for years. Sirius owns a huge fertiliser mine underneath the North York Moors, which Anglo American described as “potentially world class” in a statement on Wednesday morning. The two companies are in advanced negotiations over a potential takeover, the statement added. But what Anglo American plans to do with the site, should the acquisition go ahead, is still unclear. Kieron Hodgson, an analyst at Panmure Gordon, said that he would not be surprised if Anglo American bought the asset simply to hold on to it until it had increased in value.
Some of Britain’s largest banks risk being sucked into a crisis over currency exchange firm Travelex after its systems were knocked offline by a hacking attack. Lenders including Barclays, HSBC, Royal Bank of Scotland and Virgin Money have been left unable to offer online exchange services to millions of customers because of the crisis. They rely on Travelex systems which were taken down by the hackers, who are reportedly threatening to release customers’ data unless they get a $6m (£4.5m) ransom payment. Travelex, a Finablr PLC (FIN) company, is now facing a storm of criticism for keeping the nature of the attack private for eight days. It was first hit by disruption on New Year’s Eve, but a hack was not known to be responsible until Tuesday this week.
Greggs (GRG) has doled out a one-off £7m bonus to staff after bumper sales of its vegan sausage roll sent revenue surging. The bakery chain posted a 9.2% rise in sales at stores open for more than a year, bucking a wider slowdown on the high street and beating expectations. The firm has now dished out £300 to each of its 25,000 staff. Roger Whiteside, chief executive, said: “We’ve never done it before, I can’t imagine we will ever do it again. It’s not a regular thing, although we might have another exceptional year so never say never.” He added that Greggs has been sharing 10% of its profits with staff each year.
Sainsbury (J) (SBRY) sales dropped in the run-up to Christmas as it suffered a hit from poor toy sales at Argos and sought to blame jittery consumers. Sales at stores open more than a year excluding fuel fell 0.7% for the 15 weeks to Jan 4, worse than analyst estimates, despite a strong performance by the company’s online and clothing arms. General merchandise sales declined 3.9% as the demand for toy and gaming products at Argos, which Sainsbury’s owns, was lower than a year earlier. Chief executive Mike Coupe said investment in digital was paying off, with more than a fifth of sales made online in the quarter. He added that consumers were put off by uncertainty as political turmoil raged ahead of the general election.
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