Would it be unduly cynical to suggest that aerospace and slush funds go together like a wing and a prayer?
On that basis, the news that the UK Serious Fraud Office has kicked off a criminal investigation into allegations of bribery, corruption and fraud relating to some of European aeroplane maker Airbus’s third-party consultants was not one of the weekend’s big surprises.
Airbus had flagged up the potential issues back in April after an interim compliance audit.
It had passed on to UK regulators and the European Export Credit Agencies details of “misstatements and omissions” by the outside contractors in some export financing applications, and it said over the weekend it has been co-operating fully with the investigators, who have been on the case since July.
The SFO is already conducting a similar investigation into jet engines maker Rolls-Royce Holding PLC (LON:RR.).
Meanwhile, a worldwide computer system failure has grounded Delta Air Lines flights across the world. Someone needs to bung an IT consultant a hundred grand to reveal the password so the system can get back online.
Delays, delays, delays
If Delta Air Lines passengers are disgruntled, at least there is the promise of the computer problems being resolved within a few hours; travellers on Southern Railway face a week of disruption after management failed to reach agreement with the Rail, Maritime and Transport Union over the role of conductors on trains.
The union has called a strike, resulting in the cancellation of services and serious overcrowding on platforms at some of the busier stations, such as Clapham Junction in south London.
MPs are trying to get the BHS pension scheme scandal back on the news in the hope it will shame former owner Sir (for the time being, at least) Philip Green into plugging the collapsed retailer’s £700mln (and then some) pension fund black hole.
Iain Wright, who chairs Parliament’s business, innovations and skills committee, said Green had promised to sort the issue but thus far little progress had been made, possibly because there is very little MPs can do to Green except threaten a spell on the naughty step.
“The pensions regulator is in early discussions with Sir Philip’s people. They are circling around each other like punch-drunk fighters around the ring without landing a decisive blow,” Wright said.
Madchester
Moving on the small caps movers and groovers, Sound Energy PLC (LON:SOU) sounds like a bad novelist’s idea of a good name for a “Madchester” band from the nineties – perhaps without the PLC bit – and were it just such a band, it’s first song might be called “Love Me Tendrara”.
(OK, I am that bad novelist, though luckily my novel is still inside me).
Sound’s shares advanced briskly this morning after the company confirmed a significant gas discovery and a potential single gas column at the Tendrara licence, onshore Morocco.
YouGov PLC (LON:YOU), on the other hand, sounds like a 1960s protest band or maybe a dodgy U2 tribute band.
The market research firm’s shares went up in the ratings a tad as it revealed full-year results are expected to be slightly ahead of the board’s previous expectations.
Put another way, a market research firm got its own profits forecast wrong.