Some of us were unaware there is a “dog travel” industry, but apparently there is.
‘Summer bookings disappoint at Thomas Cook as terror worries dog travel industry’ is the headline in financial web site of the year – not that we’re jealous – thisismoney.co.uk, and I think this might be an “eats shoots and leaves” issue in the headline writing department more than a story about package holidays for man’s best friend.
Turkey holidays – that’s holidays to Turkey, not vacations taken by fowls getting in a last basting in the sun before Christmas – hit summer bookings at the travel firm.
Turkey is a popular holiday destination for towel-throwing Germans, and the terrorist attacks and political disruption in the country that sits at the nexus of Europe and the Middle East have taken their toll on the country’s appeal to holiday makers, with the exception of Britons – Thomas Cook Group PLC (LON:TCG) said bookings from the UK to Turkey were up 1% year-on-year.
You know how Brexit was going to boost the staycation as Brits stayed at home? Thomas Cook's UK summer bookings abroad up 13%.
— Lucy Tobin (@lucytobin) September 27, 2016
It’s an interesting fact that in every country bar one where Coca-Cola is sold, it is the number one selling fizzy drink.
The one country where it is not dominant is Scotland, where A.G. Barr PLC’s (LON:BAG) Irn-Bru reigns supreme.
The Scottish soft drinks maker, which also owns the Rubicon, Strathmore and Funkin brands, is not happy about the government’s proposed soft drinks sugar tax, calling it “a punitive and unnecessary distortion to competition in the UK market, which will be very complex, expensive and difficult to implement”.
To paraphrase Mandy Rice-Davies (ask your granddad), they would say that, wouldn’t they?
The company makes an interesting point, however, when it notes that recently published official National Dietary and Nutritional Survey data shows that soft drinks are continuing to reduce their contribution of sugar to the UK diet, in stark contrast to many other food and drinks categories, where sugar contribution is increasing.
“We have continued to reformulate and reduce sugar across our portfolio, as well as bringing new lower and no sugar products to the market. We continue to play our part in delivering the soft drinks industry-wide 5-year voluntary target of 20% calorie reduction by 2020, as well as being on track to have two thirds of our own portfolio lower or no sugar by 2018,” the company said.
It looks like the campaign against sugary drinks is definitely having an effect, with the company announcing plans to cut its workforce by 10%.
Irn-Bru maker AG Barr to cut 10% of its workforce - Scottish Daily Record https://t.co/aqxCB3myaE
— Pensions Careers (@PensionsCareers) September 27, 2016
You don’t hear the saying “safe as the Bank of England” as much these days as you used to, but you probably hear it a lot more than, say, “safe as Deutsche Bank”, as the Daily Mail reports, with a certain element of schadenfreude (not that it would use such an obviously foreign word), that the German bank’s shares have fallen to new historic lows.
The bank has lost more than half its value in the past year as it struggles to cope with low interest rates and sluggish growth, the Mail reports.
As we learnt in the previous decade, when one major bank gets in trouble, we all end up in trouble – and footing the bill.
The German government has ruled out a bail-out – see Mandy Rice-Davies comment, above – but Holger Zschaepitz, senior editor of the financial desk and self-confessed market maniac at German newspaper Die Welt, notes that the five-year default probability for Deutsche has risen above 20%.
Deutsche Bank rout deepens. 5y default probability jumps above 20%. pic.twitter.com/hrdcFtDebz
— Holger Zschaepitz (@Schuldensuehner) September 27, 2016
Yikes!
Or as they say in Germany – yikes!
It’s almost enough to make you cancel that holiday to Turkey.