Online grocer Ocado (LON: OCDO) faced a £1.5 million dent in profits after the group was forced to cancel orders during “the Beast from the East”. With heavy snow and winter storms, depots in Oxford, Kent and Bristol were forced to accept fewer deliveries in the “most trying conditions”. The weather led to the group having to lose tens of thousands of orders and give undelivered food to food banks, leading to the grocer losing one percent in sales. “I’ve never seen weather like this in the time I’ve been at Ocado but despite that, we delivered to 296,000 customers in pretty extreme conditions,” said Duncan Tatton-Brown, Ocado’s finance director. Not only did Ocado’s profits suffer from the extreme conditions seen in the UK, but the quarter’s results also took a hit from the increase in costs. Ocado reported a rise in retail revenues by 11.7 percent to £363.4 million for the first quarter to March 4. The snowy conditions and storms took off one percent of profits in the final week. The average orders per week increased by 11.1 percent to 280,000. “We operated at maximum capacity for most of the quarter and were impacted by the winter storms that caused widespread disruption during the final week,” said the chief executive, Tim Steiner. “I would like to take this opportunity to thank all my colleagues who nonetheless succeeded in delivering nearly 300,000 orders over the last week of the quarter, often in the most trying conditions.” The group still managed to meet expectations, with Steiner highlighting the group would have succeeded them if it was not for the week of bad weather. Ocado recently signed a deal with Canadian retailer Sobeys, as the group expands into North America. The group is also working with Groupe Casino (FRA: CAJ), the supermarket giant based in France.  

Citizens from the EU who arrive in Britain during the Brexit transition period will have the right to stay indefinitely. After intense talks in Brussels, it was agreed that freedom of movement can continue until the end of 2020. EU citizens and their families will be able to claim residency. Speaking in Brussels, Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, said that people from the EU who arrive in the UK during transitions “will receive the same rights and guarantees as those arriving before Brexit”. David Davis, the Brexit Secretary, said: “Just as we’re giving certainty to businesses, we’re also providing the same for citizens.” The same will apply to British citizens who move to the EU. Barnier referred to the deal as “a decisive step” for Britain and the EU. “We were able to agree this morning on a large part of what will make up an international agreement for the ordered withdrawal of the UK,” he added. Not all were happy with the progress. Nigel Farage, the former UKIP leader, said May was backing down to Brussels and called her an “appease”. “After vaunting her so-called red lines she quickly rubs them out under EU pressure,” he said, “She’s like the Duke of York marching the troops to the top of the hill to march them down again.” Iain Duncan Smith also criticised the government, saying: “there does seem to be a real concern … It appears that at least through the implementation period nothing will change and I think that will be a concern and the government clearly has to deal with that because a lot of MPs are very uneasy about that right now.” A joint withdrawal deal was published on Monday, which is 75 percent is agreed on. According to the report, the UK will keep the benefits of the single market and customs union for “near enough to the two years we asked for”, said Davis.  

Facebook shares fell 5 percent on Monday, as investors reacted to the social media platform’s involvement in a data scandal. According to the Observer, Data firm Cambridge Analytica, which collaborated worked with Donald Trump’s election team and the Leave Brexit campaign, harvested the profiles of millions of Facebook’s US voters. A whisteblower revealed to the publication about how Cambridge Analytica used the personal information of users in early 2014, without authorisation, to facilitate the profiling of individual US voters, for targeted personalised political advertisements. It has been estimated that as many as 50 million users personal information had been utilised, calling into question how truly accountable social media platforms are in the digital age. Christopher Wylie, who worked with a Cambridge University academic to obtain the data, told the Observer: “We exploited Facebook to harvest millions of people’s profiles. And built models to exploit what we knew about them and target their inner demons. That was the basis the entire company was built on. Amid the revelations, both Cambridge Analytica and Facebook are being investigated as part of an inquiry into data and politics by the British Information Commissioner’s Office. Alongside this, the Electoral Commission is also looking into Cambridge Analytica’s role in the EU referendum. “We are investigating the circumstances in which Facebook data may have been illegally acquired and used,” commented information commissioner Elizabeth Denham. “It’s part of our ongoing investigation into the use of data analytics for political purposes which was launched to consider how political parties and campaigns, data analytics companies and social media platforms in the UK are using and analysing people’s personal information to micro-target voters.” She added. Alongside inquires in the U.K, across the pond, legislators in the U.S are also calling for greater transparency and investigation into the data breach allegations. “It’s clear these platforms can’t police themselves,” tweeted Senator Amy Klobuchar, a Democratic member of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Facebook breach: This is a major breach that must be investigated. It’s clear these platforms can’t police themselves. I’ve called for more transparency & accountability for online political ads. They say “trust us.” Mark Zuckerberg needs to testify before Senate Judiciary.

— Amy Klobuchar (@amyklobuchar) March 17, 2018

https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js Whilst Facebook have dismissed accusations of a ‘data breach’ per se, shares in the company continued to plunge on Monday. Shares are currently trading -5.84 percent as of 14.43 PM (GMT).  

Melrose has announced it has offered an additional £1 billion boost to pensions as part of its takeover bid for engineering giant GKN. This comes after GKN rejected what Melrose said last week was its ‘final offer’ of £8.1 billion. GKN previously rejected a £7.4 billion bid made back in January, which it dismissed as “opportunistic”. The engineering giant has been the subject of a series of hostile takeover bids by Melrose following a number of profit warnings late last year. Politicians had been weary of the potential takeover, given Melrose’s tendency to break-up and sell companies that it acquires. Moreover, MP’s voiced concern for national security, given GKN’s role in providing defence capabilities to the U.K. The additional pension provision may address concerns raised by the UK pensions regulator and MP’s who called for the deal to be blocked. Melrose chairman Christopher Miller commented: “The proposal we have made to the trustees of up to £1 billion of contributions under our ownership is a clear example of what Melrose does which is good for pensioners and shareholders alike and shows we are a good custodian for all stakeholders.  

Pressure is growing for Boris Johnson as the Labour party has written to the foreign secretary demanding him to account for his role in the abandoned London garden bridge project Andrew Gwynne, the shadow communities secretary, wrote to Johnson and challenged his claims that the journalist who criticized the £46 million project had a personal dislike of the bridge’s designer. Gwynne asked Johnson to provide evidence for the claims he made by journalist Will Hurst, the managing editor of the Architects’ Journal. The foreign secretary has come under fire over his role of the garden bridge. £46.4 million of public money was spent on the project, but construction never took started. Johnson has blamed London’s current mayor, Sadiq Khan, for the losses after he cancelled the project. While he was the London mayor, Johnson championed the designs for London’s newest bridge and said: “I think what I might have done in retrospect, the obvious thing is I would have tried to get it going faster, earlier.” Speaking earlier this month before the London assembly’s oversight committee, Johnson criticised Hurst, a journalist who has written several stories uncovering problems with the project. Johnson said the stories were “motivated to the best of my knowledge by a dislike that the Architects’ Journal journalist concerned had for Thomas Heatherwick, who is not conceived of as being a proper architect, and is therefore somehow worthy of abuse”. In the letter, Gwynne wrote that the foreign secretary should answer questions on “the role played by your office in the reckless decision to release public funds for the construction contract” “Do you have any evidence to support your public claim that articles published by Mr Hurst are motivated by a dislike of Thomas Heatherwick, if not, do you want to withdraw this comment and apologise?” he added.  

Micro Focus shares (LON:MCRO) plunged on Monday morning, after the tech giant warned of a sharp fall in revenues for the year. The UK-based company warned revenue for the year ending October 31 is set to decline between 6 per cent and 9 per cent, down from its previous forecasts of a 2-4 per cent fall. The lacklustre performance was attributed to its acquisition of Hewlett Packard Enterprise’s software business for £6.8 billion, which it bought back in September 2016. Problems with integration impacted profitability, alongside issues with implementing newer IT software. Back in January, Micro Focus reported a 2.9 per cent fall in revenue to $664.7 million, with earnings falling by 4.1 per cent, not including acquisition sales. On the back of the disappointing outlook, the company also announced the departure of chief executive Chris Hsu, having only taken up the role in September. According to the statement, Mr Hsu has left his post to spend more time with his family and to pursue another opportunity. He is set to be replaced by chief operating officer, Stephen Murdoch.

“We remain confident in Micro Focus’ strategy whilst recognising that operational issues have led to a disappointing short term performance and outlook,” Executive Chairman Kevin Loosemore commented.

“We believe that Micro Focus is well positioned to help our customers with the increasing pace of change across their Hybrid IT environments and to deliver customer centred innovation.” He continued.

The firm said cost-cutting initiatives would nonetheless mitigate losses.

Micro Focus is a multi-national software and information technology company, which was founded back in 1976.

Since its creation it has gone on to forge a name for itself as the U.K’s largest tech firm. It is headquartered in Berkshire in the U.K and has been listed on the London Stock Exchange as of 2005.

Shares in Micro Focus are currently trading -55.50 percent as of 11.00 AM (GMT).

Spotify has announced plans to begin trading on the New York stock exchange on 3 April. The music streaming service’s co-founder and CEO, Daniel Ek, told investors during a public webcast that the company will become profitable to fend off rivals including Apple Music (NASDAQ: AAPL). The 12-year old company has over 100 million users and the company’s revenue has grown by 39 percent to €4.09 billion (£3.61 billion) in 2017 from €2.95 billion (£2.6 billion) the year previous. Ek told listeners on Thursday that Spotify is the world’s largest streaming platform – “nobody else has the global scale that we’ve already built.” The service’s “freemium” platform has previously caused controversy after Taylor Swift chose to temporarily remove her music from Spotify in 2015. Chief product officer Gustav Sodorstrom, however, explained the importance of the free option. “One: it reaches the millions of consumers who are still on the fence about paying for music, which brings them into our ecosystem,” he said. “Two: It allows us to learn from the biggest possible group of music fans in the world. And three: Once they have Spotify on their phone, car speaker and devices, music simply becomes a much bigger part of their lives, and the more they engage, the more likely they are to discover that music is an important part of their life worth paying for.” Spotify’s stock will be available to investors via a direct listing, without the traditional underwriters. “It’s not about the pomp and circumstance,” said Ek, who will not be on the trading floor when the shares go live. “I think the traditional model of taking a company public isn’t a good fit for us.” According to calculations by Reuters, the streaming platform is valued at an estimated $19 billion, based on private transactions.