LONDON’S BUSINESS NEWSPAPER
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ISSUE 4,013
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CITYAM.COM
NO END TO LONDON RAIL STRIKE CHAOS
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SW19 EPIC Alcaraz beats Djokovic to take home his first Wimbledon title
CITY GROUPS CALL FOR ALL SIDES TO GET BACK TO THE TABLE GUY TAYLOR BUSINESS groups have called on all sides to negotiate and bring the ongoing strike chaos on the capital’s rail and tube network to an end. Commuters are currently bracing for two more weeks of misery as members from the RMT and ASLEF unions launch coinciding strikes, hitting both tube and rail networks. Rail strikes are scheduled for Thursday, Saturday and Sunday, with the Tube all but shutdown throughout next week. Action short of a strike, including an overtime ban, will occur throughout much of the fortnight. Ahead of the walkouts, RMT general secretary Mick Lynch (pictured) hit out at the government, revealing that the union had not met with officials since January saying there had been “no contact”.
“They seem to pick out the RMT as a special category where they can’t negotiate on a reasonable basis,” he told Sky’s Sophy Ridge on Sunday programme yesterday. “We’re available to talk to them but I don’t think I’ve met a government minister since January and even the employers now have stopped negotiating.” The year-long dispute on Britain’s railways has bruised London’s businesses, which are already struggling to adapt to a new-normal of lower commuting levels. Lynch’s comments prompted frustration from business groups at the “inaction” from all sides in seeking a resolution. “In business, we get around the table to find solutions to burning issues and it is our expectation that the RMT and the government must do the same,”
Richard Burge, chief executive officer of the London Chamber of Commerce and Industry, told City A.M. Muniya Barua, deputy chief executive at BusinessLDN, told City A.M. that strikes were “playing havoc” with the economy, with the retail and hospitality sectors hit the worst. “It’s vital that all sides get around the table and reach an agreement to prevent this summer being a damp squib for London’s businesses,” Barua said. Kate Nicholls, chief executive of trade body UKHospitality, told City A.M. that strikes continue to be a “hammer blow” for the sector as restaurants, bars and pubs enter their peak summer seasons, adding that it is “imperative” that the government, rail operators and unions “reignite negotiations and get back round the table as a matter of urgency”. In May, the trade body for the hospitality sector estimated that a short strike wiped out £132m-worth of sales from the sector.
MATT HARDY World No1 and top seed Carlos Alcaraz beat defending champion and 23-time Grand Slam winner Novak Djokovic last night to claim his first Wimbledon title. The 20-year-old Spaniard and the 36year-old Serbian put on a five-set thriller which will go down as a modern classic at the All England Club with Alcaraz winning 1-6, 7-6, 6-1, 3-6, 6-4. A packed Centre Court watched on as
the sprightly Spaniard ended Djokovic’s 10-year unbeaten run on Centre Court, dating all the way back to Andy Murray’s triumph in 2013. Alcaraz said it was a “dream come true” to lift the Wimbledon trophy. The tournament continues to be the highlight of the Grand Slam tennis circuit, providing the capital with a fortnight of bubbly, Pimm’s and strawberries each summer. £ FULL COVERAGE ON P18
BT boss Philip Jansen pins share price slump on ‘short-term’ London investors JESS JONES BT’s outgoing boss Philip Jansen has blamed London investors’ “shortterm” outlook for his firm’s lengthy share price slump in a defence of his tenure at the telecoms giant. Jansen (pictured) said he was “not perfect” but believed the strategy he put in place was not adequately
rewarded by equity markets. UK investors “seem to have a focus more on the short term and find it harder to look at the longer term”, especially when compared to the US, Jansen told The Sunday Times. Jansen, whose key call was a major, long-term investment in the transformation of the copper network into fibre, said the short-
term focus was always a “challenge for BT when you’re investing in initiatives and infrastructure that takes 10 to 12 years to build and will be used for many, many decades – it was 100 years or more in the case of copper”. “Inevitably you have to take a long-term
view of it and public markets seem to find it hard,” he added. However, one analyst pushed back on Jansen’s read of the market. “I don’t think that’s a completely fair assessment given that foreign investors own
around two thirds of listed UK shares, so reticence towards UK companies is coming from overseas as well,” Susannah Streeter, head of money and markets at Hargreaves Lansdown, told City A.M. She added that investors also had a “cautious response to BT’s big cost cutting initiative” as it underlined the “scale of the challenge ahead”.
INSIDE HOUSE PRICES FALL P3 UBER ACHIEVES PROFIT FOR FIRST TIME P4 WHICH? SOUND ALARM ON BNPL P5 LOST IN WONDERLAND: UK’S ENERGY GOALS P10 OPINION P12-13