Robert Lea

2 weeks ago | thetimes.com | Robert Lea

Wizz Air shares fell more than 27 per cent on Thursday as the London-listed, eastern Europe-based budget airline reported tumbling profits and declined to give any earnings guidance for the current year. The airline has been struggling with twin calamities: conflict, on its doorstep in Ukraine and in its growth market of the Middle East; and the withdrawal of faulty engines supplied by Pratt & Whitney, which have been grounding much of its fleet.

2 weeks ago | thetimes.com | Robert Lea

The rail regulator has warned that hopes for three new operators to take on Eurostar in cross-channel high speed train services will not happen unless there is a fundamental rethink on depot capacity. Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Trains, the Italian state railway Trenitalia and Gemini, a disruptor start-up, have announced plans to begin services from London to the Continent to take advantage of spare capacity along the Channel tunnel rail link, now known as HS1, and through the Channel tunnel.

2 weeks ago | thetimes.com | Robert Lea

The number of new cars registered in May rose by 1.6 per cent to 150,000 as the motor trade admitted that it was still battling “brittle consumer confidence and economic turbulence”. Of the new cars registered, 32,000 were all-electric, a rise of more than 25 per cent on the same month last year. That shows that pure electric cars accounted for 21.8 per cent of the market.

2 weeks ago | thetimes.com | Robert Lea

Three years before the outbreak of the First World War, the Prince Henry was laying claim to be what we would now call one of the world’s first supercars, a true rival to the original Silver Ghost which made the name of Rolls-Royce. The Prince Henry was manufactured by Vauxhall. The British company was at the forefront of the nascent automotive revolution, so much so that after the Great War it was acquired by General Motors of the US.

2 weeks ago | thetimes.com | Robert Lea

Whether Thames Water survives as a private commercial enterprise into a 37th year is now in serious doubt after KKR walked away from a £4 billion deal to rescue the company. The American private equity firm had been handed sole preferred bidder status to take control of the company and craft a rescue plan, bulwarked by a commitment of £3 billion of emergency bridging loans from a new class of “super senior” creditors among the lenders to Thames Water.