This in effect doubles its production.There were only two areas were Vedanta slightly disappointed investors yesterday. Can things get any better for the miner?Yesterday, Vedanta promised its shareholders that things would, by unveiling plans to become the only company to produce 1 million tonnes per annum of zinc, aluminium and copper by 2010. It generated free cashflow of $600m, has next to no debt these days and is in pole position to enter the FTSE 100 in next week’s reshuffle of the blue-chip index. Our view: Long-term buy
Share price: 1,378p (- 69p)
Vedanta made a profit of more than $1bn last year, a record for the mining company.
It was just the new Environment Secretary’s luck that yesterday’s gathering of ministers, regulators, consumers, and industry to examine the parlous state of Britain’s water resources should have coincided with bumper profits from two of the companies that supply the stuff.. Please don’t call it the Drought Summit. OK then, Mr Miliband, what did you discuss? Well, we talked about water supply challenges, water conservation, leakage reduction, water stress (I’ll come to that later) contingency planning and, oh yes, the fact that the likelihood of a drought in the South-east is the highest in 30 years. Weight Watchers ready meals are made in Dundalk, and desserts are made in Leamington Spa.A company spokesman said employees would be informed of factory closures and job losses over the next two months.The company said that further job cuts are being considered for next year.. The biggest, in Wigan, employs 2,000 people making its best-selling baked beans and soups. He said: “The company simply cannot let the board and management be distracted by the creation of a destabilising situation and so the board was unanimous in its rejection of Mr Peltz’s proposal.”Heinz employs 5,000 people across seven factories in the UK and Ireland. It pointed to new baked bean toasties as an example of its ability to innovate.
The company will also be returning $1bn to shareholders through share buy-backs over the next two years.William Johnson, Heinz’s chief executive, said the restructuring had been in the works for 18 months, since long before Mr Peltz began agitating for change. He wants Heinz to return more money to shareholders, divest more assets, and cut costs by $575m (£308m) annually. Trian has launched a proxy fight to put five representatives on Heinz’s 12-member board.Heinz said its restructuring plan will cut $355m in costs, freeing up money to develop new products. The UK and Ireland accounts for about 50 per cent of Heinz’s European business.Mr Peltz and his Trian Fund Management group have built a 5 per cent stake in Heinz, claiming it has been poorly managed and that the share price has underperformed rivals.
Employees at seven factories across the UK and Ireland are waiting to see where the axe will fall. The company is trying to halt the billionaire investor Nelson Peltz’s plan to place his own nominees on the board and force through even more radical cost-cutting measures.
Some 2,700 jobs will go across the company, including 600 in Europe. Heinz, the iconic ketchup manufacturer, bowed to pressure from a rebel shareholder yesterday and promised to slash 8 per cent of its global workforce. Question marks have also been raised over the future of the pharmaceuticals division where profits were down.Johnson Matthey’s main competitor, the US catalyst producer Engelhard, is in the process of being swallowed by the German chemical maker BASF for more than $5bn after a five-month standoff.. The group admitted its ceramics unit was “not a long-term hold” but added it was not actively trying to sell the business either.
