Microsoft, house prices, Mars: Business news in brief, Tuesday 10 January

Technology firm invests in cybersecurity, Halifax says price growth picked up in December, Confectionery maker buys VCA for £6.3bn

The technology company has backed Israeli cybersecurity firm Team8 (Getty)

Microsoft, Qualcomm back Team8 cybersecurity firm as hacking threats increase

The venture arms of Microsoft and Qualcomm have invested in Team8, an Israeli creator of cybersecurity start-ups, as big multinational companies get behind Israel’s burgeoning cyber industry in the face of growing threats.

Team8, which also announced on Monday a strategic partnership with Citi to help develop its products, said the most recent investment brings its total raised to more than $92m (£75m).

Its other investors are Cisco, AT&T, Accenture, Nokia, Singapore’s Temasek, Japan’s Mitsui, Bessemer Venture Partners, Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt’s Innovation Endeavors and Marker.

While the number of attempted cyber attacks was 20,000 a week two or three years ago, that figure had now risen to 600,000-700,000, said Yoram Yaacovi, general manager of Microsoft Israel’s development centre.

Israel has some 450 cyber start-ups, which receive 20 per cent of global investment in the sector. Although the need for security is growing quickly, the proliferation of start-ups means that several companies compete in every sub-sector.

“A large part of companies created won't get to the finish line,” Nadav Zafrir, Team8 chief executive and former commander of the Israeli army’s technology and intelligence unit 8200, told a news conference.

Reuters

UK house price growth picks up speed again

Growth in British house prices picked up speed for the second month in a row in December, helped by a shortage of homes to buy, but price increases are likely to slow in 2017, mortgage lender Halifax said on Monday.

House prices have risen more slowly since the shock decision by voters in a referendum last June to leave the European Union but surveys by Halifax and rival lender Nationwide have shown them holding up in late 2016.

The resilience has confounded the warnings of former finance minister George Osborne, one of the leading voices in the defeated Remain campaign to keep Britain in the EU, who said in May that house prices would fall by between 10 and 18 per cent if the country voted to leave the bloc.

In the three months to December, house prices were 6.5 per cent higher compared with the same period a year earlier, up from growth of 6 per cent in the three months to November, Halifax said.

A Reuters poll of economists had expected an increase of 5.8 per cent. The pace of growth remains below a peak of 10 per cent hit in March 2016.

In monthly terms, house prices jumped by 1.7 per cent in December, the strongest increase since March.

Martin Ellis, an economist with Halifax, said yearly price growth was expected to slow to between 1 and 4 per cent by the end of 2017, held back by weaker growth in the overall economy.

“The relatively wide range for the forecast reflects the higher than normal degree of uncertainty regarding the prospects for the UK economy this year,” he said in a statement.

Reuters

Mars to buy pet health care provider VCA for $7.7bn

Mars said it would buy animal hospital operator VCA for $7.7bn (£6.3bn).

Confectionery maker Mars, also the largest pet food manufacturer in the world, said it would offer $93 for every share, a premium of 31.4 per cent to VCA’s Friday closing price.

VCA shares were trading at $91 before the opening bell on Monday.

Mars became the No 1 pet food maker in 2014, after buying Procter & Gamble pet foods business, known for brands such as Iams and Natura, for $2.9bn.

Nestle, the maker of Purina pet products, is the second-biggest pet food maker, according to Euromonitor data.

VCA, founded in 1986, operates nearly 800 animal hospitals with 60 diagnostic laboratories in the United States and Canada. The company had annual sales of $2.13bn (£1.75bn) in 2015.

Mars Petcare business includes the Banfield Pet Hospital, which runs over 900 pet clinics.

Reuters

Thyssenkrupp labour chief demands better deal than Port Talbot

Workers at German steelmaker Thyssenkrupp will refuse to pick up the tab for concessions being offered to British unions by Tata Steel to further a merger, Thyssenkrupp’s labour chief told Reuters on Monday.

Thyssenkrupp and Tata have been in talks for about a year to merge their European steel operations to cut costs and overcapacity, but negotiations have been complicated by Tata's huge pension deficit in the UK.

The German company’s labour chief Wilhelm Segerath said he sees no reason why Thyssenkrupp’s plants should suffer because of job and investment guarantees offered to workers at Port Talbot, Britain's biggest steel plant, in return for pension cuts.

Tata has now offered to guarantee production at Port Talbot, Wales, for five years and to invest across its British business in return for being able to close the final-salary pension scheme to future accrual.

“If they get five years, we want at least 10 years,” Mr Segerath said. “We won’t accept that our plants will now be endangered in a consolidation. Even an attempt to do so would trigger massive resistance from us.”

He cited “enormous structural problems” at Port Talbot, which lost a million pounds a day in the past financial year but has since turned profitable, mainly thanks to external factors including higher prices and a weaker pound.

Reuters

William Hill profit trails in at bottom of forecast range

Bookmaker William Hill said annual operating profit would fall to £260m, the bottom of its forecast range, blaming “customer friendly” horse racing and football results in December.

The decline in earnings is another blow to the gambling company as it searches for a new chief executive and after a number of rivals joined forces to increase competition in the sector.

Shares in the company fell more than 3 per cent to 288.3p. As recently as 14 November the company had forecast that operating profit would be at the higher end of the £260-280m range.

William Hill had reported operating profit of £291.4m for 2015.

Interim chief executive Philip Bowcock said unfavourable sporting results at the end of the year had wiped £20m off the profit figure.

“The recent run of sporting results have not changed our confidence in a better performance in 2017,” he added in a trading statement for the 52 weeks to 27 December, 2016.

On the busy Boxing Day English football programme, 18 of the 20 best-backed teams won. One gambler turned a £20 stake into £103,000 after backing 11 teams to win – the biggest accumulator win of the season so far.

Reuters

VW executive to appear in Miami court over Dieselgate scandal

The Volkswagen executive who once was in charge of complying with US emissions regulations has been arrested in connection with the company’s emissions-cheating scandal, a person briefed on the matter said Monday.

Oliver Schmidt, who was general manager of the engineering and environmental office for VW of America, was arrested during the weekend in the federal criminal investigation, said the person, who didn't want to be identified because they are not authorised to speak on the case.

Mr Schmidt is the second VW employee to be arrested as the probe led by the US Attorney’s Office in Detroit continues. It’s unclear what charges he faces. The New York Times reported that he's expected to be arraigned Monday in a federal courtroom in Detroit.

Mr Schmidt's bio for a 2012 auto industry conference said Schmidt was responsible for ensuring that vehicles built for sale within the US and Canada comply with “past, present and future air quality and fuel economy government standards in both countries”. It says he served as the company’s direct factory and government agency contact for emissions regulations.

AP

Saudi Arabia Hires PwC to Advise on $20bn Cost Cuts

Saudi Arabia is working with PricewaterhouseCoopers on plans to cancel about $20bn (£16.5bn) of projects as the kingdom seeks to shore up its finances, two people familiar with the matter said.

The Ministry of Economy and Planning hired the consultancy firm to review $69bn of government contracts with a view to cutting about a third of them, the people said, asking not to be identified as the discussions are private.

Projects under review include contracts awarded by the ministries of housing, transport, health and education, they said, adding that PwC’s role also includes advising on ways to cut project costs or privatise them.

Under Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the world’s biggest oil exporter is seeking to rein in spending to narrow a budget shortfall that reached nearly 300bn riyals ($80bn) last year after oil prices slumped. The kingdom set up an office to limit government spending, according to this year’s budget that was announced in December.

Authorities also set up the National Project Management Office last year to control capital spending and ensure that government projects are carried out efficiently.

Bloomberg

Child slavery claims against Nestle and Cargill get second chance in court

Six men forced into slavery as boys to harvest cocoa pods have a second chance to go after some of the world’s biggest chocolate companies in US court, saying the companies should have known their suppliers used forced labour.

They’re asking a federal judge in Los Angeles to allow their 12-year-old case to go ahead, even though their alleged captivity was in Ivory Coast. They say Nestle and Cargill. employees in the US knew of the forced labour but didn’t take steps to stop it, so they should be able to sue in an American court.

Allowing the former slaves to sue in the US over human rights abuses overseas would reverse years of precedents won by Chevron, Coca-Cola and other multinationals. If Nestle and Cargill can’t get the case thrown out, other companies might face a new wave of expensive, drawn-out lawsuits over suppliers’ alleged misdeeds.

“You can see that would open the door to a flood of new cases,” said John Bellinger III, who as a lawyer for the US Chamber of Commerce unsuccessfully asked the US Supreme Court to block the six from revising their lawsuit.

Bloomberg