BP profits halve as oil and gas prices sink

BP said that its so-called cost replacement profit fell to $4.98bn (£3.04bn) in the third quarter from $10bn in the same period last year. Crude oil is now trading at just below $80 a barrel, above the low of the year of $33 reached in February, but well below the record of $147 set in July last year.

BP is the first of the larger oil companies in Europe to report its profits, which chief executive Tony Hayward has sought to shield from the recession by cutting costs. The company’s refining margins tumbled by almost two-thirds.

Costs across the group were axed by $2bn in the first half of the year, reaching a target that was set for the full-year, and the company aims to cut another $1bn in the remainder of this year.

‘The key elements in the decline are a materially lower oil price and even more striking year-on-year decline in US natural gas prices,’ Alan Sinclair, an analyst at Seymour Pierce, said.

BP is aiming for an increase in output this year and has focused its efforts on the Gulf Of Mexico. Last month the company announced a ‘giant oil discovery’ at the Tiber Prospect in a deepwater area of the Gulf of Mexico. (Daily Telegraph: October 27).

Sunwin rebranded as Co-operative Motor Group

Car dealer Sunwin Motor Group, part of the Co-operative Group, is being rebranded to reflect its ownership.

Its 19 showrooms are being rebranded as The Co-operative Motor Group in a move that marks their formal induction to the family of businesses, which includes food, funerals, travel, pharmacy, financial services and legal services. More than two thirds of Co-op Group’s 5,000 outlets have been rebranded over the last two years.

Mike Austin, managing director of The Co-operative Motor Group, said: ‘Sunwin has worked hard to establish a trusted reputation in the Midlands and the North and we intend to build on that by adopting The Co-operative’s strong brand.

‘The relaunch of The Co-operative Brand has been a major success and the financial performance of The Co-operative Group is stronger than ever as is trust in our brand.’

The first of the Group’s dealerships to be rebranded will be the Renault dealership in Preston on October 27. The rebrand programme will be rolled out to the rest of the dealerships.

The Co-operative Motor Group (formally Sunwin) which represents ten major motor manufactures (Renault, Nissan, Mazda, Peugeot, Fiat, Landrover, Suzuki, Chrysler, Dodge and Jeep) has reported sales of over £250 million for the last financial year. (AM-online.co.uk: October 27).

Lex Autolease ‘still committed to brokers’

The decision by Lex Autolease to cut ties with around one-third of its broker network will result in a loss of only about 10 per cent of its business, according to managing director Nigel Stead.

He said the company ‘remains committed’ to the broker sector. The reorganisation, part of the integration of Lex and Autolease, recognised that the market had changed over the past 12-18 months.

The former Autolease business focused on a small number of high performing larger brokers, whereas Lex had a much bigger broker business with a wider spread of partners.

‘We are looking at the number and quality [of brokers] that we will do business with,’ Stead added.

The broker decision follows Lex Autolease’s move to stop offering its Whitechapel employee car ownership (ECO) scheme to smaller fleets with fewer than 300 vehicles.

However, this does not mean Lex Autolease intends to follow the move by some rivals, such as GE, to only focus on large fleets.

Stead said: ‘We want to take advantage of new business opportunities – corporate, regional and smaller businesses. There is growth in all these sectors.’

On Whitechapel, he said: ‘We haven’t sought to write business with small fleets for some time – it doesn’t work for them. We have transferred them to another Lex Autolease product, a lot to contract hire. There has been very little attrition.’ (Fleet News: October 27).

Tata Motors sees surging profits

India’s largest carmaker, Tata Motors, which owns Jaguar Land Rover in the UK, has soundly beaten expectations for its quarterly profit. The company made a net profit of 7.29bn rupees ($156m; £96m) for the three months to September, up from 3.47bn rupees in the same period last year. Analysts had forecast net income of 4.32bn rupees for the quarter.

Tata said its market share in passenger cars in India was 11.6 per cent. It added that it had commenced delivery of the Tata Nano, the world’s cheapest car.

Sales in the quarter were 79.24bn rupees, up from 70.3bn in the same quarter last year.
Nano reaches market

Tata said it had delivered 7,506 Nanos so far, made at its factory in Uttarakhand, a state in northern India. Tata abandoned plans to build the cars in the state of West Bengal due to a row over land acquired from farmers. The cheap car is currently being made in factories Tata already has running.

The Nano costs 100,000 rupees, or about £1,300.

Tata moved into the luxury market last year when it bought Jaguar Land Rover from Ford for $2.3bn.

‘The company has commenced deliveries of Jaguar and Land Rover vehicles which have received an encouraging response from the market,’ Tata said.

It said sales of passenger vehicles – including Jaguar – Land Rover and Fiat cars – in India rose by 27.3 per cent to 60,917 in the quarter. Earlier this month, it raised $750m from investors to pay down the remaining debt from the purchase of Jaguar Land Rover. (BBC.co.uk: October 27).

New sales director for Autoglass

AUTOGLASS has appointed André May as sales director. He joins Autoglass following a successful career as sales director for O’Brien Glass in Sydney, Australia. During his time with O’Brien Glass, he was responsible for the sales team and key account management across both the building and automotive glass businesses. His responsibilities also included overseeing the customer contact centre.

Earlier in his career, May held a range of sales and marketing positions for companies such as Coca Cola and Telecom New Zealand, arming him with the knowledge needed to bring success to high profile brands.

Nigel Doggett, managing director at Autoglass said: ‘He brings to the role a wealth of experience in leading successful account management and sales teams. With such expertise and knowledge, André will help us to develop the business further by improving the service we deliver to our insurance and fleet customers.’ (Autoglass: October 27).

Honda profits take a nosedive

Honda’s profits for the July to September period more than halved after car sales continued to fall during the global economic downturn. Net profit came in at 54bn yen ($587m; £359m) for the quarter, down 56 per cent on the 123.3bn yen recorded a year earlier.

Japan’s second-largest carmaker said the strong yen had contributed to a fall in sales in overseas markets. But the fall in profits was less than had been expected and the carmaker tripled its full-year profit forecast. Honda says it will now make a net profit of 155bn yen for the year to the end of March, up from its previous forecast of 55bn yen.

It also raised its full-year sales forecast, to 3.4 million cars from 3.29 million cars.
Despite the increase in projected future sales, revenue in the third quarter fell by 27 per cent from a year ago.

This was largely due to falling car sales in overseas markets. Sales in Japan have been less affected, largely due to government tax breaks and incentives on hybrids such as the new Honda Insight. (BBC.co.uk: October 27).

British Gas chooses Trimble for telematics deal

British Gas has signed a deal with Trimble that will improve customer service and reduce the carbon footprint of its workforce. Trimble, the provider of mobile resource management (MRM) solutions, says the deal to implement the GeoManager advance tracking solution will benefit more than 8,000 mobile field engineers.

As part of the GeoManager system, British Gas will be installing the new Trimble Driver DNA box. Otherwise known as the TVG-660, the new Driver DNA hardware provides additional vehicle diagnostic information on driver behaviour, vehicle condition, faults, fuel efficiency and CO2 emissions. The Driver DNA box also captures traditional GPS tracking data such as vehicle position and activity, which will allow British Gas to maximise productivity, profitability and efficiency.

‘We’re delighted to support British Gas in its service-delivery promise,’ says Andrew Yeoman, MD of Trimble EMEA.

‘Providing British Gas with the Driver DNA box will allow them to achieve benefits we’ve seen in customer trials including reducing fuel costs by up to 15 per cent and boosting driver compliance by 18 per cent. Shareholders and the environment will also benefit through reduced operational costs, lower fuel use and an improved carbon footprint.’

The move comes just months after Trimble agreed a deal with British Telecom, which uses GeoManager for more than 17,000 mobile workers in Openreach.

Trimble provides the world’s largest companies with solutions to help manage their workforces effectively and provide customer service excellence in the most environmentally friendly and cost effective way. Trimble products are used in more than 100 countries around the world. (Trimble: October 27).