French engineer GTT’s chief executive resigns, sending shares down 5% – as the company prepares a strategic review of its loss-making Elogen green hydrogen business.
(Reuters) -French engineering group GTT’s Chief Executive Jean-Baptiste Choimet resigned on Monday, sending its shares down more than 5%, as the company prepares a strategic review of its loss-making Elogen business.
Elogen, which specialises in designing electrolysers for producing green hydrogen, failed to secure any significant orders last year and registered a core loss of 33 million euros ($34 million), GTT said.
Restructuring plans for Elogen include job cuts that could total 110 and suspension of construction at its gigafactory in Vendome, GTT said.
GTT Chairman Philippe Berterottiere will replace Choimet as CEO on an interim basis, the group added.
Elogen had planned to start electrolyser production at Vendome this year.
GTT also confirmed its revenue and core profit targets for 2024, saying they would come at the upper range of the projections announced in October.
($1 = 0.9697 euros)
Four young staffers working under Elon Musk gained access to highly sensitive personal data held by a consumer protection agency before shutting it down.
White House budget director Russell Vought ordered wider access to Consumer Financial Protection Bureau materials by staffers working for the so-called Department of Government Efficiency over the weekend before agency chief operating officer Adam Martinez ordered all its employees to stay home for the week, reported Bloomberg News.
The publication reported,
The actions began last Thursday, when four young staffers working under Musk for [DOGE] showed up at CFPB’s Washington headquarters,
“At first, they had what was described as read-only access to a limited array of documents, including the agency’s internal personnel files, procurement records and budgeting and financial data, according to an email shared among CFPB officials.”
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The report added,
Then, late Friday night, the DOGE staffers were granted access to all the CFPB’s data systems, including sensitive bank examination and enforcement records, according to five people familiar with the matter and emails seen by Bloomberg News,
“The people asked not to be identified, citing concerns over potential retribution. By Sunday, the agency was a skeleton, with its funding limited and activities suspended.”
The UK likely slipped into contraction in the final quarter of last year, in a further indication of the challenges facing Chancellor Rachel Reeves as she seeks to fire up the economy.
New figures set to be released on Thursday are expected to show that the UK economy shrunk 0.1 per cent in the three months to December.
This would cap off a disappointing end to the year, after the economy stagnated between July and September, and raises the unwelcome prospect of a recession.
“The risk of a recession, albeit a mild one, is real,” analysts at Capital Economics said, pointing out that there were “few signs of a turnaround” so far in the New Year.
Rob Wood, chief UK economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, also expected to see the economy shrink, but he pointed out that small changes to previous releases could stave off contraction.
He said,
A small upward revision to November’s GDP would be enough to avoid GDP falling in Q4 as a whole,
Either way, the figures will add to the gloom facing the UK economy at the start of 2025, with many analysts warning that it faces ‘stagflation‘ – the combination of weak growth and sticky inflation.
Fears about stagflation were highlighted last week after the Bank of England published its latest set of economic forecasts.
The Bank slashed its 2025 growth estimate to 0.7 per cent rise, compared to the 1.5 per cent it anticipated in November. Bank officials also predicted that the headline rate of inflation would rise to 3.7 per cent later in the year, which could potentially slow the pace of interest rate cuts.
The figures will make difficult reading for Chancellor Reeves as she seeks to turn the page on a torrid first six months in power.
Having expanded at a relatively fast pace early last year, the economy has been more or less stagnant since Labour’s election victory last summer.
Measures of corporate and consumer confidence plummeted in the wake of October’s Budget, in which Reeves announced £40bn worth of tax hikes.
Surveys indicate that firms are cutting jobs at the fastest rate since the pandemic in anticipation of the extra payroll costs, which will filter through in April.
Over the past few weeks Reeves has announced a range of measures – such as a third runway at Heathrow and changes to the planning regime – to try and reinvigorate the economy.
Most economists expect growth will pick up throughout the remainder of the year, driven by the healthy state of household balance sheets.
Wood at Pantheon said,
We remain optimistic that growth will rebound,
“Real wages are rising strongly, and consumers are scaling back their saving, supporting consumption.”
Norway has long been the global leader in electric vehicle adoption, with nine out of ten new cars running solely on electricity in 2024, according to NAF and Boosted.
But despite their overwhelming dominance, a growing number of drivers are having second thoughts about going fully electric, raising doubts about whether Norway will hit its ambitious goal of 100 percent EV sales by 2025.
Not Everyone’s Sold
EV sales in Norway aren’t slowing down—if anything, they’re still climbing. By 2025, projections suggest 95 percent of new car buyers will opt for electric.
But beneath the surface, there’s hesitation.
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French engineer GTT’s chief executive resigns, sending shares down 5% – as the company prepares a strategic review of its loss-making Elogen green hydrogen business, source
