Rolling coverage of the latest economic and financial news, as non-essential shops reopen in England, and pubs and restaurants welcome customers outside
Despite the threat of rain (and this morning’s snow!), people have been taking advantage of the chance for a drink or a meal outside again today.
And these photos from Manchester show the sun had made a welcome appearance:
The weather didn’t dampen spirits elsewhere, either...
More Britons returned to England’s roads and public transport today as non-essential retailers reopened after almost 100 days of lockdown.
All shops in England were allowed to welcome customers again on Monday in the latest easing of restrictions, while pubs and restaurants were allowed to serve customers outdoors.
In London the number of passengers getting off at stations near shops such as Oxford Street, Stratford and Westfield doubled between 10am and midday compared to last Tuesday, the first working day of last week.
Transport for London said that there were 690,000 bus journeys on Monday by 10am, 15% more than Tuesday.
Travel on the London Underground rose by 18%, although it remained at only a third of pre-pandemic demand. Live data from TomTom, a mapping company, showed the level of road congestion in major cities across England rose on Monday morning compared with Tuesday.
The tracker reported that rush-hour car journeys took 40% longer in London than in uncongested conditions, a 10 percentage point increase compared with the same time a week before. Locations which saw significant week-on-week rises in congestion levels on Monday also included Manchester, Birmingham and Newcastle. In some parts of Britain the return to public transport was slower. The government continues to advise workers in England to work from home if possible, and to minimise travel.
A spokesperson for London Northwestern Railway, which carries passengers between London, Birmingham and Liverpool, said:
“There’s been a relatively small increase in the West Midlands but not huge numbers of people flocking back to the railway.”
In South Yorkshire the local railway police have placed officers at Meadowhall, Doncaster and Sheffield rail stations, “to ensure everyone enjoys the easing of lockdown”.
Tech news: Microsoft is buying artificial intelligence and speech technology firm Nuance Communications.
The deal will strengthen Microsoft’s voice recognition technologies, and also bolster its position in the healthcare market, where Nuance sells many products.
MS is paying $56 per share for Nuance, a 23% premium over the company’s closing price last Friday. The deal is worth $19.7 billion, inclusive of Nuance’s net debt - making it Microsoft’s second largest takeover, after LinkedIn back in 2016.
In a statement, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, explains:
“Nuance provides the AI layer at the healthcare point of delivery and is a pioneer in the real-world application of enterprise AI.
“AI is technology’s most important priority, and healthcare is its most urgent application. Together, with our partner ecosystem, we will put advanced AI solutions into the hands of professionals everywhere to drive better decision-making and create more meaningful connections, as we accelerate growth of Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare and Nuance.”
Technology news site The Verge says the deal will allow Microsoft to add more digital transcription features to its services:
Digital transcription has become more reliable in a range of settings, from medical consultations to board meetings and university lectures. The uptick in remote work has also created new opportunities. With so many meetings taking place via video, it is easier to offer customers transcriptions via software integrated directly into these calls. Zoom, for example, offers automatic transcription via integration with third-party services like Otter.
For Microsoft, which makes roughly two-thirds of its revenue from enterprise software sales and cloud computing, improving its transcription services for scenarios like these makes complete sense. The company could integrate Nuance’s technology into its existing software, like Teams, or offer it independently as part of its Azure cloud business.
Microsoft buys AI speech tech company Nuance for $19.7 billion https://t.co/sm8kGXvQ02 pic.twitter.com/mIzSydRoty
— The Verge (@verge) April 12, 2021
A new campaign has been launched today, to encourage retailers to consider the needs of shoppers with hearing impairments during the pandemic.
Called #WeSupportDeafAwareness, it launched at The Oracle Shopping Centre in Reading this morning.
It is created by Simon Houghton, whose social media post about the frustrations of lipreading during the pandemic mask restrictions went viral recently.
The campaign provides training to help businesses, charities and other groups teach employees to be more empathetic to the needs of customers and colleagues with a hearing impairment, provide them with greater awareness about what it is like to be deaf, as well as tips that will help them to better communicate with the deaf or hard of hearing.
He explains:
“Deafness is a ‘hidden disability’, and people with hearing difficulties already feel isolated.
For many deaf people, they rely on lipreading, and the pandemic has made communication almost impossible with the need to stay safe and wear masks. Many employees in essential services have not understood just how difficult it is to communicate without the ability to lipread, and have not had the awareness training to manage this effectively. Some simply do not seem to understand what is meant by ‘lipreading’, and many have been reluctant to take their masks off, even when maintaining social distances.”
The campaign also hopes businesses will display the #WeSupportDeafAwareness signs in their reception areas, offices, shop fronts and online, to show that staff have been trained to understand the issue.
There are more details here.
First #WeSupportDeafAwareness Retail Centre open for 12th April! @OracleReading - all 100 retailers onboard. So excited!! #disabilityinclusion pic.twitter.com/ZfcQP054wX
— support@wesupportdeafawareness.org (@Deaf_Aware) April 8, 2021
Retail visitors on Oxford Street, Bond Street, Regent Street and Mayfair today are around 44% of the usual April footfall, according to New West End Company (which represent 600 businesses in the area).
CEO Jace Tyrrell says this is slightly better than expected - but also shows that the sector needs ongoing help.
“Footfall this morning was slightly above our predictions, and was an encouraging start to reopening. We saw around 44 percent of the usual number of April visitors, with domestic shoppers out in force, but until international shoppers return the West End businesses will continue to need extra government support.”
“This is why we have written to the government to ask for an extension of Sunday trading hours in Britain’s two international centres - London’s West End and Knightsbridge. Greater flexibility on Sundays is vital to attract customers back into the capital, giving them the opportunity to spend what they want, when they want, all the while boosting the wider economy and crucially protecting jobs.”
Springboard have now issued updated footfall figures, covering all of this morning’s trading up to noon.
They show that customers numbers have roughly doubled so far today compared with last Monday morning (April 5th, which was a bank holiday), up 101% week-on-week.
That’s a slowdown on the 200%-plus surge in shopper numbers early this morning (up until 10am), when people were queuing to get into retailers, pubs and barbers.
Overall this morning, footfall was nearly 36% lower than on the comparable Monday morning in April 2019, Springboard adds. But it’s still up almost 350% compared with a year ago, during the first lockdown.
Central London continues to lag - with shopper numbers down over 70% compared with 15th April 2019.
In the accountancy world, KPMG’s partners have voted “overwhelmingly” to approve the nomination of Jon Holt as the firm’s UK chief executive.
Holt, formerly KPMG’s head of audit, takes over two months after former KPMG UK chair, Bill Michael, quit after telling staff to “stop moaning” during a virtual meeting.
In other news...the cybersecurity firm Darktrace has announced plans to float on the London Stock Exchange, in a move that will reportedly value the Cambridge-based company at £3bn.
It is the first big company to have chosen the City for its initial public offering (IPO) since Deliveroo’s disappointing stock market debut last month.
Darktrace, founded in Cambridge in 2013, employs more than 1,500 staff globally and is backed by the tech entrepreneur Mike Lynch. It claims to have been the first to use artificial intelligence to detect and tackle cybersecurity threats on a large scale.
The firm, which has 4,600 customers including Rolls-Royce and memory chip producer Micron, said demand for some of its products surged last year as companies scrambled to keep up with security risks following the boom in homeworking during the Covid outbreak. Darktrace started offering its services to the NHS, free of charge, at the start of the pandemic.
The IPO will value Darktrace, co-headquartered in Cambridge and San Francisco, at about £3bn, making its chief executive Poppy Gustafsson’s stake worth about £20m, according to Sky News. More here:
Outdoor hospitality venues including museums, theme parks and zoos have also been welcoming people back....
Here’s Reuters’ early take on this morning’s footfall numbers:
The reopening of England’s shopping districts drew the crowds on Monday, with footfall across all UK retail destinations to 10am BST jumping 218% on last week, Springboard data showed.
Springboard said UK footfall to shopping centres had risen by 340%. With infection numbers falling in Britain, English shops, hairdressers, gyms and pub gardens reopened early on Monday.
And here’s some early reaction from Howard Archer of EY Item Club...
Widely anticipated surge in #shopper #footfall as non-essential #retailers re-open appears to be materializing!
— Howard Archer (@HowardArcherUK) April 12, 2021
Shopper numbers jump 218% as England reopens economy https://t.co/LQY3Fhmgm5
and the BBC’s Rob Young:
We have hit the shops big time today!
— Rob Young (@robyounguk) April 12, 2021
Footfall is up 339.7% in shopping centres, 232.8% in high streets and 58.2% on retail parks week on week, says Springboard.
On pre-pandemic 2019, all UK retail destinations’ footfall today is 14.7% lower, but retail parks are up +12.6%
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