COMPANY NEWS IN BRIEF

SAB lays off 550 temporary workers

South African Breweries (SAB), a unit of Anheuser-Busch InBev, has suspended the contracts of 550 temporary workers indefinitely with immediate effect due to the latest ban on alcohol sales, Business Times reported on Sunday.

This will reduce SAB's current workforce to 5 357, the Sunday Times business paper said, adding that staff affected received their last payment on Friday and will receive no income during the suspension.

"The third alcohol ban has resulted in reduced demand for temporary workers' skills. This is no fault of their own but rather a result of the current operating environment," SAB's vice-president of corporate affairs Zoleka Lisa told the paper.

"We realise the impact this decision will have on 550 families who will sadly have to go without because of the uncertainty of the alcohol ban." SAB was not immediately available for comment.

The workers who have lost their jobs are mostly part of the brewer's supply and logistics division and include packers and delivery personnel, Business Times said. - Nampa/Reuters

BP's oil exploration team swept aside

Nothing escapes the winds of change now sweeping through BP, not even the exploration team that for more than a century powered its profits by discovering billions of barrels of oil.

Its geologists, engineers and scientists have been cut to less than 100 from a peak of more than 700 a few years ago, company sources told Reuters, part of a climate change-driven overhaul triggered last year by CEO Bernard Looney.

"The winds have turned very chilly in the exploration team since Looney's arrival. This is happening incredibly fast," a senior member of the team told Reuters.

Hundreds have left the oil exploration team in recent months, either transferred to help develop new low-carbon activities or laid off, current and former employees said.

The exodus is the starkest sign yet from inside the company of its rapid shift away from oil and gas, which will nevertheless, be its main source of cash to finance a switch to renewables for at least the next decade. BP declined to comment on the staffing changes, which have not been publicly disclosed.

BP is cutting some 10 000 jobs, around 15% of its workforce, under Looney's restructuring, the most aggressive among Europe's oil giants including Royal Dutch Shell and Total. - Nampa/Reuters

Volkswagen to claim damages from suppliers

German car manufacturer Volkswagen is in talks with its main suppliers about possible claims for damages due to a shortage of semiconductors, a company spokesman said on Sunday.

Automakers around the world are shutting assembly lines due to problems in the delivery of semiconductors, which in some cases have been exacerbated by the former Trump administration's actions against key Chinese chip factories.

The shortage has affected Volkswagen, Ford Motor Co, Subaru Corp, Toyota Motor Corp, Nissan Motor Co Ltd, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles and other car makers.

"For Volkswagen, the top priority is to minimise the effects of the semiconductor bottleneck on production," the Volkswagen spokesman said, adding the company wanted to resolve the problem in close cooperation with its suppliers.

Among the affected car suppliers are Germany's Bosch and Continental, which in return are dependent on chip suppliers in Taiwan and other Asian countries.

Volkswagen had communicated to its suppliers shortly after the first lockdown in spring that it was ramping up production to pre-pandemic levels again, industry sources said. – Nampa/Reuters

Orange sells fixed fibre assets in France

Orange, France's leading telecoms operator, said late on Friday that it agreed to sell part of its fixed fibre assets in the country to a consortium of three investors for about 1.3 billion euros (US$1.58 billion).

It is the first time that the Paris-based company, which is also carving out its mobile towers in most European countries to shore up the group's value, has announced a sale of part of its prized broadband network in France.

The move comes as the telecoms industry must invest to keep on deploying upgraded broadband networks in Europe as well as a costly new mobile Internet technology, or 5G.

The deal values Orange Concessions at 2.675 billion euros, the company said. The entity covers about 4.5 million so-called fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) plugs in rural France.

The group is following similar moves by other European firms that are looking to sell mobile networks as infrastructure valuations surge on interest from investors such as US private equity firm KKR and Spain's Cellnex. - Nampa/Reuters

United Airlines calls on companies to mandate vaccination

United Airlines may make the Covid-19 vaccine mandatory for employees, and other companies should do the same, United Chief Executive Officer Scott Kirby told workers at a meeting on Thursday, according to a transcript reviewed by Reuters.

“I think the right thing to do is for United Airlines, and for other companies, to require the vaccines and to make them mandatory,” Kirby said.

“If others go along and are willing to start to mandate vaccines, you should probably expect United to be amongst the first wave of companies that do it.”

Private US companies can require employees to get vaccinated against Covid-19, but are unlikely to do so because of the risks of legal and cultural backlash, experts have said.

Companies are still in the early stages of navigating access and distribution of vaccines against the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, but inoculation is considered the key to safely resume operations at crowded warehouses, factory lines and on sales floors. - Nampa/Reuters