30/03/2016 BBC Business Live

This is Business Live from BBC News with Sally Bundock and Aaron

Up for sale: Tata Steel says it plans

to sell its loss-making business in the UK,

putting thousands of steel jobs at risk.

Live from London, that's our top story on Wednesday,

Union leaders are calling for emergency talks

with the British Prime Minister after Tata says trading conditions

What now for Port Talbot and the UK steel industry?

We'll be live to the Tata headquarters for the latest.

Also in the programme.

India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi is meeting with EU leaders

in Brussels - the hope is trade talks can be re-energised.

the US dollar is sinking and so is the price of oil -

but markets across Europe have opened higher.

We'll talk you through the winners and losers.

And we talk to the man behind Ella's Kitchen -

that's a UK-based baby food company which has become an international

If you want to get in touch, we've love to hear from you.

As ever, it's a packed show so let's get started.

India's Tata Steel says it plans to sell its loss-making UK business,

putting the jobs of thousands of workers at risk.

Union leaders had travelled to Mumbai in a bid to persuade Tata

too keep making steel at plants, including Port Talbot.

The struggling steel works is estimated to be losing

Tata says conditions have rapidly deteriorated due to the global

oversupply of steel, high costs and currency volatility.

Labour Member of Parliament Stephen Kinnock, whose constituency includes

the Port Talbot plant, accompanied the union

The indication was that the turnaround plan was not

acceptable to the board and so then you have to look at other options.

That's something that will move forward, I think,

As we know the long products part of the business

I think there's a lot of confidence that

a buyer will be found and all of the options are now

being explored and the European board of Tata Steel has

Sameer Hashmi is in the BBC's Mumbai bureau.

Good to see you. As you very well know, a huge story in Britain and a

rather emotive story as well but for the company, this particular plant

in Wales was losing nearly $1.5 million a day. I can only imagine

the company and the board saying that they had no option, they can't

keep running at those kind of losses. They have been toying with

the idea for a while now. They took over the UK operations in 2007 after

they bought Corus but they have struggled to make any kind of money

from the beginning. It was the 2008 downturn and in the last few years,

demand has fallen, global demand for steel. What has made operations

really difficult for them and the market conditions really difficult

are the cheap Chinese imports. If you talk to Tata Steel officials,

they will tell you there's no way can compete with China. They will

find it really difficult, even in the coming years, to find any new

buyers which could help prop up the sales. And they also don't see

demand for steel going up. If you look at the two main reasons behind

that, you clearly realise that Tata Steel see no future in terms of

making any kind of money when it comes to the UK and even Europe if

you look at the big picture. I know the union leaders travel to Mumbai

and they were there yesterday at headquarters and had all sorts of

ideas and plans for restructuring. There is now talk that there would

be a sale but also possibly the workforce might team up and try to

buyout this part of the business. Various ideas being mooted now. Yes,

there are all sorts of talks and options being considered. Will the

UK Government intervene in some form? The Tatas have been talking to

the government for a while with the government with some kind of rescue

package coming in with the rules from the UK Government which is an

option the Tatas have not closed entirely. Although they want to sell

UK operations completely, they realise that realistically speaking,

it won't be possible any time in the near future because of market

conditions. Even a partial sale of the operations, some help from the

UK Government or some other investor, they are looking at all

the options. I think the key point is, they are not shutting operations

but they have not given any clear timeline either as to when they are

really going to wait until. That is the key question. If they don't find

a buyer in the next year or so, or in the near future, what will they

do? Wait longer? Could they go back to look at the whole option shutting

it down again? That is the key question which is still unanswered.

Thank you for joining us. That is the latest from the bike and there

is so much detail online on this story. Take a look when you have

time. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi

is in Brussels to begin talks with EU leaders in an attempt

to restart stalled negotiations Trade between the two is worth more

than $81 billion a year. India would like to have greater

access to the single market - particularly for its IT

and out sourcing industries. particularly for its IT

and outsourcing industries. While the EU would like to see heavy

import duties on cars made Boeing says it will cut more

than 4,500 jobs by June. The plane-maker says it's

accelerating its cost-cutting The move comes despite record

orders for Boeing's jets. The group has recently been losing

market share to rival Airbus. More trouble for Brazil's

President Dilma Rousseff. The PMDB, the largest party

in the ruling coalition, has voted for an "immediate exit"

from her government. The move could hasten

impeachment proceedings against President Rousseff,

who the opposition want to remove over claims she manipulated accounts

to hide a growing deficit. The embattled president has now

cancelled a trip to attend a summit She has got stuff to deal with at

home. A lot on her plate. I very nicely did this, a lot on her plate

and a lot of money on this man's plate. I'm trying to find him. Look

at that, the Google boss, Sundar Pichai, got $100 million in his

first year at the helm. I know it's a big company but seriously?

Interesting to look back on their last 12 months and what they have

achieved. Of the top of my head, I don't know if their earnings have

been in those kind of figures. But if you were a Google shareholder and

you knew he was paid that much, you would want to know you are getting

value for money. It also just makes you think that we took the wrong

path! Seriously. We have both been here a very long

time. Let's take a look round the world

at what's business stories China's big four state-run

banks are set to report And it's not expected

to be good news. Ashleigh Nghiem is

in Singapore for us. This will give us an indication of

their health or otherwise of the banks, right? That's right, it's a

very different story to the Google boss! We had a bit of an idea

yesterday with the data out from China's fifth largest bank, the Bank

Of Communications where profits rose about 1% and we are likely to see

the same sort of result from the big four lenders which report today and

tomorrow. There profits are respected B-flat. The banks are

owned by the Chinese garment and their main road was our other state

owned enterprises. Chinese regulators last year flagged up that

non-performing loans were at a 10-year high, at a whopping $195

billion. They are trying to find ways for China's big banks to swap

their debt to the shares. That is not going down very well. In the

past 17 months, China's Central bank has cut interest rates six times

which is limiting profits and squeezing the margins. So we must of

course keep an eye out for the banks when they report and we will update

you when we hear from China's four biggest banks.

But now, the markets around the world and in Asia it was all about

reaction to Janet Yellen, the US chair of the Federal Reserve, giving

her speech about the state of the US economy and the global economy and

what it means for future interest-rate decisions. So caution

was the word from her. The dollar has gone down, the price of oil has

gone down and also Japan went down because the yen strengthened

significantly so goods made in Japan sold overseas are that much more

extended to buy is a big players in Japan had a tough day. But elsewhere

across the board in Asia, they were really pleased with what Janet

Yellen had to say. Looking at markets across Europe, gains right

across the board as well. Let's look head to the day on Wall Street as

well with Michelle. The question this Wednesday is can

the latest Janet Yellen rally last more than an after union? Federal

Reserve J Janet Yellen gave what was widely interpreted as a dovish

speech in New York on Tuesday which broke US stocks higher and the

dollar lower. Wednesday's trading should give us a clue as to whether

Janet Yellen has fundamentally shifted Wall Street's expectations

or if that was just a blip. Elsewhere, traders can take a look

at the payroll company ADP's gauge of the US job market and the

government's data is likely to show that the economy is continuing to

create jobs at a healthy pace, whatever slight worries about the

outlook Janet Yellen may be feeling. There's also earnings from the

world's biggest cruise operator, Carnival. Let's stay with the

markets with Richard Hunter. I guess let's stick with what Michelle said,

which is kind of the dominating factor at the moment, anyway, one

big part of the market is Janet Yellen, the big boss of the American

central bank. Not as gung ho as she was a few months ago, right? It

remains the world's largest economy but there are still questions over

China, let alone anywhere else. And so a lot of investors are looking to

the US for comfort. This is why it is so important, whenever she stand

up to speak, people are trying to read between the lines of what she

is saying. Easy to read between the lines this time because she brought

quite a bit of clarity. She did and the US markets were fairly positive

overnight. One of the things is perhaps the US economy is now strong

enough to withstand a further interest rate hike. Perhaps even

when it comes, it is still going to be on a pretty gradual basis. She's

not looking to deal rate -- to derail any recovery and sentiment

has certainly improved since where we were in mid-February. The FTSE

this morning, given the current games we are seeing, it is now down

well under 1% in the year-to-date which is a rather different

situation than we saw earlier in the year. Looking ahead to Friday, we

used to say it is the all-important US jobs numbers, the payroll. But

are we at a point now where the number is important but not as

important as it used to be because we are looking at other things now

like inflation and productivity. You are absolutely right, the 200,000

headline figure that markets like disease seems to be entrenched. The

unemployment rate is still clearly under control. It absolutely about

productivity. When it starts to tighten, that is when we didn't get

into some kind of inflation which is what everybody wants. When rates

going up again in the US? Probably June. I'm going to write that down.

You will come back and take us through the papers. We will see you

shortly. Still to come. We hear from the man who setup

a UK-based baby food company which has become

an international hit. You're with Business

Live from BBC News. Let's get more reaction to the news

that India's Tata Steel is to sell its loss-making UK

business, putting the jobs The UK and Welsh governments have

said they are working "tirelessly" to ensure the future

of the British steel industry, but unions say the once-proud

industry is "on the verge Ben has been following this story

this morning, and he's Good to see you, Ben, and also

reports are suggesting that the government has not ruled out

possible state control or something of that nature, right? Yes, it is

very early days. The amounts and that we got overnight that the

future is in doubt for the UK steel plants so big question is already

about the future of the entire industry in the UK. The Port Talbot

side, the biggest in the UK. To get a hint of about what might happen to

it, we have to look to Scunthorpe because the Tata Steel plant their

is currently on the table and a private equity firm is in talks to

buy it. They would buy it and run it as a going concern. A lot of people

looking at that is one option. No deal yet but they said the talks and

progress is on track. But also questions about whether the

government could get involved and whether there could be full

nationalisation or if they could take an equity stake in it to try to

prop it up with some cash. Already, questions about whether the current

management at Port Talbot could do a management buyout, to run the

business by injecting some cash and running it themselves. Lots of

options on the table but the big question which is the most viable? I

spoke to one expert at it earlier and this is what he told me.

One obvious option would be for the government to buy it out right. That

would have one great attraction. If they don't do that, the order book

from Port Talbot words ever way to the other Tata plant. That would be

one stop gap action. But in the longer run, a management buyout and

workforce buyout, would be one option but somebody would have to be

there with deep pockets. It is deep pockets they would need. It needs

modernising and restructuring. Early days about what would happen, but

the future of that is in doubt. Our top story today is Tata steel has

decided it will put its UK operations up for sale. Thousands of

steel jobs are hanging in the balance. A lot more on that online.

Imagine quitting your job as a TV executive to setup your own company

which becomes a global baby food brand in just a decade.

Ella's Kitchen started life ten years ago and now enjoys an annual

The company sells its products across 40 markets including the US,

Paul Lindley trained as an accountant and worked his way

up to being deputy managing director at Nickelodeon before deciding

Great to have you. Thanks for all the baby food Ruddock 's, by the

way. Not want! Let me ask you this, you set up this company to help

tackle childhood obesity. I am not a father, but surrounded by lots of

kids, this is baby food! The obesity problems is not with kids? It is,

from the early stages if you introduce them to vegetables, then

fruit and organic food from the very beginning, they will have that

relationship for the rest of their lives with the food. It is what I

started with, purpose and proffered together. Build a profitable

business but also have a purpose behind it. Talk us through that

journey. You were an accountant, then you are working at a kid's TV

channel. He became a dad and have two children, then you start a

business making food. How did you know it would become profitable

eventually because you ploughed a lot of your savings into this? You

don't know, because that is the risk. Entrepreneurs have to have a

passion for what they do, a belief in what they are doing and the

service they are providing. They have got to have some creativity.

Otherwise everybody would be doing it. We created brand-new innovation

in the packaging and made it different. The third thing is about

the consumer and understanding the consumers as best as possible. That

is what we did. You were quoted in an interview to Forbes magazine, you

advise entrepreneurs to think like a toddler, what are you mean by that?

So inspired by toddlers, they are all caught demographic and consumer.

What they do, they look at the world with open eyes and they are not

prejudiced by anything. They are more honest than we are as adults so

they don't miss communicate. They are more creative and can think

laterally. The world of toddlers, so much we could learn as an adult. We

are writing a book about it and it will be published next year. If I

could talk about Ella's Kitchen, the food products. I know it really

well, I have three boys and it was great for me at the time when I was

in a hurry and I wanted to feed my kids what I thought was healthy

food. You package it really well, list what is in it, rockabilly,

mashed potato and a bit of strawberry. Our use selling to the

wrong set of parents, in the sense that the children that might perhaps

struggle with issues of obesity and diabetes, or problems with food,

might not necessarily be the middle-class, yummy mummies, who I

know well that I using your products? About a third of our kids

are overweight and 20% are obese. It covers all parts of society. Ella's

Kitchen is sold in all supermarkets across the country and in 40

countries around the world. We can't have the market share we have in the

UK by just going to one demographic. But we do predominately sell our

products across the range. There are parts of the country we don't reach.

We use our credibility and influence what we have built up and out which

two other areas. In Leicester, couple of years ago we had this

project across a month where we gave free meals to kids at nurseries, we

had dieticians in supermarkets to help people shop. We gave cooking

lessons at food ranks in the Market Square. All designed to encourage a

change in behaviour. We need a behaviour change in this country. To

companies like you stop us from cooking? You make it too easy. We

want to improve children's lives. We produce cookbooks about cooking from

scratch, about the joy of encouraging your toddler to build a

shopping list, have fun in the supermarket, get the food out of the

oven when it is warm and they have cooked it. They are all involved

together. Involving people from scratch is what we are about. We

will have to leave it there, unfortunately, but we appreciate you

coming in. So you are surrounded by kids, Aaron? Yes, lots of nieces and

nephews. I thought you meant the people here.

In a moment we'll take a look through the Business Pages but first

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False Lagan facing a 15 billion dollar hit over false advertising

claim. ! Volts wagon. When the scandal of the emissions broke, one

of the concerns investors had, wiped 40% of the share price quickly and

over any period of time, a number of lawsuits would be coming through.

It's not dissimilar to what we saw with BP and that took five or six

years for the lawsuits to come through and this is one of those

coming through in The States as what they consider misleading.

There will be more. Someone trying to gauge the cost of this to a

company, like we were, trying to total it up, we didn't hint it had a

TV advertising campaign to cause people to sue. You are right, some

of the speculation around the cumulative amount of the lawsuit

that could be coming from all sorts of unexpected corners, could exceed

the value of the company. That is one of the great unknown is that has

been a concern. And also Volkswagon having problems with its electric

them? Yes, fault in the batteries them? Yes, fault in the batteries

that is making the car stalled. While it is driving, it could stall?

Absolutely. It is a difficult time for Volkswagon. This time yesterday,

we didn't make it on there because we were rolling with the unfolding

drama in Larnaca airport in Cyprus where an aircraft was forced to land

by what they thought was a hijacker. Didn't turn out to be, but it wasn't

the mad bomber everybody thought. Here is this British guy who

decides, I am going to take a quick photo with the bomber. What do you

think? It has got to be a caption competition. Get me out of here! I

am not a celebrity, get me of this claim.

There will be more business news throughout the day on the BBC Live

web page and on World Business Report.