12/02/2018 BBC Business Live

This is Business Live from BBC

News with Ben Thompson

and Samantha Simmonds.

London City Airport has been closed

after a World War Two bomb

has been found nearby in the River

Thames.

Live from London,

that's our top story

on Monday 12th February

Not cleared for takeoff -

thousands of passengers will be

affected as all flights

are cancelled at

London's City Airport.

We will have the details that you

need to know.

Also in the programme:

Barclays Bank is charged

by Britain's Serious Fraud Office

over a loan to the state

of Qatar in 2008.

And it is a new week on the market

and this is how the numbers look...

Investors keeping a very close eye

on inflation and we will explain

why.

And we'll be getting

the inside track on the man who's

business is a bit of a mouthful -

with the boss of of a mouthguard

firm that supplies

the England Rugby team.

And remember you can

get in touch with us,

about any of the stories we're

covering this morning.

Just use the hashtag #BBCBizLive.

Hello and welcome to Business Live.

It is a busy show, so let's get

started with news that...

London City Airport has been closed

after a World War Two bomb

was found nearby in the River

Thames.

The Royal Navy are

removing the device.

The airport will be shut

all day and all flights

have been cancelled,

affecting up to 16,000 passengers.

Last year, more than 4.5 million

people used London City Airport,

which is close to London's

financial district.

Our News Correspondent

Andy Moore joins me now.

Welcome. This is the closest airport

to the City of London. 16,000 people

use it everyday. Tell us about how

many will be affected.

16,000 people

will be affected today. Something

like 200 flights. The airport is

used a lot by the business

community. A lot of people would

have been flying to go to work at

Canary Wharf or in the city. This

World War II bomb was found early

yesterday morning. The work at the

airport continued as usual. The

airport closed last night. The

decision was taken to get rid of the

device. An exclusion zone was

declared, about 200 metres or more.

Roads were closed, some homes were

evacuated. The operation to get rid

of the bomb has been ongoing

overnight. Question is, how long

will it take? For the rest of the

day, all flights in and out

cancelled. Some airlines are making

alternative arrangements. City Jet,

for example, which flies between

Dublin and London City Airport, they

are diverging quite a lot of their

flights to London Southend Airport.

If you were due to fly, contact your

airline, see if there are any

alternatives.

The bomb was

discovered the early hours of

yesterday morning. The airport was

closed until last night. Any

questions being asked about whether

that was a wise move, given it has

been closed all day today?

While it

was left alone it was OK. When the

operation started to try to remove

it that is when it becomes dangerous

and that was when the decision was

taken to setup this exclusion zone.

It was actually found during routine

work to expand the airport. They are

developing the airport. It was

found, we understand, by people

working on the construction site

yesterday morning. But it is only

when you tried to remove it that it

becomes potentially dangerous.

As

you say, hopefully it will be sorted

in the next few hours, but all of

people affected are advised to

contact their airline. Thank you

very much, Andy.

That you to date with another story

that has broken this morning. --

let's bring you up to date with.

The UK's Serious Fraud Office has

charged Barclays Bank PLC

with "unlawful financial assistance"

related to billions of pounds raised

from Qatari investors in 2008.

We will get more on that with our

correspondent Andrew Walker little

later.

Let's take a look

at some of the other

stories making the news.

Up to $5.5 billion of criminal money

in Europe is being laundered

through cryptocurrencies,

according to Europol.

The agency's director has told

the BBC that regulators and industry

leaders need to work together

to tackle the problem.

The warning comes after Bitcoin's

value halved in recent months

A landmark inquiry

into wrongdoing among

Australia's banks and financial

services has begun.

Australia's banks, which are among

the most profitable in the world,

have been accused of customer

exploitation and corporate fraud

among other scandals.

The state of New York

has filed a lawsuit

against Harvey Weinstein,

his brother and their production

company alleging the company's

executives and board failed

to protect employees

from Mr Weinstein.

The lawsuit comes four months

after the Hollywood mogul's career

ended in disgrace over allegations

of sexual misconduct

from more than 100 women.

The UK's Serious Fraud Office has

charged Barclays Bank PLC

with "unlawful financial assistance"

related to billions of pounds raised

from Qatari investors in 2008.

We will get more on that

with our correspondent

Andrew Walker joins us now.

Give us the background on this.

Let's get back to the financial

crisis. It was 2008. British banks

were under serious pressure in the

financial markets. Lloyds and RBS

both needed bailouts, injections of

Government funds. Barclays was

predictably, you might say, keen to

avoid that. They managed to find

some money from private investors,

particularly in the Middle East,

associated with the state of Qatar,

to put money in so that they were

able to get through the whole

episode without a Government

bailout. What has been alleged is

that a loan made at the same time,

by Barclays, to the state of Qatar,

a bit over £2 billion, was used

directly, or indirectly, to buy

those shares in Barclays. That

constitutes something in the

company's legislation which is

called unlawful financial

assistance. In the great majority of

cases, it is prohibited, basically.

There are conjugated circumstances

in which you can do this kind of

thing, but the general principle is

you may not lend money to an

investor to buy your own shares. And

that is what Barclays Bank is being

accused of. The wider holding group

has already been charged.

Would you

explain the significance? Some may

remember that Barclays was charged

in June of last year. That was the

holding company. This time it is the

bank itself.

That's right. The

holding company was charged last

summer. Along with four executives.

Including Sir John Vardy, the former

chief executive. There are a number

of charges that were made on that

occasion, particularly in relation

to the holding company, the specific

charge of unlawful financial

assistance is the one that is being

put in addition against Barclays

Bank, the actual banking operation.

There is the possibility of very

large fines. Barclays has been

trying to defend itself.

Thanks very

much.

Alibaba's entertainment arm has

signed a deal with Walt Disney

to show thousands of its animations

on its China streaming service.

The deal comes after

Disney shut down its own

streaming service in 2016.

Monica Miller is in Singapore

with more on this.

Monica?

The Chinese are about to get

their fill of Winnie the Pooh and

Elsa from Frozen. This is a big deal

with Disney. Alibaba Did not say how

much this would be. But it would be

streamed on its entertainment arm.

It will release more than 1000

Disney episodes. This deal comes

after Disney has been trying to get

into the mainland. They had a

venture which opened in 2016. It was

the company's Disney life online

content deal. But it only lasted

about five months. After the

operation got up and running. It is

unclear why authorities pulled the

plug on this. They are hoping that

this time they have better luck.

Just to give you an idea of just how

large the audience is, it has a

bigger following than Netflix, which

as of 2017 had 70 million members.

The Chinese video streaming platform

had 580 million devices. Alibaba It

already has a similar lysine deal

with Warner Brothers, Paramount,

Fox, NBC Universal, and Sony

Pictures.

Amazing when you see the

scale of the operation.

In Asia, markets getting

back on an even footing

after the volatility of last week.

South Korea and China gained 1.2%.

The concern is what it means for

inflation. Inflation is a real issue

for the markets.

In Europe, trade started like this,

but it's commodities,

particularly oil, that are seeing

the strongest gains right now,

and with more weakness for sterling,

that could help prop up the FTSE.

We could soon see oil back

above $60 per barrel.

That would keep investors busy right

now.

It's also a pretty quiet week

on the economics front,

apart from inflation

figures on Tuesday.

Brexit will dominate too -

Prime Minister Theresa May and some

senior Brexit cabinet Minister

including Boris Johnson

and David Davis will give speeches

on the post-Brexit relationship.

That's after calls for much more

clarity on what happens next.

Will we get it?

Wait and see.

More on that in a moment,

but first Yogita has the details

about what's ahead on Wall Street

Today.

After a turbulent week

in the markets, stocks could be

further impacted by economic numbers

that are due to be released

in the coming days.

On Tuesday a key measure

of inflation, the consumer

Price index, will be out.

This is what the Federal reserve

looks at when it makes

monetary policy decisions.

And a big rise in inflation

could add to fears that interest

rates in the US will be raised more

rapidly than what was anticipated.

That had been the main trigger

for the market's fall

over the past 10 days.

So traders will be

watching nervously.

In corporate earnings this week,

rivals PepsiCo and Coca-Cola

will be revealing results.

Both companies are expected

to report that profits grew

even though sales didn't.

-- even though sales dipped.

Canada's Bombardier will also

be releasing earnings.

That comes after the plane maker

unexpectedly won trade dispute

in the US against Boeing.

Joining us is David Bloom,

Global Head of FX Strategy at HSBC.

Talking about inflation, looking to

the week ahead, big figures from the

UK and the US, what are we

expecting?

The market meltdown

started when the average earnings

numbers in the US were worried about

wages picking up and worried about

inflation. This is the week where

all of our worries come to fruition.

We have the UK numbers, the Bank of

England has already indicated it

wants to raise rates. And the US

numbers where the market is saying,

is the third behind the curve? They

haven't raised rate enough. Oh! You

can feel the tension in the market

already with these inflation numbers

coming up.

Is that what they

actually say, oh! ?

I think it was

worse than that over the last couple

of weeks. Hopefully it will just be

like a ship in the night. The

numbers will come out, as expected,

and markets can calm down a little

bit.

We are seeing inflation rising

or staying high in some countries,

yet changing policies, it takes time

for that to filter through to the

numbers. Months down the line there

is a problem.

Inflation is like

looking in your rear-view mirror,

you are looking at what is happening

behind you rather than in front, and

that is why there is concerned.

Because once inflation picks up it

is too late. Then you have to push

interest rates up, crash the

economy, then inflation comes down,

nobody wants to be crushed.

And you

don't want peaks and troughs.

Exactly.

What is going to worry most

people is this idea that interest

rates are going to go up. We have

heard that from the Bank of England.

But the concern is, how far?

You are

100% right. I was talking about

markets. They are forward-looking.

For people in the UK, higher rates

mean higher rates, it means your

mortgage payment goes up. Most

people have borrowed on overnight

rates, and once it goes up, it can

hit you in the pocket. But hopefully

that's enough. A little bit of

touching the brakes sometimes,

that's fine, but it is when you slam

on the brakes that you really start

to feel the pain. Inflation picks up

too strongly, the Bank of England

will have to do something, and

that's painful. Let's hope that it

is just a little touch on the

brakes, everybody can handle it, and

we are going at a beautiful speed.

No emergency stops. No oh! Again.

Exactly. You do not want an

emergency handbrake.

Great to see

thanks very much.

Still to come...

A winning smile: how one former

dentist is tackling tooth

loss amongst top sportsmen.

You're with Business

Live from BBC News.

Aldi has been stealing market share

from its UK supermarket rivals,

and now it's gone one further.

The discounter has come first

in a customer satisfaction survey,

pushing last year's winner Waitrose

into fourth place.

Gareth Shaw from Which?,

is here to tell us more.

We talk a lot about this retailer

but it's clearly doing something

right.

Absolutely. It's been

stealing market share along with

little for the last few years but

not customers saying they are so

happy to shop there. They say it's

like a jumble sale and a little

shabby but they have great quality

and great prices. -- Lidl. Waitrose

has dropped from first position last

year down to fourth and it's all

about value for money.

For about

Waitrose? Why have they been pushed

back.

People feeling the pinch,

inflation rising and food prices

rising, they are looking to get

value for money, not bad things in

the Waitrose survey, people logged

the stores, they are clean, staff

excellent but they don't feel that

they are getting value for money

that they are getting from the likes

of Aldi and Lidl.

What about

Sainsbury's? Pushed back into the

ninth but they moan about the

methodology.

Sainsbury is finished

last in the survey, people feeling

ambivalent about the experience,

some of the feedback we had, their

experience is dull, well-stocked but

it's not great and a little on the

pricey side and that's something

Sainsbury's will have to take on

board along with the other big

supermarkets which finished right at

the bottom.

Gareth, nice to see you

and thank you. Thank you for

explaining all of Tesco telling us

about the pressure to split up its

business, keep your eyes peeled. On

the website, the story got my eye,

the idea about shared parental

leave.

Is interesting to find out why,

whether businesses support that or

not. Plenty more on that. Do stay

with us.

You are watching business live.

London City Airport will be closed

to flights today, and unexploded

bomb discovered. 16,000 passengers

affect that, going to carry on into

this evening, they hope they will

have resolved that I then. London

City Airport the reason we are

talking about it." In financial

heartland, a lot of disruption for

business passengers. A quick look at

the markets. The arrows tell the

story, optimism coming back in after

the roller-coaster ride last year.

The FTSE doing well, if all in the

value of the pound. Some details

about what will happen with the

trading relationship with the EU

after Brexit and we will hear from

the Prime Minister later in the

week.

After the battering

that the markets took last week,

our next guest might have come

in pretty useful.

We're talking about staying safe

playing tough sports -

and one firm that's got a novel way

of keeping TEETH intact.

In the United States alone

between 650,000 and 1 million teeth

are lost in sports related

accidents each year.

We say lost, we are talking about

them being knocked out.

And a large portion of those

could have been avoided

if the athlete had been wearing

a mouth guard.

One British dentist got so fed up

with treating sports related

toothloss that he quit his practice

in 1997 and set up a company

called OPRO, manufacturing

custom made mouthguards

initally supplying schools.

Today, its products

are used in schools,

clubs and professional sports teams

around the world,

including the New Zealand

and England rugby teams.

Dr Anthony Lovat the Founder

of the company joins us now.

A warm welcome to you and thank you

for coming in. A huge number, you

can't believe people do not protect

themselves better. Tell us how you

got started.

Good morning, it

stemmed from an episode about 21

years ago, I was watching my

daughter play a match, a lacrosse

match involving a stick and a ball,

a ball flying around at head level.

A traditional dishes sport.

The

defender defending my daughter tried

to intercept pass, she intercepted

at with her face, she fell to the

ground, teachers parents came

around, we spotted that they too had

come out, being a dentist, found the

tooth, Godard cleaned, re-implanted

it into the socket, to care for

emergency treatment but what was

interesting, after that, I said why

weren't you wearing a mouth guard,

they aren't mandatory at your level

in the sport, and she said, I do

have a mouth guard, I showed it to

the referee and it's so loose and

painful to where I put it in my sock

so then I start thinking, is there

something I can do to prevent

injuries rather than treat them

afterwards and one thing led to

another and here we are 21 years

later with mass guards across the

globe, very thin, very protective

and worn by all levels of sports

player.

When we met this morning

there was quite a niche or a market

there that wasn't tapped already,

explain what you are doing

differently. -- mouth guards. You do

it differently.

We got to the point,

we created mouth words you can buy

off-the-shelf and you can fit them

yourself but the key thing about a

mouth guard, every one we make will

be sent and protective, we make them

right across the range.

Let's have a

look. How does it, you can't make

one individually for each person?

That wouldn't be practical in terms

of costs or how does it work, I am

not putting it in my mouth, how does

it mould itself and how do you make

this fit?

What you are holding is

the latest innovation that is being

released at the moment. A

combination of a custom mouth guard

made at art laboratories in England

and one you put in boiling water,

that particular one you put in

boiling water, you utilise the

system we have here, you put it at

around the mouth guard, bite

together it compresses the guard and

fits it tight.

It mulls to the

specific mouth.

And that allows us

to make individual, this book mouth

guards to send around the world for

individuals to fit them.

Let let's

talk about how you came from one

mouth guard to supplying rugby teams

around the world, supplying hundreds

of pupils, it will not an overnight

success, you have been working at

this quite some time.

21 years on

from where we started, it was to a

degree and overnight success, in the

early days we limited things to

custom mouth guards in schools and

the need for them was well received

by teachers, it grew fast as a

supply line to schools but then we

came out for a range that said as

well or not quite as well but

closely to a custom mouth guard

which you can buy in a retail outlet

and that allowed us to move forward

into a global stage, we have just

teamed up with the ultimate fighting

championship, the murderous promoter

of mixed martial arts around the

world, we expect mouth guards to

find their way into 200 countries

that indulge in combat sport.

Time

is tight, turnover increasing from

250,019 86, two millions. It is

astonishing.

They go from £5 from

the least expensive to between 65

and £70.

Who knew that you could

make six and three quarters million

pounds from that? That is why you're

doing that job! Good to see you.

Let's take a look to the business

changes.

here's a quick reminder of how

to get in touch with us.

Get involved in the business live

web page, we want to hear from you.

You can get involved on Twitter. And

you can find us on Facebook.

Business live, on TV, and online,

what you need to know, when you need

to know it. David has rejoined us.

We knew this already. A lot of

retailers telling us, a headline in

the Financial Times. It's been a

tough Christmas for retailers, Sword

of going on into January.

The

conflict we were talking about

earlier. You have what looks like a

slowing economy but inflation is

picking up. Everyone is expecting

the Bank of England to be aggressive

about that. You are getting stories

coming out, the UK is expected this

sure to be one of the slowest of the

cheap ten economies and this is a

kind of story and sometimes you see

housing market stories. Meanwhile

the labour market is tight and you

are worried about wages. -- G10. If

this is rocking consumer spending we

would be concerned about how much

the Bank of England would raise

rates but they are counterbalancing

forces.

Will the golden age of TV

reduce the first $20 million per

show serious?

I do not think my kids

know what television is, it is on

some kind of device for them, this

is the new World.

David, so good to

see you.

That's it from Business Live today.

There will be more business news

throughout the day on the BBC Live

webpage and on World Business

Report.

We'll see you again tomorrow.