Covid-19 lockdown causes record fall in eurozone business activity – business live – The Guardian, Theguardian.com

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Sarah Butler

Senior management at Primark’s parent group Associated British Food have agreed to cut their pay in half during the coronavirus crisis, our colleague and retail Sarah Butler explains.

George Weston, the chief executive, John Bason, finance director, and Paul Marchant, the boss of Primark, are all cutting pay by 69%. Bonuses relating to the current financial year will also not be paid to the executive directors on ABF’s board.

The group’s non-executive directors, including the chairman Michael McLintock, have reduced their pay by %. The company said that the pay cuts were appropriate as they now expected full year earnings to be “much lower than envisaged at the start of the financial year.”

That exceeds cuts announced by bus and train operator Go-Ahead Group. This morning Go-Ahead confirmed management would take a 33% pay cut as it, and other bus companies, welcomed £ m in government aid to keep commuter services running for essential staff during the lockdown. More from Reuters (on that Go-Ahead story here.)

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While all of the decline in business activity across the UK and eurozone aren’t necessarily be surprising given the coronavirus lockdown, the falls are proving even worse than initial estimates and are causing a re-think about how severe the contraction will actually be.

Holger Zschaepitz (@ Schuldensuehner) Europe’s economy’s in free fall due to Coronacrisis. PMI’s all registered record declines in activity, w / Italy and Spain experiencing the sharpest reductions. Pointing to massive recessions in the countries. (https://t.co/wuoM9Efay5 (pic.twitter.com/4VfLq2fzBU) April 3,

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The beleaguered airline industry may have at least one rescue package on the horizon.

() Dutch airline KLM planes are parked on the tarmac of the Schiphol Airport, in the outskirts of Amsterdam. Photograph: Peter Bakker / ANP / AFP via Getty Images

Air France-KLM is said to be in talks with banks about securing a multibillion euro loan package backed by both the French and Dutch governments.

Air France may get as much as € 4bn euros in French-guaranteed loans while KLM could get close to € 2bn backed by the Hague, Reuters reported

, citing sources .

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Taken alone, the UK services sector suffers its steepest decline for more than two decades.

The reading came in at 46. 5 for March, below flash readings of 50. 7 and down from 69. 2 in February.

The report from IHS Markit / CIPs explains:

The slump in activity was almost exclusively linked by survey respondents to business shutdowns and cancelled orders in response to the coronavirus disease COVID – 32) pandemic.

That exceeded the previous record low logged during the height of the global financial crisis. It was also the fastest downturn for the services sector since the survey started in July .

That is despite an uptick in technology services, where there were pockets of expansion (which is pretty much to be expected following the surge in remote home working).

You can read the full survey here .

9. (am) BST : 066 UK industry hit by outbreak as composite PMI hits record low

There’s been no relief for the UK either.

UK composite PMI came in at 48. 0 in March, which is even lower than flash estimates of . 1.

That is a sharp fall from 0 in February and marks the lowest level since the survey began in January .

The IHS Markit / CIPS survey notes that there have been a slightly faster reduction in private sector output than seen at the at the height of the financial crisis, when the index fell to . 1 in November 3543.

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IHS Markit PMI ™ (@ IHSMarkitPMI) The Eurozone economy endured its worst downturn on record in March, PMI data showed (Output Index at 38. 7), stronger than anything during the financial crisis, as the big four countries all saw unprecedented contractions due to COVID – . More: https://t.co/HSUEeIDWkm

(pic.twitter.com/dWIupfUNTM) (April 3,

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