Burberry, the UK’s only global luxury brand, is to cut around 1,700 jobs worldwide over the next two years after reporting a steep financial loss.

The company lost £66m in pre-tax profit in the year ended in March as luxury goods sales fell across the world and the company weathered an “uncertain” environment and a “difficult macroeconomic backdrop”.

A year earlier, it recorded £383m in profit.

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It’s suffered in recent years with the share price falling to such an extent the business was removed from the FTSE 100, the index of most valuable companies listed on the London Stock Exchange.

Despite the financial performance, the company was upbeat, with chief executive Joshua Schulman saying “I am more optimistic than ever that Burberry’s best days are ahead and that we will deliver sustainable profitable growth over time”.

What cuts are being made?

The retailer did not specify any shop closures – in the past year, it closed 26 and also opened 26 stores – but did highlight shift cuts and consolidations.

“We don’t have a store closing programme, per see,” Mr Schulman told investors

The night shift at Burberry’s Castleford factory will be cut, it proposed, saying the shift has resulted in overproduction.

“Significant” investment in the facility will be made, however, as the ambition is to scale up British production “over time”, Mr Schulman said.

Changes to the retail network across the world will be made with shop staff being scheduled around “peak traffic”.

Burberry will be “realigning” shop staff, he said, “so that we can offer the best service” at the busiest times.

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There will also be a “simplification” of Burberry’s regional structure and a “rebalancing” of central and regional responsibilities to reduce duplication and “accelerate decision making” through the retail network.

But the majority of changes will be made to “office space teams” around the world, the CEO said.

Commercial and creative teams have already been consolidated, Burberry’s annual results said.

What’s gone wrong?

Aside from the global slowdown in luxury goods sales over recession fears, additional headwinds have come in the form of President Trump’s tariffs.

“Clearly, the external environment has become more challenging since mid-February”, Mr Schulman told investors.

Tariff risks were higher than first planned, the annual results said.

It led the US market to be described by Mr Schulman as “choppy” since February when Mr Trump began announcing tariffs on Mexico, Canada and China, as well as on goods such as steel and cars.

Sales also fell in the Asia Pacific region by 16%, the results showed.

Criticism was levelled at the 2021 British government decision to withdraw VAT refunds for overseas visitors, “which has made the UK the least competitive destination in Europe for tourist shopping”, the results read.

“Business in our UK home market continues to be seriously impacted” by the move.

The chairman of the UK’s biggest water company has apologised to customers but defended staff bonus payments.

Sir Adrian Montague, of Thames Water, told MPs on the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs select committee that the utility firm, which supplies 16 million customers in London and parts of south England, was sorry.

He said: “We know the supply interruptions cause inconvenience and sometimes real hardship, and so I think the right thing to do is to start the discussion of the [company’s] turnaround plan by acknowledging we haven’t always served our customers as well as we should, and through the committee, apologising to them.”

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Customers faced significant service disruption in recent years, including a boil water notice in Bramley, near Guildford, last summer and a 40% rise in sewage spills in 2024.

It’s also struggled to raise investment, repay its debt pile, which now stands at £19bn after an emergency loan prevented it from running out of money and entering state control.

Despite the massive debt pile, Sir Adrian defended paying bonuses, saying the company was in “a competitive marketplace” and “we have to keep staff”.

“It’s true that this business, like many businesses, needs to reward its staff effectively”, he told committee members. “We do need to reward [staff] competitively.”

If bonuses were not paid, “people will come knocking, they’ll try to pick out of us the best staff we’ve got”, Sir Adrian added.

“But the amounts of bonuses paid to staff is very small compared with the capital cost of the works that we were considering,” he said.

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In the first three months of his tenure, which began in January 2024, Thames Water’s chief executive Chris Weston accepted a bonus of £195,000 as part of his £2.3m pay package.

His bonus can be up to 156% of his salary as a bonus, while frontline workers can only earn between 3% and 6%, he said.

When approached by Sky News on Tuesday, Mr Weston said he was sorry for the service that the customers received and “it’s not where we would like it to be, everyone is very committed in terms of trying and sorting it out”.

Customer bills are to rise 35% to about £588 annually per household by 2030, a figure which Thames Water is seeking to increase.

Nissan is set to announce a leap in its cost-cutting plans that will see 20,000 jobs go globally, according to reports in Japan.

The carmaker, which employs around 6,000 workers at its sprawling manufacturing operations in Sunderland, had already let it be known last November that 9,000 roles would be going amid weak sales and rising costs.

But Japanese broadcaster NHK said on Monday it expected that total to more than double.

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Nissan, which was yet to comment on the claim, is due to reveal full year results covering the 12 months to March on Tuesday morning.

They are expected to show a net loss of up to £3.8bn due to a series of writedowns on the value of its operations.

They will be the first results Nissan has declared since the appointment of a new chief executive last month.

Ivan Espinosa issued a “significant” downgrade to Nissan’s outlook just three weeks ago.

If the job cuts report is true, it would amount to a 15% reduction in the company’s worldwide workforce.

It is not known if the Sunderland production facilities form part of any planned job cuts or production reductions, of up to 20%, that were reported.

Nissan has, on several occasions since Brexit, called the plant’s future into question before proceeding with investment plans.

It has invested £2bn in Sunderland since 2023 alone.

The company secured UK government money this year for a new electric powertrain manufacturing facility in Sunderland.

But a senior Nissan executive, Alan Johnson, warned more aid was needed just last month, arguing that the UK was “not a competitive place” to build cars.

Nissan, like rivals, is facing challenges on many fronts.

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US trade tariffs of 25% on all car imports has exacerbated pressure on its supply chain and sales.

The latter has been struggling due to weaker-than-anticipated electric car uptake.

But the vast majority of its cars made in the UK will be subject to a tariff of just 10% after the UK-US trade deal agreed last week.

It does not currently send Sunderland-made cars to the United States. Most are for export to Europe and the domestic UK market.