Lowell Lenders Push to Get Better Terms as Part of Debt Deal
The lenders to British debt collector Lowell are seeking better terms as part of a deal that would see the company extend its maturities and get fresh cash from its bondholders.
The creditors exposed to a revolving credit facility want an improvement to some of the conditions put forward by the company, according to people familiar with the matter, who asked not to be identified because the process is confidential. They include banks, but also funds Alinor Capital and Värde Partners on a sub-participation basis, some of the people said.
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CNBC
4 hours ago
- CNBC
AI is disrupting the advertising business in a big way — industry leaders explain how
Artificial intelligence is shaking up the advertising business and "unnerving" investors, one industry leader told CNBC. "I think this AI disruption ... unnerving investors in every industry, and it's totally disrupting our business," Mark Read, the outgoing CEO of British advertising group WPP, told CNBC's Karen Tso on Tuesday. The advertising market is under threat from emerging generative AI tools that can be used to materialize pieces of content at rapid pace. The past couple of years has seen the rise of a number of AI image generators, including OpenAI's DALL-E, Google's Veo and Midjourney. In his first interview since announcing he would step down as WPP boss, Read said that AI is "going to totally revolutionize our business." "AI is going to make all the world's expertise available to everybody at extremely low cost," he said at London Tech Week. "The best lawyer, the best psychologist, the best radiologist, the best accountant, and indeed, the best advertising creatives and marketing people often will be an AI, you know, will be driven by AI." Read said that 50,000 WPP employees now use WPP Open, the company's own AI-powered marketing platform. "That, I think, is my legacy in many ways," he added. Structural pressure on creative parts of the ad business are driving industry consolidation, Read also noted, adding that companies would need to "embrace" the way in which AI would impact everything from creating briefs and media plans to optimizing campaigns. A report from Forrester released in June last year showed that more than 60% of U.S. ad agencies are already making use of generative AI, with a further 31% saying they're exploring use cases for the technology. Read is not alone in this view. Advertising is undergoing a "huge transformation" due to the disruptive effects of AI, French advertising giant Publicis Groupe's CEO Maurice Levy told CNBC at the Viva Tech conference in Paris. He noted that AI image and video generation tools are speeding up content production drastically, while automated messaging systems can now achieve "personalization at scale like never before." However, the Publicis chief stressed that AI should only be considered a tool that people can use to augment their lives. "We should not believe that AI is more than a tool," he added. And while AI is likely to impact some jobs, Levy ultimately thinks it will create more roles than it destroys. "Will AI replace me, and will AI kill some jobs? I think that AI, yes, will destroy some jobs," Levy conceded. However, he added that, "more importantly, AI will transform jobs and will create more jobs. So the net balance will be probably positive." This, he says, would be in keeping with the labor impacts of previous technological inventions like the internet and smartphones. "There will be more autonomous work," Levy added. Still, Nicole Denman Greene, analyst at Gartner, warns brands should be wary of causing a negative reaction from consumers who are skeptical of AI's impact on human creativity. According to a Gartner survey from September, 82% of consumers said firms using generative AI should prioritize preserving human jobs, even if it means lower profits. "Pivot from what AI can do to what it should do in advertising," Greene told CNBC. "What it should do is help create groundbreaking insights, unique execution to reach diverse and niche audiences, push boundaries on what 'marketing' is and deliver more brand differentiated, helpful and relevant personalized experiences, including deliver on the promise of hyper-personalization."
UPI
20 hours ago
- UPI
'Black boxes' from jet crash in India found; sole survivor doing well
1 of 10 | India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi visits the site of an Air India plane crash near the airport in Ahmedabad, India, on Friday. Photo by Indian Press Information Bureau | License Photo June 13 (UPI) -- Both of the "black boxes" were recovered from the wreckage of the Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner in India after after all but one of the 242 people onboard died. The voice and data recorders may help investigators learn what caused the passenger jet to crash just minutes after it took off from Ahmedabad for London's Gatwick Airport on Thursday. "The Flight Data Recorder (Black Box) has been recovered within 28 hours from the accident site in Ahmedabad," Ram Mohan Naidu Kinjarapu, the Indian Union Minister of Civil Aviation, said in a social media post. "This marks an important step forward in the investigation. This will significantly aid the enquiry into the incident." Hours later on Saturday morning local time, the voice recorder was found. The captain of the flight sent a distress call to air traffic control less a minute after take off, India's aviation authorities confirmed Saturday. The plane crashed just 33 minutes after takeoff. The recorders were recovered from on top of the medical college hostel where the jet crashed. Members of the U.S. Transportation Safety Board and British authorities are assisting with the investigation. More 50 of those killed from the plane are British nationals. The aircraft was made in the United States. U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said Thursday they haven't found any safety data that the plane model itself is unsafe. "They have to get on the ground and take a look. But again, right now it'd be way too premature," Duffy said at a news conference. "People are looking at videos and trying to assess what happened, which is never a strong, smart way to make decisions on what took place." It was the first fatal flight involving the 787-8. Boeing has manufactured 1,188 of the planes since they went into service in 2009. India's government is inspecting all Boeing 787s , the aviation minister just told reporters in a press briefing. Air India operates 33 Boeing 787s and rival airline IndiGo has one, according to data from Flightradar24. Rescue workers scoured the site for survivors and, miraculously, one man, British national Vishwash Kumar Ramesh, who had been in seat 11A on the Air India flight, right next to his brother. He walked away from the crash site with only minor injuries. The sole survivor is doing well in hospital but is "psychologically disturbed," according to the Civil Hospital medical director. The jet struck a hostel for B.J. Medical College and Civil Hospital students and relatives, a medical school. The total death toll is at least 290. The British national of Indian origin told the Hindustan Times it happened very fast. "Thirty seconds after takeoff, there was a loud noise and then the plane crashed," Ramesh said. "I don't know how I'm alive, how I exited the plane." Ramesh added, "I don't know how I survived. I saw people dying in front of my eyes -- the air hostesses, and two people I saw near me. ... I walked out of the rubble." He was seated near a left-side window emergency exit in the economy section of the aircraft. He said he saw the exit, tried to get out through it and succeeded. Ramesh said he still can't believe he made it out alive. Prime Minister Narenda Modi visited him in the hospital. Modi said on X, "Met those injured in the aftermath of the tragic plane crash in Ahmedabad, including the lone survivor and assured them that we are with them and their families in this tough time. The entire nation is praying for their speedy recovery. A student said it was a "miracle" she missed the flight. Bhoomi Chauhan, 28, said she was angry after a traffic jam on the way to the airport meant she missed boarding the flight by just 10 minutes. Now she said is "numb" after learning a about the crash. In a statement on X Air India offered its deepest condolences to families of those killed and added, "The passengers comprised 169 Indian nationals, 53 British nationals, 7 Portuguese nationals and 1 Canadian national. The FAIMA Doctors Association said on X that "The wife of one super-specialist doctor was found dead." Fifty MBBS students were hospitalized in stable condition while two or three were in critical condition and four or five students were missing. Three to four relatives of resident doctors also are missing, according to FAIMA.
Yahoo
21 hours ago
- Yahoo
Starmer's latest freebie: British sovereignty in exchange for nothing
While we can't rely on the French to help police the Channel – despite paying them £500 million for the privilege, we can always trust our Gallic cousins to bear a grudge. We already knew that the Prime Minister's great EU 'reset' was a sham; that much was clear when all we got in return was the use of e-gates that were already operational in many European countries. Now, we learn that we may not even be granted access to the bloc's industrial defence programme, despite Sir Keir Starmer's insistence that defence and security was a central tenet of the deal. As he boasted last month after selling us out to Brussels: 'We've also struck a new defence and security partnership to strengthen our cooperation and strengthen our security – which is vital in this dangerous new era. 'And it will open the door to working with the EU's new defence fund – providing new opportunities for our defence industry, supporting British jobs and livelihoods.' Except, of course, the French have other ideas. In yet another example of just how bad Labour is at negotiating anything (see also the Chagos surrender and, more recently, the 'deal' to allow Spanish border guards to check passports on Gibraltar) we now learn that Emmanuel Macron is trying to shut out British arms firms from the European Defence Industry Programme (EDIP). While different to the defence fund, which is known as SAFE (Security Action for Europe), EDIP will see cash pumped into joint procurement projects and the production of weapons, ammunition and other military hardware. It was created for the benefit of the EU and 'allies' but French diplomats have insisted the tool should be solely used to boost firms based inside the EU, as well as Norway and Ukraine – shutting out the UK. So much for Starmer's boast that the reset deal would put Britain 'back on the world stage' and give us 'unprecedented access to the EU market, the best of any country.' Labour is yet to reveal how many billions is being squandered on a reset that has already prompted another big fat 'non' from Paris. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
