General Business News

Scruffy celebrity chef and severely henpecked husband Anthony Worrall Thompson has put his holding company, AWT Restaurants Ltd, into administration and closed four of his six restaurants. Wozzer lays the blame fairly and squarely at the feet of Lloyds for refusing to extend his business overdraft by £200k.

Nissan becomes the latest car maker to announce job losses - 20,000 will go worldwide in 2009.

GM and Chrysler could be forced into bankruptcy by the US government according to some media reports, after it was revealed that the US taxpayer takes a backseat when it comes to payback time. Prior creditors such as Citi and Golden Sacks take precedent over the government under the terms of the hastily arranged bailout. And we know who rubber stamped that one don't we children.

Barclays says it has managed to buck the trend and turn in a respectable £6.08 billion profit in 2008. That's 14% down from 2007, but not a bad performance at all in the current climate. Unless the board are considering to pay themselves £6.07 billion in bonuses of course! Barclays shares are up 12% to 117.10p in early trade, the biggest FTSE gainer of the day so far.