TheChek News Flow

The spacecraft is set to take a crewed flight to the International Space Station after years of delays and falling behind SpaceX

A new Boeing BA 0.53%increase; green up pointing triangle spacecraft is set to carry astronauts for the first time this week, a major test of whether the much-delayed project is ready to handle NASA missions.

Starliner, the name of Boeing’s gumdrop-shaped ship, is scheduled to blast off Monday at 10:34 p.m. ET, ferrying astronauts Sunita Williams and Barry Wilmore to the International Space Station. The vehicle is slated to return them to Earth about a week after docking with the facility, landing in the western U.S. under parachutes.

Boeing has developed rockets, spacecraft and other vehicles for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration for decades, including hardware for the Apollo moon missions. But the aerospace company has tripped up with Starliner, struggling at times with software, a communications system, valves, parachutes and even a type of tape used in the vehicle. The project has led to $1.4 billion in accounting losses for Boeing.

Monday’s planned mission comes as Boeing faces intense scrutiny over its bread-and-butter airplane business. Lawmakers and airline executives have blasted the company’s manufacturing failures after a segment on one of its planes blew out midair earlier this year, threatening passengers and crew on board. Air-safety regulators have ratcheted up oversight of the company’s operations.

“Spaceflight is risky. It is unforgiving of mistakes,” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said in an interview. “NASA is integrated with Boeing to make sure that this flight is as safe as possible.”

Mark Nappi, a Boeing vice president, said the company’s spacecraft is ready to carry astronauts. Since taking over management of Starliner about two years ago, Nappi said he has focused his team on shifting from design and development to operations. Around 500 people are working on the program.

“We’ve been very disciplined, following the process. NASA is right there with us and that makes me feel comfortable,” he said during an interview in March.

A successful mission and NASA’s subsequent certification of Starliner are the final milestones that Boeing needs to meet before the spacecraft makes regular crew rotations. Starliner’s problems have left the agency dependent on Elon Musk’s SpaceX for those flights from the U.S., prompting concern at the agency about relying too heavily on one supplier. SpaceX didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Leaders at both Boeing and NASA have said they won’t hesitate to again postpone Starliner’s flight, should any safety risks emerge in the run-up to the launch.

Starliner will blast off from Florida, propelled by an Atlas V rocket, a proven booster that rocket operator United Launch Alliance has flown for years. After Starliner separates from the rocket, it will take about a day to reach the space station, where it is designed to autonomously dock with the lab.

The astronauts Starliner will carry—Williams, 58 years old, and Wilmore, 61—are retired Navy aviators who have been in orbit before. Each traveled to the space station on both NASA’s former space shuttle and Russian Soyuz vehicles.

Williams said the team working on Starliner, including herself and Wilmore, rigorously analyzed problems that emerged with the vehicle earlier, including the stuck valves and software challenges.

“We all pushed on it,” she said in a recent interview. “We feel very confident that we’re at a point that we’re good with how the spacecraft is going to operate.”

Boeing’s work on Starliner goes back more than a decade. NASA in 2014 awarded the company and SpaceX contracts to create new vehicles to fly crews to and from the space station, seeking two distinct spacecraft from U.S. aerospace companies. At the time, the agency depended on Russia for crew rotations, following the retirement of its shuttle fleet.

NASA rated Boeing as better prepared than the Musk-led company for technical maturity, management and other categories used to evaluate the bids. At SpaceX, which had been transporting cargo to the space station, some former employees said the company took it as a challenge to beat Boeing in astronaut missions.

In late 2019, Boeing launched the first Starliner mission, an uncrewed operation designed to test the vehicle under flight conditions without astronauts on board. The mission went poorly, dogged by software coding errors and the unexpected loss of a communications system. Starliner didn’t attempt one of its major goals for the mission—docking with the space station.

After the flight, NASA officials increased oversight of Boeing’s Starliner efforts, saying the agency had relied too much on the company’s internal engineering decisions. A review team analyzing the botched 2019 mission recommended Boeing make dozens of changes, including more testing of how hardware and software on the vehicle are integrated.

Two remarkable shows display the 87-year-old billionaire’s collecting genius undimmed

Cet objectif vise à écouler 800.000 véhicules par an dès 2027 et atteindre une part de marché de 45%. Il s'est vendu près de 300.000 voitures électriques en 2023.

Le gouvernement français s'est accordé avec l'industrie automobile pour viser 800.000 ventes de voitures électriques dès 2027, dans le cadre d'un contrat de filière publié dimanche. Cet objectif revient presque à multiplier par trois les ventes en quatre ans et atteindre 45% de parts de marché. Il s'est vendu près de 300.000 voitures électriques en 2023.

Il s'agit de préparer le virage européen de 2035 vers des ventes de voitures neuves 100% électriques. Le gouvernement et la filière automobile français réaffirment leur confiance dans cette transition énergétique, alors que le marché des voitures électriques a ralenti sa croissance en Europe début 2024. «Nous maintiendrons cette politique, confirmant les choix stratégiques qui ont été faits, et répondrons aux difficultés qui peuvent se poser ici ou là, sans varier de cap», a souligné le ministre de l'Économie Bruno Le Maire.

Le contrat de filière mentionne également un objectif ambitieux concernant les camionnettes, qui commencent tout juste leur transition. Le secteur compte multiplier par 6 d'ici 2027 les ventes d'utilitaires légers 100% électriques ou à hydrogène, pour passer de 16.500 véhicules vendus en 2022 à plus de 100.000 fin 2027. Pour tenir les objectifs, les pouvoirs publics s'engagent à «poursuivre les dispositifs de soutien à l'achat et à la location longue durée de véhicules neufs à zéro émission», via le bonus écologique à l'achat ou le leasing de voitures électriques.

400.000 points de recharge en 2030

«Le principal défi pour atteindre les objectifs fixés concerne l'accessibilité des véhicules à zéro émission au plus grand nombre», soulignent les signataires du contrat, présentant un double enjeu: «permettre à ceux qui le peuvent d'acquérir un véhicule à zéro émission neuf, et créer un marché du véhicule d'occasion» électrique, encore balbutiant.

Le montant des subventions attribué à chaque véhicule devrait pourtant continuer à être «ajusté» à mesure que le marché grandit, puisque l'enveloppe de 1,5 milliard d'euros consacrée à ces dispositifs en 2024 ne va pas augmenter. Pour que ces voitures électriques puissent se brancher, l'État a également confirmé son objectif de 400.000 points de recharge en 2030. Le programme Advenir qui soutient leur construction sera reconduit et doté de 200 millions d'euros supplémentaires.

Il s'agit aussi de «faire en sorte que ces véhicules électriques soient produits en France», a souligné Bruno Le Maire, réaffirmant l'objectif annoncé par Emmanuel Macron de produire en 2030 deux millions de voitures «électrifiées» (électriques et hybrides). Ce plan de filière 2023-2027 doit être signé officiellement lundi matin.

The voluntary tender offer has reached an aggregate stake greater than 90 percent of the share capital, the threshold necessary for the delisting.

MILAN — Mission accomplished. Tod’s will delist from the Milan Stock Exchange at the end of trading on Wednesday.

On May 3, the Italian luxury group reported that the voluntary totalitarian tender offer of Tod’s shares promoted by Crown Bidco Srl, an L Catterton affiliate, had reached an aggregate stake greater than 90 percent of the share capital, the threshold necessary for the delisting.

As reported, Italy’s Bourse watchdog Consob in March gave the green light to the tender offer, which began March 25.

Crown Bidco in February revealed it was looking to acquire 36 percent of Tod’s SpA, or almost 13 million shares, at 43 euros a share, for about 512 million euros. L Catterton is backed by LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton. The voluntary tender offer was then launched for 27.9 percent of the group because L Catterton in the meantime had acquired additional shares, raising its stake to 7.9 percent of Tod’s. As a result, the value of the offer is now expected to amount to 398 million euros.

Minority shareholder Delphine SAS, a fully owned subsidiary of LVMH, has agreed not to tender its 10 percent of shares on the date of the delisting, and will be granted governance and exit rights. Tod’s chief executive officer Diego Della Valle and LVMH chief Bernard Arnault have built a years-long relationship and the former is a member of the board of LVMH.

Tod’s is expected to maintain 54 percent of the capital, L Catterton will indirectly own 36 percent and Delphine 10 percent.

Tod’s has said that the delisting is seen as “a precondition to ensure the pursuit of [Tod’s] future growth programs and consolidation,” allowing the group “to pursue its objectives in a market environment and legal framework characterized by greater management and organizational flexibility, with faster decision-making and execution times and also benefiting from reduced management and listing costs.”

The group controls the Tod’s, Roger Vivier, Hogan and Fay brands.

Last year, group revenues totaled 1.12 billion euros, rising 11.9 percent compared with 2022. At constant exchange rates, sales were up 14 percent.

This is the second time Della Valle aimed to delist the group, after a failed tender offer in 2022, which did not fulfill the 90 percent threshold.

Last month, L Catterton acquired a majority stake in beauty powerhouse Kiko Milano.

The funds managed or advised by L Catterton Management represent approximately $35 billion of investments through three multiproduct platforms: private equity, credit and real estate. Founded in 1989, the group has made approximately 275 investments in some of the world’s most iconic consumer brands. L Catterton, for example, in 2021 took a majority stake in Etro, and holds stakes in A.P.C., Ganni and Birkenstock.

Tapestry is looking to defend its $8.5 billion takeover of Capri, but doesn’t fully know the grounds the deal is being challenged on

In pushing to stop Tapestry Inc.’s $8.5 billion takeover of Capri Holdings, the Federal Trade Commission is arguing that, if combined, Coach, Kate Spade and Michael Kors would hold too much sway over the “‘accessible luxury’ handbag market.”

It’s a case that promises to, eventually, define “accessible luxury” — a marketing term coined by Coach — in legal terms.

But Tapestry is asking the court to compel the government to define that market up front so it can defend the deal over the course of an expedited trial schedule.

“Defendants do not know if the FTC’s ‘accessible luxury handbag’ market is defined around certain brands, is bounded by price points, or is defined by the consumer’s household income,” Tapestry’s lawyers argued to the court in papers filed Friday.

“There is no simple definition. What is in the market and what is out?” they said.

Tapestry, for instance, says it does not know if the FTC’s definition of “handbag” includes “backpacks, duffel bags, crossbody bags, business bags and other small bags” or not.

Exactly where “accessible luxury” sits on the spectrum between the mass market and true luxury is also nebulous.

“The FTC offers that at least one Tapestry document opines that ‘mass-market’ handbags ‘typically fall’ below $100, and that luxury handbags have ‘entry points of $1,000+,’” the court papers note. “But that same discussion in the complaint also cites to a different Tapestry document indicating a ‘product focus’ in North America ‘between $150 to $500.’

“Those are very different ways to slice the pie, and could lead to different sets of competitors, different sets of third-party discovery, and of course different market shares,” the papers said.

Tapestry said it and Capri have “produced to the FTC millions of documents, troves of data, and offered multiple witnesses to answer questions as part of the FTC’s internal, pre-complaint investigation.”

The company has also asked, repeatedly, for the FTC to give its definition of the market and says it must have one as it gave a redacted reading of just how much of the market Tapestry would control after the deal.

“Defendants presently intend to show, among other things, that the FTC’s market is inconsistent with commercial realities because it does not accurately reflect how competition occurs in 2024,” Tapestry’s lawyers said, referring to their own efforts. “But defendants simply cannot do that effectively without knowing the basic contours of the FTC’s alleged product market.”

Tapestry underscored that it was not trying to dictate how the FTC defined the market, but just to understand the definition so they could defend against it.

While such definitions can come to light during the discovery process, Tapestry said the pace of the case — the company wants to close the deal this year — doesn’t make that workable.

“Defendants therefore ask, in the alternative, that the court order the FTC to respond to one interrogatory, within seven days of the court’s ruling: ‘Define the product market you intend to prove at trial,’” Tapestry said.

The two sides had a preliminary meeting with the judge already and are due to meet for an evidentiary hearing Sept. 9.

The company began trading above the 24.50 euro offering price.

PARIS — Puig is now a publicly traded company, raising 2.6 billion euros for its founding family on its first day of trading Friday.

The owner of brands such as Rabanne, Carolina Herrera and Jean Paul Gaultier began trading at 25.50 euros a share, above the 24.50 euro price offer. The stock closed the day flat, at 24.50 euros.

The IPO, which values Puig at 13.9 billion euros, was multiple times oversubscribed, according to the company.

Puig’s float is the largest in Europe so far in 2024 and the biggest in Spain since 2015.

Buoyant equity markets and the promise of mitigating interest rates are helping drive interest in IPOs around the globe. In the beauty space, Galderma and Douglas floated in Europe last month, with strong and disappointing debuts, respectively.

Puig raised 2.6 billion euros through the issue of 106.5 million shares. If the overallotment is exercised in full, the total offering could rise to 3 billion euros.

Marc Puig, chairman and chief executive officer of the beauty and fashion company, rang the bell at the Barcelona Stock Exchange Friday. Behind him hung the image of Puig’s new corporate logo, which is an evolution of its original.

Puig is among the third generation of family members running the 110-year-old company. He has said no one from the fourth generation would be operationally involved in years to come.

Once the beauty group’s offering is finished, the company’s founding namesake family will through Puig SL, the group’s controlling shareholder that’s managed by Exea, retain 71.7 percent of the company’s economic rights and 92.5 percent of its voting rights.

The company operates across 32 countries with 17 brands. The largest of those sales-wise are Rabanne, Charlotte Tilbury and Carolina Herrera. Ninety-five percent of company net revenues last year, which reached more than 4.3 billion euros, came from Puig’s fully or majority-owned brands.

Luxury brands need a broader pricing architecture that delivers meaningful value for all customers, writes Imran Amed.

LONDON — Walk into any luxury megabrand flagship these days, and you’ll face prices that boggle the mind. According to HSBC, the average price of personal luxury goods in Europe has increased by an eye-watering 52 percent since 2019.

This can be partly explained by the aftershocks of the pandemic, which sent inflation soaring, driving up the cost of raw materials and labour. Leena Nair, chief executive of Chanel, whose classic medium 2.55 flap bag now costs €11,100, up 91 percent since October 2019, told Bloomberg last week: “We use exquisite raw materials and our production is very rigorous, laborious, handmade — so we raise our prices according to the inflation that we see.”

But price hikes have also been used to grow revenue and profit. “Pricing was the main driver of sales growth between 2021-2023, but we think it will be far more subdued in the years to come,” analysts at HSBC wrote in a note in January.

Indeed, higher prices were fine when the market was willing to absorb them. In the years since the pandemic, pent up demand (and Covid-era savings) allowed brands to keep pushing prices up and up. But as the post-pandemic luxury boom recedes and aspirational customers, in particular, pull back and trade-off their spending on luxury products with travel and experiences, even the most rabid luxury fans are now thinking twice before buying.

As for the super wealthy, they may be able to afford higher prices, but there is an inherent price-to-quality consideration that drives their decision-making too, especially when they perceive the quality at some brands is declining. Nobody likes being taken for a ride. More and more, these customers are now asking themselves: ‘is this good value for my money?’

This value equation is further complicated now that there is an active secondary market on resale sites like TheRealReal and Vestiaire Collective which give an indication of which luxury products and brands will hold their value over time. So, if it’s less expensive to buy a higher-quality, second-hand product in very good condition, why fork out the cash for an overpriced, lower-quality new one that will lose its value?

The customer backlash to the aggressive price rises is real. There are entire Reddit threads and Purse Blog forums, where price-conscious customers are complaining about the price increases. But it’s not just grumpy customers complaining without reason.

Earlier this month, 144 people commented on the r/handbags Reddit thread (with 114,000 members) about the price increases for Loewe’s coveted Puzzle bag, which now costs more than $4000.

“This is ridiculous. I bought my small Puzzle in 2021 for $2400 total,” wrote Secure_Olive_154. “These brands have lost their minds. I just don’t even feel like buying these bags anymore. I’ll stick with vintage and getting wear out of what I already own.”

Other customers say they are waiting for discounts before they buy. A user named anakngtipaklongnaman added “Loewe [sales associates] offer discounts when you’re at the boutique. I was offered this adorable Puzzle at 20 percent off retail.”

The worst thing for brands to do is to raise prices and then offer discounts, even if this is done quietly. One luxury executive told me that this has become particularly problematic in China where powerful shopping mall developers like SKP in Beijing, who are paid at least in part based on the revenues generated by their luxury brand tenants, are insisting that brands participate in ‘SKP Days’ when customers can use vouchers to shop at a discount at even the most high-end brands. This trains customers to expect discounts, and further reinforces that the listed retail prices do not offer fair value.

One notable — and very interesting — exception to the enormous price rises and ‘SKP Days’ is Hermès, which deploys a more nuanced pricing strategy than the blunt tool some other brands have used, which is to raise prices across the board, even with entry-level products.

Chanel has made some of the most aggressive price increases. A classic medium 2.55 flap bag now costs €11,100, up 91 percent since October 2019.

At Louis Vuitton the price of a Speedy 30 Bag — made of coated canvas, not leather — has doubled to €1600 over the same period.

Gucci, which is in the midst of executing an elevation strategy, has increased the price of its Marmont small matelassé shoulder bag by 75 percent, now with a price tag of €1490.

Most of the customer frustration about Hermès is focused on their hard-to-get Birkin and Kelly bags which has even attracted a class action lawsuit from two shoppers in California. These bags can cost $100,000 or more for the most exclusive styles in exotic skins, but there are still plenty of entry-level products that seem like much better value when compared to a canvas Louis Vuitton Speedy or Gucci Marmont.

While I was perusing the Hermès website today, I was pleasantly surprised to find that the Evelyne 16 Amazone cross-body bag made of grained Clemence leather perforated with an Hermès H logo, costs only £1660 (about $2100). You can also buy a 90 cm silk scarf for £450 ($565) or elegant Oran leather sandals for £615 ($775). Amid the ever-spiralling prices in luxury land, Hermès entry-level products are great access points for first-time customers.

“One reason Hermès is so resilient is that despite being the most expensive brand in the space, they carry many categories that are accessible in nature,” HSBC’s Erwan Rambourg wrote to me in an email. “Louis Vuitton, Dior, Chanel and Hermès should have all price points — everything for everyone — given their scale. Many brands are likely to rethink their access assortment as you can only sell that many nano or micro bags.”

In the first quarter, Hermès reported organic growth of 17 percent, far outpacing LVMH Fashion and Leather Goods which grew by only 2 percent. Kering suffered a catastrophic revenue contraction of 10 percent in Q1, and now projects that profits will decline by up to 45 percent in the first half of 2024.

Meanwhile, Hermès has said it will continue to increase its prices by 7-8 percent in the coming year. As the old saying goes, slow and steady wins the race.

Washington’s crackdown shows its leverage over global banking system

A US crackdown on banks financing trade in goods for Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has made it much more difficult to move money in and out of Russia, according to senior western officials and Russian financiers.

Moscow’s trade volumes with key partners such as Turkey and China have slumped in the first quarter of this year after the US targeted international banks helping Russia acquire critical products to aid its war effort.

A US executive order, implemented late last year, prompted lenders to drop Russian counterparties and avoid transactions in a range of currencies, said western officials and three senior Russian financiers.

“It has become harder for Russia to access the financial services that it needs to get these goods,” said Anna Morris, deputy assistant secretary for global affairs at the US Treasury.

“It’s definitely a goal to make it much more difficult for that money to flow, to increase the cost to the Russians [and] the friction in the system. Disruption is an important outcome,” she added.

Getting around the restrictions now requires a growing network of middlemen to avoid regulatory scrutiny even if the transactions have nothing to do with Russia’s war machine, the officials and financiers said, while increasing currency conversion and commission costs.

“It’s getting harder and harder every month. One month it is dollars, the next month it is euros; within six months you basically won’t be able to do anything. The logical endpoint of this is turning Russia into Iran,” said a senior Russian investor, referring to strict financial sanctions against Tehran.

The US executive order is designed to target banks in countries that recorded sharp rises in trade with Russia after the west imposed sanctions following Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine more than two years ago.

Turkey’s exports of “high-priority” goods — items mainly for civilian use but identified as critical for the war effort, such as microchips — to Russia and five former Soviet countries soared after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. According to Trade Data Monitor, the volume hit $586mn in 2023, a fivefold increase on prewar volumes.

But in the first quarter of this year, Turkey’s exports to Russia fell by a third year on year to $2.1bn. And the value of its reported exports of high-priority goods to Russia and its neighbouring countries fell 40 per cent to $93mn in the first quarter of 2024 from the previous quarter, showing the impact of the executive order.

The sharp drops in war-related exports are attributable to banks’ fear of repercussions from the US, which can track any dollar transaction and cripple lenders by cutting them out of the dollar-based financial system, US officials and experts said.

The Treasury can hit lenders with secondary sanctions if it suspects they are dealing with companies that are banned because of their links to Russia’s military-industrial complex.

“The US really has leverage over the financial sector,” said Elina Ribakova, a non-resident senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. “It can find out if you’re doing something wrong, even the smallest bank, if you are somehow connected to the dollar. So that scares people.”

The restrictions on payments have had a chilling effect far beyond the shadow trade in components for Russia’s war machine, as banks cut off entire categories of transactions with Moscow rather than fall foul of US sanctions.

Russian traders have turned to smaller banks and alternative currencies as major banks in countries such as Turkey and China shy away.

Vladimir Potanin, the oligarch who controls Norilsk Nickel metals group, recently said sanctions had cut the company’s revenue by at least 15 per cent since 2022, in part because of 5 to 7 per cent commissions to middlemen on export transactions.

Traders selling goods to Russia, including restricted goods, are less likely to be deterred than banks, said Jane Shvets, a partner and sanctions expert at US law firm Debevoise & Plimpton.

“The pullback of larger financial institutions has disrupted the trade, but the question is whether it will bounce back as these ‘shadier’ alternatives for moving money proliferate,” she said.

The increasingly complex transactions risk confounding western regulators hunting trade in restricted goods as Russian entities and their counterparties add more transactions separating buyer and seller, said Matis Mäeker, head of Estonia’s financial intelligence unit.

“If you have four banks in the chain, that means there are several payments or hops connected from one transaction that previously moved from A to B” as money passes between users, he said.

That is increasing the cost of transactions, yet also making it harder for enforcement authorities to see them in time, he added. “There are so many banks in the world — they will find a new way to bypass the sanctions,” he said.

Russian importers and exporters are also settling more trades in roubles because of the difficulties of swapping the currency for dollars and euros, according to financiers involved.

Traders buying Russian oil in India are now conducting transactions in roubles after the US pushed banks in the United Arab Emirates to stamp out payments in dirhams, said a senior Russian banker and a former Russian oil executive.

“This is a sanctions loophole,” said the senior Russian banker, adding that foreigners are permitted to buy roubles on the Moscow Exchange for use in payment settlements with Russian counterparties. “These payments are easily processed because [foreign banks] can open correspondent accounts in roubles at the Russian branches of foreign banks.”

He believes the rouble will become “the main currency in the underbelly of Russia, because that’s the only way to make sure that [the US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control] does not see it”.

In early April the Bank of Georgia, the second-largest lender in the Caucasus nation and listed on the London Stock Exchange, told its customers that transfers to Russia in “technology, construction, industrial and aviation” would only be made in roubles.

The change was made “in compliance with Ofac requirements”, said the message, which seen by the Financial Times. Bank of Georgia did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Cross-border payments are increasingly being carried out in roubles, while the use of the Chinese, Turkish and UAE currencies are declining, according to Russia’s central bank. Before the 2022 war, less than 15 per cent of Russian exports were paid in roubles. But the currency’s share rose to 40 per cent in February this year, with the highest jump recorded after the US executive order.

For imports, payments in roubles have increased to about 40 per cent from a prewar level of 30 per cent.

The rouble’s limited convertibility, however, makes it difficult for Russian banks and counterparties to make up the lost volume of trade in dollars and other western currencies, the senior Russian investor said.

“Even the friendliest jurisdictions like Kyrgyzstan are vulnerable. And you cannot take that much out there anyway because the capital of these banks is all so small,” the investor said.

Steel group objects to Chatham Docks plan as it would have ‘seismic adverse consequences’ on the national economy

ArcelorMittal has warned the UK government that one of its main divisions may be forced to leave the country if an application to redevelop a commercial port in south-east England is approved this week. 

The world’s second-largest steel company said a decision to allow the closure and subsequent redevelopment of a part of Chatham Docks in Kent would have “seismic adverse consequences” for the British economy and multiple strategic industries.

The warning is contained in a letter from ArcelorMittal sent to Michael Gove, the levelling-up secretary, on Saturday and which was first reported by Sky News.

Matthew Brooks, managing director of ArcelorMittal Kent Wire, which supplies steel for construction, urged Gove in the letter to intervene to allow fuller scrutiny of proposals due to be heard by Medway Council this Wednesday. Under the application by Peel Waters, part of Peel Group, the site would be redeveloped for housing and commercial facilities. 

“Our concern is that Peel’s application to redevelop Chatham Docks is not only wrong for Britain but has proceeded with little scrutiny and a lack of public awareness. Many key stakeholders are therefore unaware of the consequences if it were to proceed,” Brooks wrote in the letter, a copy of which has been seen by the Financial Times.

“This is highly time-sensitive — calling in the application after next Wednesday will not be possible,” said Brooks. 

If the application is allowed to go ahead, Brooks wrote, ArcelorMittal “would regrettably be left with no alternative but to leave Chatham Docks and, more than likely, cease operations in Britain, given the lack of suitable alternative sites”.

The Luxembourg-based steel company, which is chaired by Indian tycoon Lakshmi Mittal, uses the site in Kent to supply reinforcement materials for the construction industry.

In the letter, Brooks said its operations at Chatham Docks are responsible for approximately 30 per cent of Britain’s concrete steel reinforcement, making the site a “strategic asset” for the country’s economy. Its materials have helped to build several high-profile infrastructure projects including Crossrail, HS1 and Heathrow Terminal 5. 

The docks employ almost 800 people, according to the steel group, and generate economic value equivalent to £112,000 per worker which, it argues, is “considerably higher than the Medway average of £63,900”.

ArcelorMittal declined to comment on Sunday. Peel Waters could not be reached for comment.