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What is going on at Chanel? The brand’s cruise collection unveiled on Thursday on the roof of the Le Corbusier building La Cité Radieuse in Marseille in the south of France triggered a barrage of negative comments on social media never seen for such a major luxury brand. The public display of hostility makes more urgent the question of whether the time has come for Chanel to part ways with designer Virginie Viard and to consider who might replace her.

Chanel’s last cruise collection was applauded by those fashion critics whose media outlets depend on the brand’s advertising budgets. However, on its official Instagram account, on which anyone can write a comment, it was vehemently booed. Among the comments: “Horrible!”; “Awful, no concept;” “A catastrophe;” “A boring seen-it-all-before show;” “A collection from Zara;” “It makes me so sad;” “We really miss Karl.”

One person even wrote: “If Chanel does not change its artistic direction, it’s going to flounder. Before, Chanel was about joy. Now it’s over.” Another said: “Please get rid of her (referring to Viard). It’s no longer possible to watch this.” And someone asked: “When is Hedi Slimane arriving?”

The mighty Chanel has never been attacked in such a manner. However, there were clearly some issues with this cruise show. First, Marseille was not the right location for Chanel. The Phocaean city has many charms, but it is also known for its grubby and gangster-dominated neighborhoods. These hardly suit the glam and exclusive aura associated with Chanel. The aerial views of lines of concrete buildings, filmed by drones for the video that the brand showed about the cruise collection, evoked a vision of a third-rate suburb.

Viard tried to bring the brand down to earth to mingle with the plebs. That was a mistake. Chanel’s DNA is about sophistication, refinement and craftsmanship. As many observers noted on the brand’s Instagram account, Viard’s predecessor Karl Lagerfeld – the designer who understood everything about luxury and turned Chanel one of the world’s most desirable brands - would have never allowed this to happen.

About the clothes. Many outfits -- not all of them -- lacked the positive energy and timeless elegance expected from Chanel. There were lots of tangy green and yellow outfits that matched the dots of color adorning the Corbusier building, but that aesthetic connection looked odd and did not feel right for Chanel. Le Corbusier helped redefine collective living at a time of massive urbanization in France in the early 20th century. La Cité Radieuse in Marseille was one of his buildings aimed at democratizing comfort, something that until then was reserved for the elite.

Chanel is not about the masses. It is about the lucky few who can afford its wares and status symbols. How could Chanel’s image directors fail to see that Le Corbusier was not right for the brand?

The collection featured several printed dresses and all-white silhouettes that were wearable, but nothing to brag about and, most important, they did not ooze luxury. There were a few cardigans in a perforated fabric, perhaps meant to recall a fishnet – Marseille is a major fishing port - but they looked like something grandmothers might wear.

Not only did this collection lack sophistication, it lacked good ideas. One new element introduced was a grey hoodie attached to some tweed jackets. It produced a “trying too hard to be cool” effect and looked strange. When designer Pierpaolo Piccioli put hoodies on beautiful jackets for his last Haute Couture Valentino collection presented in January, it gave couture a modern twist. He lined the hoodie with tiny floating feathers that made them pass the chic test. Chanel’s hoodies, on the other hand, looked like fashion heresy. Here, the brand flirted with streetwear but it is a style that is in decline, fashion critics say. Quiet luxury and effortless elegance are what luxury shoppers seek today. Streetwear works at Louis Vuitton menswear under designer Pharrell Williams who makes it legitimate. It does not work for Chanel, however.

Cruise collections, often presented in early May before the Cannes Film Festival, represent a way for major fashion brands such as Chanel, Louis Vuitton and Dior to create a buzz and generate traffic in stores. They usually show them in exotic locations to which they fly social media influencers, top clients and journalists. For years, they tried to outbid each other with the most spectacular, far-flung locations until it became “environmentally incorrect” in terms of carbon footprint to fly half way across the planet to see a fashion show.

This major fashion faux pas is a sign that Chanel is going through turbulent times. Cracks are clearly starting to appear in the beautiful castle that is the storied French brand. In January, Miss Tweed reported that Chanel was in the grip of a revolution. Its Indian-born executive CEO Leena Nair, who had never worked in luxury before joining the brand two years ago, had ousted more than a dozen key executives and senior managers, shocking staff and industry partners. Even CFO Philippe Blondiaux was planning to leave in 2026. At the time, Chanel declined to comment and would not deny this on the record.

When Nair started as CEO in January 2022, many of Chanel’s powerful bosses believed she would be more of a super human resources and chief operating officer than a real CEO, since Alain Wertheimer, who owns the brand with his brother Gerard and half-brother Charles Heilbronn, ultimately remained the company’s main decision-maker. Chanel’s managers did not expect her to radically change things. As the months went by, they began to realize they had to obey her orders, since she had Wertheimer’s backing. Company executives resented being told how they should run their business by someone who knew so little about luxury and many left as a result. To explain the exodus, the brand said many departing managers were close to retirement.

Chanel told Miss Tweed the departures were “part of the natural cycle of succession”.

However, this cruise show means that those who understood what Chanel was about are no longer in charge or there to prevent such PR disasters from happening.

Chanel is the world’s No. 2 luxury brand in terms of sales, just behind Louis Vuitton. In 2022, it made an operating profit of $5.77 billion on revenue of $17.2 billion. The company employs more than 35,000 people.

Under the creative stewardship of Viard, the brand has become more girly, feminist and intellectual. Its shows have become a much less grandiose affair than when the Kaiser was in charge. We remember Lagerfeld’s mind-blowing settings inside the cavernous Grand Palais which one day featured a gigantic supermarket, then a huge rocket or a reconstituted beach complete with waves lapping sandy shores. Lagerfeld asked for the impossible and got it every time.

When in 2019 the Wertheimer family appointed Viard as Lagerfeld’s former right-hand woman, their objective was continuity. She has fulfilled her mission, producing collections season after season that remained faithful to the maison’s codes: the tweed, the double C, the pearls and the camellia. However, now it seems people have grown tired of seeing the same thing over and over again. Chanel’s shows are no longer as stunning and awe inspiring as they once were. They seem to be out of tune with the times.

In a clear blow to Viard, veteran fashion critic Suzy Menkes wrote on her Instagram account in October, after Viard’s last ready-to-wear collection, that the only designer who made clothes that were in tune with the times was Lagerfeld.

“The truth is that the late designer is the only person who could produce, season after season, designs that fitted fashion of the moment… The problem with the current collections by Virginie Viard is that there is no sense of a changing world: the male/female power; violence on the streets; flooded homes; different versions of beauty – and so much more that the modern world has thrown upon us.” Menkes described Viard’s fashion for Chanel as “politely pretty” but not much more.

Adding to the market’s disenchantment with the brand from a fashion point of view, the French luxury giant has irked consumers by massively raising prices. The price of some of its best-selling products, such as the famous 2.55 quilted bag with a chain, has been increased by more 90 percent in the past four years. It now costs nearly €11,000. Even the most loyal clients find that excessive.

Late last month, Nair said in an interview with Bloomberg that the increase reflected the craftsmanship and quality of materials, as well as inflation. “We use exquisite raw materials and our production is very rigorous, laborious, hand-made – so we raise our prices according to the inflation that we see,” Nair told Bloomberg in a TV interview with Francine Lacqua.

It is time Alain Wertheimer had a serious conversation with Nair and Chanel’s executives about what to do next. It has become urgent to think about the post-Viard era and what story Chanel wants to tell us over the next decade. Many fashionistas see Celine’s outgoing Hedi Slimane replacing Viard at Chanel, particularly since his last fashion show in March was very Chanel-like. Such a scenario has been evoked for more than a decade, but it is far from clear that the Wertheimers would be ready to put up with Slimane’s antics. Miss Tweed was the first to report last month that Slimane planned to leave LVMH’s Celine. Stay tuned.

Multi-million-dollar grants adding up to more than $46 million from the US Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) will help support electrification efforts at several American ports.

The Long Beach Container Terminal (LBCT) in Long Beach, California has received a $34.9 million grant from the FHWA to replace 155 on-site commercial trucks and buses with zero-emission vehicles (ZEV). The grant will fund both the purchase of new electric trucks and the necessary charging infrastructure to support them.

LBCT said the grant dollars will allow it to continue its multi-billion dollar investments in more sustainable logistical operations. “Our vehicle electrification project, coupled with previous investments, enables LBCT to achieve a unique status that is reframing the way the world views sustainable goods movement, enhancing community quality of life and climate change,” said Anthony Otto, CEO of LBCT.

Real progress at Port of Long Beach

Back in 2018, Power Progress reported that the Port of Long Beach had plans to install zero-emissions cranes and cargo handling equipment at its terminals. True to its word, the port has invested more than $2.5 billion to convert its cranes and terminal tractors vehicles to electric equipment. It’s a project that LBCT says has led to an 86 percent (!) reduction in harmful carbon emissions.

“This investment is a huge win for clean air, electrification and the region,” said US House Rep. Robert Garcia. “These federal dollars will make our port cleaner, safer and help us meet our climate goals.”

In a separate announcement, charging infrastructure operator Voltera said that its sites in California and Georgia would receive $11.4 million of the FHWA funding.

Container ports used to be some of the dirtiest, most heavily polluted areas in the world. That was bad for everyone – but it was especially bad for the people who lived and worked near them. That’s why any positive change is good. Beyond just “positive change,” however, ports today seem to be leading the way when it comes to electric vehicle and hydrogen adoption.

How things change!

Endorsements come as exclusive talks end without deal and Sony and Apollo push rival $26bn offer

Two of Hollywood’s biggest names have thrown their weight behind Skydance’s bid for Paramount as it moves to fend off a rival approach from Sony and Apollo. 

James Cameron, whose film Titanic is the biggest hit in Paramount’s history, and Endeavor chief executive Ari Emanuel told the Financial Times that they believed Skydance founder David Ellison could revive the struggling company. 

“I love the Ellison idea,” Cameron said in an interview. “If he gets . . . to run Paramount creatively, it could be a huge boon for this business in these ailing times. David’s proven himself.”

Emanuel, a Hollywood “superagent” and chief executive of the company that owns the WME talent agency and controls TKO Group, said Ellison is “a natural acquirer” of the company. 

“David has a real movie business [with] big franchises,” he said. “Everybody is in business with him — Amazon, Netflix, Apple, Paramount and Disney all have a good relationship with David.” 

Ellison, son of Oracle founder Larry Ellison, launched Skydance in 2010 and has made a number of blockbusters, including Top Gun: Maverick, which Paramount released.

Backed by private equity groups RedBird and KKR, Ellison is pursuing a two-step deal. First, he would pay $2bn for National Amusements, which houses the majority of the voting shares that are controlled by Shari Redstone. Paramount would then acquire Skydance for $5bn in a stock deal.

Paramount is among the most legendary companies in Hollywood, but it has struggled to compete in a brutal streaming battle that has upended the entertainment business. 

Paramount is controlled by Redstone’s National Amusements, a family business that started out as a chain of New England cinemas in the 1930s. NAI controls nearly 80 per cent of the voting shares of Paramount, but holds only about 10 per cent of its equity. 

The endorsements from Cameron and Emanuel come at a precarious moment for Ellison’s bid. 

Skydance had been in exclusive negotiations with Paramount, but that window lapsed on Friday without an agreement. A special committee appointed by the Paramount board, which is tasked with evaluating the group’s options, can continue to weigh the bid, however. Sources close to the bid told the FT that Ellison was willing to walk away, though no immediate indications suggested he was preparing to do so. 

The end of the exclusive window came just a day after Sony and private equity group Apollo submitted a $26bn offer for Paramount. 

In Hollywood there are fears that an Apollo-Sony acquisition of Paramount would reduce the number of major studios, leading to job cuts and potentially throwing into question the future of the storied Paramount lot on Melrose Avenue. 

But some Paramount investors have told the FT they prefer Apollo’s approach, saying it would offer a better premium for common shareholders. 

At the weekend, Warren Buffett revealed he had sold his entire stake in Paramount at a loss. Buffett’s $2.6bn investment in 2022 was seen as a bullish sign for Paramount, but the shares have plummeted more than 60 per cent since Berkshire first disclosed its stake. 

“I think I’m smarter now than I was a year or two ago, but I also think I’m poorer because I acquired the knowledge in the manner I did,” Buffett said, referring to his understanding of the entertainment business. “We lost money on Paramount and I did it all by myself folks.”

Emanuel said Ellison, who is 41, has “a fire in his belly” that could help turn the company around. 

“I don’t want to denigrate anybody, but I think [Paramount] needs a little bit of new energy. I think he will bring that,” he said. “I think he’ll be an incredible additional partner to Shari in this situation.” 

Cameron said he worked as a behind-the-scenes adviser to Ellison during Skydance’s production of Terminator Genisys, a sequel to his 1984 classic Terminator. “I was sceptical of the trust fund baby, you know, dad’s money,” he said. “Yeah, he had the resources, but he also was the right guy to be able to command those resources.”

He added: “I wouldn’t hesitate to work with him on a project . . . and we do have some things cooking.”

Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway offloaded around 13% of its Apple holdings in Q1 2024, the conglomerate revealed this weekend. Despite selling around 115 million shares, however, Buffett reaffirmed his commitment to AAPL going forward.

Meanwhile, Tim Cook, who made the trip to Omaha for Berkshire’s annual meeting on Saturday, praised Buffett for his belief in Apple.

Warren Buffett offloads 115 million AAPL shares

As reported by CNBC, Berkshire’s Q1 2024 earnings report revealed that its stake in Apple is now worth $135.4 billion – indicating that it holds around 790 million shares. Based on Apple’s stock price, this would mean Berkshire sold about 115 million shares, CNBC says.

Still, Apple is Berkshire’s largest holding by a wide margin. Likewise, Berkshire is Apple’s largest shareholder outside of ETF providers.

During Berkshire Hathaway’s annual meeting on Saturday, Buffett praised Apple and said it’s an “an even better business” than two of the conglomerate’s other major holdings, American Express and Coca-Cola. Buffett also assured investors: “Unless something dramatic happens that really changes capital allocation, we will have Apple as our largest investment.”

Buffett didn’t offer specific details on why Berkshire sold 13% of its Apple holdings in the quarter. He did, however, imply that it was to increase its cash stake for tax purposes:

“It doesn’t bother me in the least to write that check and I would really hope with all that America’s done for all of you, it shouldn’t bother you that we do it and if I’m doing it at 21% this year and we’re doing it a little higher percentage later on, I don’t think you’ll actually mind the fact that we sold a little Apple this year.”

Apple CEO Tim Cook was in the audience of Berkshire’s annual meeting in Omaha, Nebraska on Saturday. With regard to Berkshire’s decision to offload some of its Apple holdings, Cook told CNBC that “it’s a privilege to have them as a shareholder.”

When Berkshire sold 10 million shares of AAPL in 2020, Buffett later admitted that the decision “was probably a mistake.” In Q4 2023, Berkshire offloaded around 1% of its AAPL holdings (10 million shares), so this marks the second consecutive quarter that the conglomerate reduced its stake in Apple.

Proposed change could lift income-tax burden that wipes out most licensed marijuana retailers’ earnings

Many U.S. cannabis businesses could become profitable for the first time if the Biden administration follows through on its plan to reclassify marijuana as a less dangerous drug.

That is because the change could lift a heavy income-tax burden: Section 280E of the federal tax code currently bars cannabis businesses from claiming deductions on many basic business expenses. That rule often results in an effective tax rate of 70% or more, wiping out most licensed marijuana retailers’ earnings.

“It’s an absolute game-changer,” said Boris Jordan, executive chairman of Curaleaf Holdings, which operates 145 dispensaries and 19 cultivation sites across the U.S. “It’s something we’ve been waiting for, for the better part of 10 years.”

The proposed rule could take months to complete and could be further stalled by lawsuits. The public, including state regulators and marijuana companies, would have a chance to comment and the White House would have to sign off on a final version of the rule before it could go into effect.

Marijuana is legal in some form in 40 states and the District of Columbia, but is illegal under federal law—and would remain so even if the Drug Enforcement Administration moved marijuana from Schedule I to the less-restrictive Schedule III, equivalent to prescription medications such as anabolic steroids and some combinations of acetaminophen and codeine.

Cannabis businesses would still have to contend with limited access to banking services and financing. They still wouldn’t be allowed to transport marijuana across state lines. And companies that sell marijuana in the U.S. still couldn’t be traded on U.S. stock exchanges. (Several Canadian operators are listed on U.S. exchanges while U.S. operators are listed on Canadian exchanges.)

A national survey conducted in 2022 by Whitney Economics, a cannabis industry research firm, found that fewer than 25% of cannabis businesses were profitable. Licensed U.S. cannabis companies this year are expected to make $31.4 billion in sales and pay $2.3 billion more in federal taxes than they would under normal business tax rules, according to Whitney Economics forecasts.

For companies that have been hanging on in hope of one day making it into the black, the policy change could be transformative. Business leaders said they could use the cash to invest more in marketing, offer better benefits to employees and expand into newly opened markets such as Ohio. Industry leaders said they are also optimistic that the policy shift could reduce the stigma around cannabis, bring more investors into the sector and make federal lawmakers more open to legalizing marijuana.

Congress created Section 280E of the tax code in 1982, when Sen. Bill Armstrong (R., Colo.) tucked the provision into a larger bill as the federal War on Drugs was ramping up.

The law denies many ordinary deductions and tax credits to businesses that are “trafficking in controlled substances” listed under Schedule I and II.

When marijuana was illegal at the federal and state levels, that deduction limit had a relatively small impact, and it mostly gave U.S. authorities an additional tool to go after drug dealers and impose taxes on top of criminal prosecutions. But state legalization combined with Section 280E created an odd hybrid. The cannabis industry looked like regular businesses in many respects—except for the income-tax bills.

“Draconian, I think, is putting it lightly,” said Charlie Bachtell, chief executive of Cresco Labs, which has dispensaries and production facilities across eight U.S. states. For each of the past two years, Cresco has paid between $70 million and $80 million more in U.S. federal taxes than it would have under normal business conditions, he said. Despite the hefty tax bill, Cresco in the last quarter of 2023 became free cash-flow positive for the first time since it went public in 2018.

The cannabis industry has “really been kind of stumbling its way forward because of the economic burdens of 280E,” said Brian Vicente, a cannabis lawyer in Denver.

The current tax rules allow cannabis businesses to deduct their cost of goods sold, so growers that put most of their resources into production don’t get hit hard. Businesses closer to the consumer get hammered by Section 280E. For instance, a retailer selling clothes or food can deduct rent, marketing and wages when calculating taxable income. But a cannabis retailer typically can’t take any of those deductions.

“It’s impossible to make those numbers work,” said Wanda James, CEO and co-founder of Simply Pure Brands, which has a dispensary in Colorado and a new branch about to open in New Jersey. “It’s just a question of how long is your runway.”

James, a former Navy officer, restaurateur and political organizer, was among the first Black cannabis licensees in Colorado. She said the tax change could lower the barriers to entry for women, people of color and veterans, many of whom have struggled to keep their cannabis businesses afloat after winning state lotteries for social-equity licenses.

The tax change could also shrink the gap in profitability between legal and illegal cannabis businesses, helping licensed businesses that have struggled to compete with the black market. Unlicensed operations can sell marijuana at lower prices and pay fewer administrative and regulatory costs.

More broadly, moving cannabis to Schedule III could create an unusual tax regime. Businesses would still face significant state taxes and high costs for banking and other services. But cannabis would actually have more favorable federal tax treatment than alcohol and tobacco, which are subject to federal excise taxes on top of income taxes.

Sens. Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.), Cory Booker (D., N.J.) and Ron Wyden (D., Ore.) are reintroducing legislation that would decriminalize marijuana and impose federal excise taxes of up to 25%.

Two senior OpenAI executives—vice president of people Diane Yoon and Chris Clark, head of nonprofit and strategic initiatives—left the company earlier this week, a company spokesperson said.

The two resignations are the latest high-profile changes to OpenAI’s leadership in the aftermath of Sam Altman’s dramatic ouster and subsequent rehiring by the nonprofit board that runs the startup, events that highlighted its unusual corporate structure. Both executives were among the most long-tenured managers at the developer of ChatGPT, recently worth $86 billion in an employee share sale.

Yoon will continue to serve as an adviser to the company for the rest of the year, OpenAI spokesperson Kayla Wood said in statement. Julia Villagra, currently OpenAI’s head of human resources, will replace Yoon as vice president of people, Wood said. She didn’t comment on whether Clark would be replaced. Both executives made the decision to resign on their own, Wood said.

“We are immensely grateful to Diane for her dedication and leadership over the past six years,” Wood said. “Under her guidance, OpenAI has grown significantly while maintaining a high standard of excellence across research, product, and other functions.”

Yoon, who joined OpenAI in 2018, oversaw the rapid growth of the company’s staff to more than 700 by late last year, as well as a week of turmoil in late November, when hundreds of the company’s staff threatened to resign over Altman’s firing.

Clark had been at OpenAI for more than eight years and served as its first chief operating officer starting in 2016, according to his LinkedIn profile. He also sat on the nonprofit’s board of directors in 2016 and 2017, according to tax filings. Clark previously worked with Altman at Y Combinator and at Loopt, the Y Combinator-backed location sharing startup Altman co-founded in 2005 and later sold.

In May 2022, Clark took on his most recent role, which he described as “leading OpenAI’s nonprofit and several global ops functions, including real estate, workplace, and strategic initiatives.” In a note to staff, Clark said that “after eight incredible years, I’ve decided to step back and devote more time to the people and projects I care deeply about outside of OpenAI.”

Andrej Karapthy, one of the founding members of OpenAI, left the company in February, The Information first reported.

Yoon did not respond to requests for comment. Clark couldn’t be reached for comment.

If you’re lying awake at 3 a.m. one night, try reading the Justice Department’s 509-page “proposed finding of fact” in its antitrust lawsuit against Google’s search business, a revised version of which was filed with the court on Tuesday. You likely won’t make it past the extensive table of contents before you fall asleep. Even so, getting through the document is probably worth it, at least for investors in Google’s parent company, Alphabet. For those people, understanding the government’s case is essential. A government victory could impose restraints on Google’s search business, its cash cow. And depending on what those constraints are, they could hurt Google’s earnings power enough to affect its ability to keep up in artificial intelligence.

We’re a long way from there, for sure, but a final decision on the case is getting closer. Today the judge overseeing the case heard closing arguments from both sides. Perhaps not coincidentally, Google stock was conspicuously flat even as the rest of the stock market rallied. Investors are surely conscious of the threat posed by the search case (which is separate from the antitrust lawsuit over Google’s ad tech business). And the earnings updates from major tech companies in the past two weeks help put things into perspective. As much as we associate Apple with minting money, it actually generated less cash than either Microsoft or Alphabet in the March quarter. In fact, according to analysts surveyed by S&P Global Market Intelligence, Alphabet this year will generate more cash from operations—$131 billion—than either Apple or Microsoft.

The difference is that Apple returns nearly all of the cash it generates to shareholders, and the other two don’t. As we’ve talked about a lot this week and last week, Alphabet and Microsoft spend a portion of their cash on capital expenditures—things like servers and data centers, which are necessary for AI development—and return much of what is left over to shareholders. (It’s a bit more complicated than that, but you get the gist.) This year, for both Microsoft and Alphabet, capex spending is soaring, so that balance will shift a bit. Apple, in contrast, can return so much money to shareholders because its capex spending is tiny. As Chief Financial Officer Luca Maestri explained on Thursday night during the company’s earnings call, Apple shares the cost of its capex investments with its suppliers. (For more on Apple’s relationship with its manufacturing partners, see our story today.)

The rise of large language models sparked worries last year that LLMs could hurt Google’s search dominance and profits, because AI-powered searches are so expensive to run. We reported this week that Google has slashed the cost of those searches, even as its search market share has stayed strong. The real threat to search, and to Google’s earnings power, remains the federal government.

ArcelorMittal has told Michael Gove it may be forced to "cease operations in Britain" unless he blocks the redevelopment of Chatham Docks in a letter obtained by Sky News.

The world's second-largest steel company has warned the government that a planning verdict due this week could lead to a key division quitting the UK.

Sky News has seen a letter sent by ArcelorMittal to Michael Gove, the levelling-up secretary, in which it says that a decision to allow the closure and redevelopment of part of Chatham Docks would have "seismic adverse consequences… [for] the British economy and multiple strategic industries".

In the letter from Matthew Brooks, who runs ArcelorMittal's construction solutions arm in the UK, the company urges Mr Gove to issue an urgent order to allow fuller government scrutiny of the redevelopment proposals ahead of Wednesday's decision by Medway Council.

"This is highly time-sensitive - calling in the application after next Wednesday will not be possible," Mr Brooks wrote.

He warned that if the proposals were approved, 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".

"This, too, would likely be the case for the majority of businesses at the Docks," Mr Brooks wrote.

"This would have a significant impact on Britain's manufacturing and construction industries, delay countless critical national infrastructure projects, come at a significant cost to the economy, and leave Britain vulnerable and exposed to the volatility of international supply chain shocks."