Pound continues its tumble after the entry into play of Boris Johnson in the Brexit Business

Ian Conn's departure came after what he described as an "exceptionally difficult environment in the first half of 2019," which led Centrica to halve its dividend.

Centrica recorded a loss of £ 446m in the first half of 2019, after making a profit of £ 704m during the same period last year.

The company has attributed a number of factors to the downside of its £ 1.1 billion portfolio: the default UK tariff cap, low natural gas prices in the UK, the Hunterston B and Dungeness B nuclear power plants, and a more lenient temperature the United Kingdom and North America.

British Gas shareholders' adjusted shareholder profit, which is trying to eliminate the one-time costs, dropped 63% from the previous year to £ 134 million. The dividend payable to investors fell to 1.5p per share, compared with 3.6p last year.

Centrica's UK consumer business will be "fundamentally reoriented" and will seek additional savings of £ 250 million a year as part of a £ 1 billion cost-cutting program.

British Gas owner Centrica announced that its chief executive, Ian Conn, would be retiring next year.

Conn will stay at Centrica at least until the 2020 Annual General Meeting and "will provide all his support to help with the transition," the company said.

The board indicated that it would plan its succession and provide an update later.

Conn will remain on the same pay policy until the end of her job, Centrica said. However, bonus payments whose conditions are not yet fulfilled will be "completely void" and no bonus will be granted.

Conn had already been criticized after receiving a 44% payroll increase, to £ 2.4m in 2018, despite a difficult year in which the company imposed two bill increases , warned about profits and announced thousands of job cuts.

Charles Berry, president of Centrica, said:

Iain has now agreed with the Council that even though he will continue to focus on driving [the] transformation, including continued announced divestments and continuing to improve performance and efficiency, it will also support orderly succession before resigning in a timely manner.

Here's a chart that hard-nosed readers will have seen yesterday, but it's certainly worth repeating: sterling against the US dollar since the beginning of 2016, before the June 2016 referendum.

Note that the pound sterling exceeded $ 1.50 as the results of the referendum began to be felt. Since then, he has suffered, recovered somewhat, and then retreated when it became clear that a Brexit without a transaction was more and more likely.

The opening night of Boris Johnson on the financial markets took a new blow this morning, sending the pound to new lows.

During his campaign for the conservative leadership, the new Prime Minister made it clear that he intended to leave the EU on October 31 with or without agreement. The markets did not seem to believe it; they now seem to have caught up.

Johnson has again rejected the backstop, the insurance policy that aims to prevent a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. Speaking in Scotland, he said:

We can not accept the safety net, it has been thrown three times, the withdrawal agreement in the state is dead and everyone understands. But much remains to be done to conclude a new contract and a better contract.

Investors were not rebadured and the pound fell again this morning, losing up to 0.7% against the US dollar and 0.6% against the euro. One pound bought for just $ 1.2121 US this morning, its lowest level since March 14, 2017. Watch for the $ 1.2106 level: it will be the lowest since January 2017.

The month has been uncomfortable for the pound, making it one of the weakest currencies in the world in recent days.

Johnsonian's weakness in Sterling will also have tricky implications for the Bank of England, whose monetary policy committee charged with setting rates will look at the fall of the pound with some trepidation before the latest decision on interest rates. Thursday.

The falls of the pound eventually resulted in higher inflation – but this is not the kind of inflation that indicates a warming economy. This makes it uncomfortable to allow inflation to rise or raise interest rates to combat inflation at a time when the economy may be at risk. to be even more in difficulty.

L & # 39; s calendar

• BST: Business confidence in the euro zone (July)
• BST: consumer confidence in the euro zone (July)
• 13h BST: inflation rate in Germany (July)
• 13:30 BST: US Personal Expenses (June)