Ryanair profits slide as company battles labor strife

Labor strife is starting to weigh on Ryanair Holdings Plc. The discount airline posted a 20 percent drop in first-quarter profit, and warned that sporadic walkouts by trade unions, along with regional traffic-control strikes, are starting to make customers hesitant to book flights. That’s fed into a drop in prices, just as fuel costs rise and the Irish carrier shells out for 20 percent pay increases already granted to pilots. Fares fell 4 percent during the period ended June 30, and the pricing environment remains weak, Ryanair said. The company kept its profit full-year outlook, but said it was “heavily dependent” on fares this quarter, crew strikes, traffic-controller strikes and other wild cards such as Brexit.

HK property bears rear their heads (yet again)

Hong Kong’s property market has a habit of humbling the bears, shattering predictions that the laws of gravity must eventually prevail. But now, a crosscurrent of headwinds – from a slowing Chinese economy to upcoming interest-rate hikes and a reinvigorated regulatory push to tame home prices – have emboldened some longstanding skeptics to renew calls that a correction could be imminent. Citigroup Inc. last week called time on the party, predicting a 7 percent second-half slide, and Bocom International Holdings Co.’s Hao Hong sees the possibility of a decline of more than twice that. “Property stocks are telling you that the correction is coming,” Hong said, citing equity declines as a leading indicator, as the Hang Sang Property Index is down 14 percent from a Jan. 26 peak. “I won’t be surprised to see prices coming down 15 percent in the coming months.”

Facebook’s London office with space for 6,000 workers

Facebook Inc. will double the amount of space it occupies in London as technology firms continue to expand in the U.K. The new office buildings in the city’s King’s Cross district will have room for more than 6,000 people, compared with a target of 2,300 workers by the end of this year. Facebook’s statement on Monday did not say how many jobs will be created as part of part of the expansion. Workplace, Facebook’s enterprise collaboration tool, is wholly built and run out of London, and the U.K. capital is also home to the engineering team responsible for the security of the social network’s community. Its London teams also work on virtual reality products.