british gas suspends its force fitting of prepament meters following a report that it was imposing them on vulnerable customers. its chief executive, chris 0 shea has apologised. there chris 0 shea has apologised. is nothing that i can 5 can there is nothing that i can say that can express the horror i had when i heard this, when i saw this. it is completely unacceptable, that language is completely unacceptable. the largest ever outbreak of bird flu is now infecting mammals in the uk. hello and welcome if you re watching in the uk or around the world. europe s biggest energy firm, shell, has reported record annual profits of nearly $40 billion in 2022, more than double what it made in the previous year. the profits are the biggest in the firm s history boosted by higher energy prices since the start of the ukraine war. shell has already said it will pay tax in the uk for the first time since 2017 as a result of the government s windfall tax. let s take a closer look at t
gas giants really heavily is that it might discourage them from investing in renewables. we are seeing in these figures that shell invested less on renewables and more on paying back shareholders. does this pose difficult questions for them? hill it certainly does. as you say. hill it certainly does. as you sa ., ., ., hill it certainly does. as you sa. ., ., ., ,, , say. the amount of spending shell is committing say. the amount of spending shell is committing to say. the amount of spending shell is committing to so-called - say. .. the amount of spending shell is committing to so-called low- is committing to so called low carbon investment, which by the way, that figure you have cited also includes spending on gas related marketing and trading, so that is notjust renewable energy, it is more than that. it is dwarfed by the amount they are spending on shareholder dividends and share buy backs. i think it is very hard to maintain the lie that increasing tax on oil and gas companie
one, we came the u.s. in particular came roaring out of covid. we really have had a pretty strong recovery. you can see that in the jobs numbers that we saw yesterday and over the last few months. but there s another factor and the president has been pointing at this is that are companies charging too much? are they using their spare cash to pay back shareholders, or to pump more, do more r&d. that s a big question. and i think you re going to see biden putting a lot more pressure on companies around this issue. have a listen to cecelia ruse talking about the challenges facing the economy right now. the most obvious is the russian invasion of ukraine. this may well put pressure on energy and food prices. that could reinforce inflation which was already an issue prior to the invasion due to the pandemic and a strong demand for goods. we talked about fuel.
it is money time. chief business correspondent christine romans is in our money center. green on the screen this morning. absolutely right. markets in europe and asia showing gains this morning. investors confident. watching gm shares this morning. they are higher. gm says it will pay its first quarterly dividend in nearly six years. representing a sharp turn around. this was government motors, now it s on its own paying back shareholders. j. p. morgan says it replaced 2 million debit cards. as many as 110 million target customers caught up in the hack.
the companies use the cash to go offshore to buy back shares. it wasn t used to hire people. the company leading the charge of the repatriation is cisco. cisco is in a situation where the stock is falling 25% over this year. they want money from overseas to buy back shares and pay off dividends to pay back shareholders. buying back shares is what this is about. that s all it s been about. they want cash from offshore, tax free to buy back shares. to bypass your point, they brought back $299 million. it didn t go towards job creation. it s not going to go next time. i give you a quote for paul ryan. he said, quote, it s a good idea. we ought to have it every day instead of a repatriation every seven years, let s have it every day. does that mean he thinks that the corporation should pay 5% in