SSE, which became the first of the big six firms to raise its gas and electricity prices at the end of 2013 when it put them up by 8.2%, said the increase in retail operating profits to £456.8m brought profitability only back to where it was in 2012.
Then, of course, came the figures for the Sun.* As I reported on 17 December, the stand-out feature in News UK's overall loss in the 2013-14 period was the plunge in the profitability of the Sun, where operating profits were down to £35.6m from £62.1m.
And it is looking for bargains in Russia, Ukraine and Turkey, where profits can grow faster than at home.Mr Müller says that profitability is more important than market share.
Forbes ranks it as the second-largest private company in the country, after Cargill, and its consistent profitability has made David and Charles Koch—who, years ago, bought out two other brothers—among the richest men in America.
The firm attempted to maintain its profitability by marginally reducing the proportion of revenue set aside to pay staff to 36.8% from 36.9%.
He admitted that the presence of hen harriers was a threat to the profitability of the grouse shoots.
So-called "stranded" assets could cause major damage to oil companies' profitability, Lamb said.
Renewable technology pays no dividends, has no obvious path to long-term profitability, can easily get disrupted and controls no resources.
The bank said: We have benchmarked [Weir's] oil and gas division against 17 other industrial end markets and show that the current profitability of the business is abnormally high.
"For me, it seems clear that Google Maps are driven by commercial multinational profitability," he says.
HTC has been struggling to find profitability, and cut capacity in 2013 to 38.6m devices - suggesting that Xiaomi will outsell it this year.
