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From mine sales to expansion into nickel and aluminium smelting, coal producers in Indonesia are reducing their exposure to the commodity as finding financing for the “dirtiest” fossil fuel becomes increasingly difficult.

The south-east Asian country’s coal capacity is still growing, and the world’s top exporter also remains one of the biggest emitters of carbon, with environmental groups criticising Jakarta for its slow progress towards greener energy sources.

But corporate efforts to diversify underscore the scrutiny businesses are now facing amid the energy transition and concerns over long-term demand for coal.

“There are obviously growing [environmental, social and governance] pressures, and coal is front and centre in this discussion,” said Ray Gunara, president-director of Harum Energy, which has been expanding rapidly into nickel processing. “It’s very challenging for us to raise any money for anything that’s coal-related. It has been the case for the last few years.”

Harum is one of Indonesia’s smaller coal producers, but it is expected to be one of the first to make coal a minority business. It has not put any new funds into coal in the past five years. “We have simply been accumulating cash from the existing [coal] business and all that cash is going into growing our nickel business,” Gunara said.

The company plans to close its coal business when reserves run out in a few years. “Just by continuing business as usual, in six to seven years, the coal business would just slowly run its course,” Gunara said.

The company entered the nickel business in 2020 to tap into soaring demand for the metal used in electric vehicle batteries. It expects nickel to contribute about 60 per cent of revenues by the end of this year — a big jump from 11 per cent last year — and aims to double production capacity to 150,000 tonnes by the end of 2025.

Other coal producers are also transitioning. Indika Energy has launched electric motorbikes and solar power plants and sold some coal mines. It is aiming to reduce its coal business to 50 per cent of total revenues by 2025.

Adaro Energy, run by billionaire Garibaldi Thohir, is building an aluminium smelter and a hydro power plant. Last month, it announced a plan to spin off its coal business through a public offering valuing it at about $2.5bn.

An analysis by the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis shows that five of the seven major publicly listed Indonesian coal producers are investing in diversification.

“It’s very difficult to get financing, that’s the biggest problem,” said Ghee Peh, energy finance analyst at the IEEFA. Peh added that Adaro’s spin-off strategy was a model that could be replicated by its rivals.

In recent years, foreign banks have largely stopped financing coal operations, with Indonesian companies primarily securing financing from domestic institutions.

Adaro struggled to find funds for a $2bn aluminium project involving a coal power plant, the Financial Times reported last year, and in April, carmaker Hyundai called off an aluminium supply agreement with Adaro.

Despite diversification efforts, Indonesia’s coal capacity is still increasing and threatens its goal to reach net zero emissions by 2060.

The government banned the construction of new coal power plants in 2022 but granted a number of exceptions where construction could still proceed. New plants can be built for exclusive use within mineral processing sites and for other projects deemed as strategic to national interests.

The IEEFA’s Peh said two of the seven listed Indonesian coal producers had major expansion plans that would add an estimated 58mn tonnes of capacity. Indonesia produced a record 775mn tonnes of coal last year.

Coal is responsible for more than 60 per cent of electricity generated in Indonesia, with the country having abundant thermal coal reserves and being the world’s third-largest producer. China, India, Japan and South Korea are among the top buyers of Indonesian coal.

Developed countries have promised to provide $22bn in financing through public and private funds to help the country wean itself off coal. However, progress with the distribution of funds has been slow.

Coal remains a lucrative business as prices have climbed in recent years. Indonesian coal producers saw record profits in 2022. In August, Glencore, the world’s largest publicly listed coal producer, dropped plans to spin off its coal business after investors pushed the company to keep coal for better returns.

While smaller coal groups can pivot to other sectors more easily, it would be a challenge for others in the industry, said Harum’s Gunara. “For some of our larger peers, it would be more difficult for them to diversify to new areas and transform their coal business into a minority contributor. It would take a much longer time.”

Fitch Ratings expects funding access to further narrow in the next three to five years. “Companies that adopt meaningful diversification strategies that go beyond thermal coal [will] achieve better funding access compared with those that maintain conservative financial profiles with no diversification plans,” the rating agency told the FT.

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ARUNDEL is an historic market town in West Sussex that’s home to an 950-year-old castle, riverside pubs and independent shops and boutiques.

And while we know that the fictional town in the Disney movie Frozen was inspired by the Austrian town of Hallstatt.. we’re going to go out on a limb and say there are an awful lot of similarities with this southern English location.

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For starters, Arendelle – the town in Frozen – sunds an awful lot like Arundel.

Secondly, the big focal point of Arundel is the imposing castle, much like in Frozen, where the castle is the home of the princesses Elsa and Anna.

Built by Roger de Montgomery in 1067, Arundel Castle is the historic home of the Duke of Norfolk, with it being occupied by that family line for more than 850 years

The castle is currently home to Edward William Fitzalan-Howard, 18th Duke of Norfolk and his wife Francesca Herbet.

Despite being a family home of the Duke of Norfolk, Arundel Castle has been the backdrop for huge blockbuster films like 2017’s Wonder Woman, starring Gal Gadot.

Helen Mirren also filmed the Madness of King George alongside Nigel Hawthorne in Arundel Castle.

Arundel Castle is open to the public, with the historic building being named the Historic Park & Garden of the Year in 2024.

Visitors can explore rooms like the Regency Library, the Baron’s Hall, the Drawing Room and several Victorian and Edwardian bedrooms.

There are also plenty of buildings located within the grounds of the castle, including Fitzalan Chapel, a Gatehouse and a Chapel.

Events also take place at Arundel Castle throughout the year like the Household Cavalry Exhibition, which showcases twelve large-scale portraits of the Household Cavalry by the photographic artist Ripley

Jousting shows and walking tours will take place throughout the castle in October.

Entry tickets to Arundel Castle cost £29 for a full-paying adult and £12 for children, with family tickets coming in at £70.

You can also get an excellent view of the castle if you choose to take the train to the town’s station, Arundel Castle.

The Arun Valley railway line runs right past the foot of the grounds.

There are plenty of other tourist attractions in the historic market, including Arundel Cathedral.

The Gothic cathedral is free to visit, with one of its most beautiful features considered to be the rose window that sits directly behind the organ gallery.

Arundel Town Centre is packed with independent shops like Kim’s Bookshop, Lavender House, and the Tea and Biscuit Club.

Another attraction is Arundel Lido, which has two outdoor swimming pools.

While the pools are heated from April to September, they become cold water swimming spots throughout the winter when the heat is turned off in the colder months.

Because Arundel is backed by the South Downs National Park, walking routes and hiking trails are another popular pastime in the area.

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One of those is the five-kilometre walk around Swanbourne Lake, which takes visitors past Hiorne Tower and back into Arundel Town Centre.

There’s also Arundel Park Walk that stretches for nine kilometres passing places like Monarch’s Way, the village of South Stoke and the River Arun.

Arundel isn’t short on pubs, with The Black Rabbit Pub highly-rated.

The riverside boozer offers views across the Wetlands towards Arundel Castle and serves a range of traditional grub like Sunday Roasts.

Other pubs in Arundel include the Lamb Inn, the Red Lion and the Kings Arms.

Holidaymakers can book to stay overnight at the Norfolk Arms Hotel, a Georgian Coaching Inn was built over 200 years ago by the 10th Duke of Norfolk.

Stays start from £70 per person per room, based on two people sharing a room.

Arundel is an hour’s drive from Brighton.

Earlier this month, we revealed our favourite towns and villages to visit across the UK.

Another tiny village in the UK has been compared to a retro 1940s film set.

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The other week, an economist at the University of Chicago named Chris Blattman posted 10 pieces of advice on X about how to email a professor or another senior member of the professional classes.

A greeting consisting of, “Hi!” is inadvisable, he said, as are emojis, emoticons and an abundance of exclamation marks. I especially liked his tip to use capital letters and punctuation, “otherwise we will lol at yr sad attempts”. Quite so.

But another thing about his guidance that got my attention was the response it sparked from another professor about how arcane professional email etiquette can be.

“I got yelled at multiple times at Cravath for not listing the partners’ names in order of seniority on emails,” wrote Berkeley Law School’s Andrew Baker. “Gotta know the rules.” 

This sounded quite something, even for a place as redoubtable as Cravath, which has represented some of the best known names in US business in its illustrious 205-year history.

When I called Baker to investigate further he said he was not technically yelled at while working as a summer associate at Cravath about eight years ago. 

But senior associates had made it clear that, when emailing multiple attorneys at the firm, it was “a bad look” not to list their names in order of seniority. 

I asked Cravath if this message was ever formally conveyed to new joiners at the firm and whether it was still in place, but sadly heard nothing back.

Still, Baker is not the only person to report being admonished for not taking seniority into account when emailing legal firm colleagues.

This strikes me as a low point in corporate life. It is hard to imagine why such fussy hierarchic protocols make any sort of sense.

Saying that, I am inclined to defend other forms of office pettiness about name ordering on the grounds that a lot of white collar office work is poorly measured and recognised.

In the absence of quantitative signs of performance, the urge for recognition can make people obsess about what appear to be deeply trivial signs of success.

I say this as someone who has witnessed blistering quarrels, and the occasional tears, about the order of bylines on stories written by multiple journalists.

Readers may not give a fig who has written what, let alone the order in which names appear. But reporters and their bosses know the first byline generally goes to whoever is deemed to have done the most work, which means the order of names is far from piffling.

Journalism is by no means the only occupation where such things matter.

The order of authors’ names on academic papers is so critical that entire academic papers have been devoted to the topic.

Economists pay a lot of attention to this because, unlike those in other fields, their names traditionally appear in alphabetical order.

The research shows that people with second names starting with a letter early in the alphabet are likely to get more citations than those whose names come later, as well as fancier jobs.

One 2006 paper that analysed data from the top 35 US economics departments said having an earlier surname meant you were more likely to get tenure at a top 10 department, become a fellow of the Econometric Society and receive a Nobel Prize. It also boosted your chances of receiving the John Bates Clark Medal awarded to an American economist under the age of 40 — and named after a man I note has two enviably early-alphabet names.

No wonder there’s a fightback against alphabetical discrimination.

Two North American economists, Debraj Ray and Arthur Robson, argued in a 2017 paper that it would be fairer to choose name order randomly, perhaps by flipping a coin, and make it clear this has been done by inserting the symbol ⓡ between authors’ names.

Ray tells me several journals have published papers using the symbol and the influential American Economic Association of professional economists has a page explaining random name ordering on its website, with a link to a tool authors can use to do the randomising.

Ray says use of the symbol is growing, especially among younger authors who work in larger teams.

That makes sense in a world where global collaboration is increasingly common and while the ethos may never catch on in upscale law firm email practices, I suspect it probably should. 

Indian companies are moving to fill the gap left by the exclusion of Chinese exports from the fast-growing US solar industry, as Washington steps up its crackdown on manufacturers with ties to Beijing.

Sumant Sinha, chief executive of ReNew, among India’s largest renewables companies, told the Financial Times that there “will be demand” for solar components from India as Washington reduces reliance on Chinese supplies for its energy transition.

“​​There is a need for some diversification, and India can actually become that plus one to China as far as the green tech supply chain is concerned,” Sinha said.

He added that ReNew was considering exporting to the US from its solar factories in India pending US tariff rules. “[India] will fill the gap.”

Washington is weighing additional tariffs on solar imports to protect the domestic industry after a flood of Chinese-produced panels drove global prices to record lows.

Last week, the Department of Commerce released preliminary estimates of duties as high as 293 per cent for solar cell exporters in four countries in south-east Asia, where the US sources the bulk of its solar supplies, often from Chinese companies.

The looming decision has driven developers and manufacturers to look beyond the region to markets not subject to tariffs. Wood Mackenzie expects cell manufacturing in countries outside of the main hubs of China and south-east Asia to more than double over the next couple of years, with India making up 40 per cent of new capacity.

“There’s no modular manufacturer in India who is not thinking of exporting,” said Subrahmanyam Pulipaka, chief executive of the National Solar Energy Federation of India, a lobbying group that counts big developers such as Adani Group, Tata Power and ReNew among its members.

US imports of Indian panels and cells surpassed $1.8bn last year, up from about $250mn the year before, according to BloombergNEF.

Indian manufacturers are also investing in US factories following President Joe Biden’s landmark Inflation Reduction Act, which included lucrative subsidies for domestic producers, with Waaree and VSK Energy announcing manufacturing commitments worth at least $1bn each last year.

“The main advantage is that they’re not Chinese,” said Martin Pochtaruk, chief executive of Heliene, which operates a solar panel factory in Minnesota.

The company used to source its cells from Vietnam and Malaysia, but now purchases primarily from India to insulate itself from new tariffs. In July, Heliene announced a $150mn joint venture with Premier Energies, India’s second-largest solar cell manufacturer, to build a US factory.

The Biden administration has raised protections against solar imports with ties to Beijing, doubling the duty rate for Chinese cells, applying anti-circumvention tariffs on Chinese companies in south-east Asia, and banning goods linked to forced labour in Xinjiang. The White House also maintained Trump-era tariffs that applied to solar products from most countries.

Despite the efforts, US imports of panels sit at record highs. Several manufacturers, including VSK Energy, have delayed or scrapped their US manufacturing plans despite the availability of federal tax credits.

“Tariffs haven’t worked,” said Pol Lezcano, a senior analyst at BloombergNEF.

“Manufacturers don’t come to the US. They don’t really find the right business and supply chain environment that they need to scale up manufacturing.”

Rapidly declining prices for imported panels have helped transform solar into the leading source of new power on the US grid. The Energy Information Administration expects solar installations this year to grow 42 per cent, reaching 127 gigawatts. 

In April, the largest US solar manufacturers, First Solar and Qcells, and others filed a petition for tariffs on cells to be applied to four countries in south-east Asia in order to rescue a struggling domestic industry.

Luigi Resta, president of rPlus Energies, a developer, warned that the tariffs would slow down the pace of deployment and raise prices for consumers. The company has started to source from Indonesia, another emerging solar manufacturing market, to safeguard it against trade impacts. 

“The nature of the industry is that we have to be very flexible,” Resta said. The company now sources about 1GW of panels between Indonesia and Vietnam.

Industry executives and analysts expressed concern that plans to build production lines in tariff-exempt markets may lead the US government to play a game of “Whac-A-Mole” with tariffs and fine those countries in the future, risking billions in capital expenditure.

“If too many people go to one place, it just ruins it for everybody,” said Jim Wood, chief executive of SEG Solar.

Last week the company broke ground on a $500mn factory near Jakarta, which will help supply cells to its panel factory in Texas.

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HOUSEHOLDS will start to guzzle through more energy as temperatures drop and the heating goes on but easy mistakes with the thermostat will cost you.

The cost of warming and powering homes is rising with the energy price cap leaping 10% from £1,568 to £1,717 on October 1.

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However, the exact amount you’ll pay for your energy bill depends on how much you use.

It means that it’s more important to make sure you are being as efficient as possible with energy.

Heating your home is one of the biggest costs of energy bills over the colder months.

Thermostats control the temperature of your home by linking to your boiler.

The heating is triggered to come on when the temperature dips below that set on the thermostat.

It’s not surprising that people try many different tricks to try make their home warmer for less.

However, there are some common mistakes that people make with the thermostat that piles the pounds on to annual bills.

Turning up the thermostat to get warm faster – £343

When you come home and it’s freezing cold outside, you just want your pad to be instantly toasty.

Turning up the dial on the thermostat can seem like a good way to hurry things along – but sadly that’s not how it works.

Nancy Emery, heating expert at online retailer Tap Warehouse, says: “A thermostat works as a limiter and not an accelerator, so turning it up in a bid to quickly heat your home won’t work…

“By turning your thermostat up, you’re essentially asking your heating to reach a higher temperature which could take longer, around an hour or so per degree increase.

“This just means your home will reach its optimal temperature in a set amount of time, and then go beyond costing you more money on your energy bills in the process. “

Setting the thermostat higher than needed means you are more likely to let the home overheat which will hammer your bills.

It’s estimated that you can save around 10% off your bill with every one degree the heating is turned down, according to the Energy Saving Trust.

The average fuel bill is now going to stand at £1,717 from October 1 meaning that if you crank the heating even two degrees higher and forget to put it back down you could add an extra £343 to your bill.

Nancy adds: “With the worry of the new energy price cap that’s looming, the best thing to do is to maintain your thermostat at a regular temperature to help keep costs down.”

Leaving your heating on low all day – £150

There is a belief that leaving your heating on low all day is cheaper than having it on for a few hours in the evening or morning at a higher temperature.

The Energy Saving Trust says that if you have a boiler, this isn’t true.

You will use more energy, which will ultimately cost you more money.

It’s more energy efficient, and better for your bills, to have your boiler come on when you need it.

With the average cost of gas central heating is around £1.68 an hour, according to Check-a-trade.com.

If you have the heating on for just one extra hour a day over a month that will cost you an extra £50.

And if you were to do it every day during the coldest months December to February, you’re looking at a total added £150.

However, there is an exception to this rule and that is if you have a heat pump.

The Energy Saving Trust says that it can be more beneficial to run a heat pump all day.

Drying clothes on radiators – £60

Many people try to make the most of having the heating on by drying clothes on radiators.

However, this can trick your thermostat into having the heating on for longer.

This is because when you put clothes on the radiator it blocks the heat coming out making it take longer for the room to reach the desired degree.

The heating will stay on until rooms reach the set temperature.

It means that if you have the heating on for an extra hour at £1.68 three times a week over 12 weeks when the weather is cold, you’re looking at around an extra £60 added to your bill.

As well as clothes, furniture can block heat from circulating in a room. So make sure there is plenty of space between radiators and sofas or beds, for example.

Putting your thermostat in the wrong place – £hundreds

If your thermostat is in the wrong place you could end up paying hundreds of pounds more in energy bills.

Thermostats monitor when your home has reached the temperature you want, and can be used to turn the heating up or down.

But if the thermostat is in a colder part of the house, it could be reporting that the temperature is lower than it really is in the rest of the home.

This means your heating is working harder than necessary.

You can read more about how that affects your bills here.

More ways to save on heating your home

It’s not just the thermostat that dictates the cost of heating.

There are lots of things you can do to help keep your home warm on a budget.

Putting reflective foil behind your radiator helps to reflect heat back into the room. You can get special packs fro around £10 or even using regular aluminium foil can help.

Check your radiators for any cold patches and bleed them if so. This will will help rooms heat evenly and efficiently and avoid overworking your boiler.

Give your radiators a good dust so that heat can move freely through the room.

Use thermostatic valves to control the heating in each room of your home.

In spare bedrooms or lesser used rooms, turn the heating right down or off to avoid heating spaces with no one in.

Turning down your boiler’s flow temperature can also help cut bills.

Reducing draughts will also help your home to stop losing heat keeping it much toastier – draught excluders cost from around £5 and will help stop cooler air entering through gaps and crevices.

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Some shareholders in Playtech have hit out at a proposal to reward senior executives, including chief Mor Weizer, with substantial bonuses after the gambling technology company sealed a €2.3bn deal to dispose of its Italian business.

Playtech announced the sale of its Italian sports betting and gaming business Snaitech to Paddy Power owner Flutter last month. On the same day, the FTSE 250 company said its senior team, including its executive directors, are to receive cash bonuses from a pool of up to €100mn from proceeds of the deal. The company said Weizer would be “the largest participant” beneficiary without specifying how much he could receive.

The proposal also states that Playtech management will be guaranteed as much as 10 per cent of the gain in any future disposals.

A separate bonus pool of €34mn will be paid out to Snaitech’s management, of which chief executive Fabio Schiavolin is in line to receive the most.

However, some shareholders have criticised the pay proposal, questioning why such an amount would be granted without a performance target and raising concerns over corporate governance.

Jeremy Raper, a Playtech investor who manages his own family office, published an open letter to the chair of the remuneration committee this week calling the proposed pay packages “the most egregious case of shareholder value expropriation in the history of UK public markets”.

He blamed the company for not having a performance target or benchmarking the €134mn bonus pool against peer companies, claiming it would make Weizer earn more than 10 times the median FTSE 30 CEO salary in 2022. Management would also be incentivised to “pull the trigger on any future deal, no matter how destructive to the company, and collect their 10% take”, he said.

In an open letter sent to Playtech chair Brian Mattingley the day after the announcement, Peter Smith, managing partner of London-based Palm Harbour Capital, said “this payment appears to have come simply because there is a large cash inflow and for no other reason”.

“There is already in place a strong remuneration package with part of it linked to shareholder returns. There is absolutely no need for this additional payment,” he added.

Weizer’s overall remuneration was €2.9mn last year. The company’s annual report showed Playtech has been lagging behind the FTSE 250 in total shareholder returns since 2018. The company’s share price has, however, risen almost 80 per cent over the past 12 months.

“If Mor Weizer is going to get paid anything close to what they’re talking about, he needs to meet some crazy targets,” said a senior executive at an investment fund. An executive of another investment fund said: “The amount is outrageous . . . they are destroying value to shareholders.”

Shares in Playtech, which provides software to many of the world’s leading gambling businesses, dropped more than 5 per cent on the day of the Snaitech deal announcement — even though Flutter’s offer represented a 16.5 per cent premium of Playtech’s previous share price and was almost three times higher than the €846mn Playtech acquired the business for in 2018. It will also return €1.7bn-€1.8bn to shareholders as a special dividend.

“We are pleased to see Playtech delivering for its shareholders, crystallising the value of one of its key assets at a price well above market expectations,” said Thomas Moore, senior investment director at Abrdn.

Playtech has not set a date for a vote but has indicated it will take place by the end of November.

The company said when announcing the pay scheme that shareholders holding a collective stake of 34.4 per cent had “irrevocably undertaken to vote” in favour of it.

It said in a further statement: “Playtech actively and continuously engages with its shareholders in private, and strongly believes that is the most constructive way to engage.”

Weizer described the proposal as an “incentive plan” on an earnings call on Monday, saying its purpose is to “align the management with shareholders . . . this creates incentive to grow the business and create value for the benefit of our shareholders”.