Ford said it would take a pre-tax loss of $700 million on its stake in Budget, which has been losing money.

The pre-tax loss was £2.1m, down from £3.8m last time.

In the same period last year the retailer made an underlying pre-tax loss of £6.9m.

The company had earlier expected a pre-tax loss of 2.0 billion yen (19 million dollars) for the year.

For the year to March 31 it made a pre-tax loss of £9.8m, compared with a massive £448.4m last time.

Forest also announced a pre-tax loss of £7,000 for last year.

But the £978,000 write off of goodwill help generate a £409,000 pre-tax loss.

These factors pushed pre-tax losses up from £6m to £11m.

But interest charges turned that into a £100m pre-tax loss - the first in the company's 26-year history.

The company wanting to build the plant has reported massive pre-tax losses.