3:14pm UK, Tuesday June 03, 2008

The UK economy is heading for a recession, the bosses of two high-profile companies have told Sky News.

Bank has seen shares plummet

The chief executive of budget airline Ryanair says higher oil prices are pushing the economy into a downturn.

Michael O'Leary said profits at his company could fall heavily as he would not pass on higher oil prices onto customers.

"We've come out of five or 10 years of extraordinary economic growth, and for every boom, there's a bust," he said.

It comes after the man in charge of Bradford and Bingley told Sky News the faltering economy was responsible for his company's fall in profits.

Britain's biggest buy-to-let lender, which recorded an £8m loss in the first four months of the year, has agreed to sell a 23% stake in the business to Texas Pacific Group (TPG) in return for £179m in funding.

Rod Kent, the struggling bank's chairman and acting chief executive, told Sky's Jeff Randall Live that his company had initially believed the downturn might level out.

"We now don't think that, we think it is getting worse, and it will get worse in the second half of the year," he said.

Mr Kent was speaking just a day after the bank's chief executive, Stephen Crawshaw, stood down on the grounds of ill health.

Last month Theo Paphitis, one of the stars of TV series Dragon's Den, also warned that the UK was facing recession.

And earlier this year outgoing boss Arun Sarin revealed telecoms giant Vodafone was bracing itself for a downturn.