GCIPress Roundup: Williams Building British Electric Cars, Shareholders Back CYBG's £1.7bn Virgin Money Takeover
Below are the key morning headlines from today’s papers, featuring the Financial Times, The Times, The Telegraph, The Daily Mail & more - see the full Press section here.
- Williams plans to put Britain at front of race among electric cars. Grand prix team’s parent company to build battery factory. Britain is to get its first manufacturing site dedicated to making batteries for electric cars. Williams Grand Prix Holdings, parent company of the Williams Formula One motor racing team, is working with Unipart, the motor components group, to start production for Aston Martin’s first electric supercar, the RapidE.
- Shareholders have backed £1.7bn all-share takeover of , and top investors believe it could start a buying spree. A top 10 investor in Virgin Money told The Telegraph he expected the tie-up to be the first of many. “The combined group will have quite a lot of surplus capital,” he said. “CYBG has a chance to create a challenger bank that actually has some heft and can compete effectively against the big banks. “Another takeover is unlikely in the next few months, but early to mid next year they could be in a position to do another deal.”
- Two American private equity firms are weighing up takeover bids for Europe’s biggest plastics packaging company. said that it was in the early stages of talks with Apollo Global Management and Bain Capital over a possible offer. The stock market announcement came after a turbulent 18 months for RPC and weekend reports by Bloomberg, the financial news service, that the company was holding talks with its advisers after attracting interest from potential buyers.
- has sold off £181m of properties including its last remaining sites in Plymouth and Huddersfield as it shifts focus towards “high and mid-ranked” universities, mostly in major cities. The FTSE 250 company has agreed to sell 14 properties with 3,436 bedrooms to Asian media giant Singapore Press Holdings, which has been looking to expanding its overseas property investments
- rushed out updated profit guidance yesterday as speculation mounted about the department stores group’s health. A day after news broke that the chain might consider a company voluntary arrangement and as its share price extended its decline to new lows, Debenhams said that it expected to report a pre-exceptional pre-tax profit of about £33 million. This is within its existing profit range of between £31 million and £36.5 million.
- Executives from payments giant will be among those going to India next month as the UK’s finance industry ramps up its attempt to charm global leaders ahead of Brexit. Worldpay’s director of government affairs Jana Mackintosh is expected to visit the country with the Lord Mayor of London, Charles Bowman, to discuss “how the two countries can work together more closely after the UK leaves the EU”, a person close to the plans said.
- Primark profits sweeten ABF’s outlook after sugar price slide. John Bason, finance director at , said that Primark was winning on high streets that were largely failing because it was continuing to invest in its stores “while other retailers are cash-constrained or finding trading very difficult”.
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