InterContinental Hotels Group cheers London sales growth. Holiday Inn-owner InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) on Tuesday shrugged off “gilets jaunes” protests weighing on Paris demand, as it cheered bumper sales growth in London. The FTSE 100 hotelier gave the Europe update as it posted a 12% rise in full-year group sales to $1.9 billion (£1.5 billion). Revenue per room rose 2.5%. In Paris there was softer demand in December. Finance chief Paul Edgecliffe-Johnson said: “We think some [customers] were put off by some of the social unrest.” However he pointed out that despite the anti-government protests, revenue per growth of 3% was still achieved in France in the final quarter. Edgecliffe-Johnson was more upbeat as he revealed London revenue per room jumped 10% in the fourth quarter, and was up 3% for the whole of 2018.
City turns sour on ‘poor’ HSBC as profits miss. HSBC Holdings (HSBA) disappointed the City on Tuesday with some lacklustre results and warned that the US and China trade war was a threat to future growth. Europe’s biggest bank made profit for the past year of almost $20 billion (£15.5 billion), a rise of 16% that was well short of analysts’ expectations. A collapse in revenues in the fourth quarter was largely responsible for the miss, and chief executive John Flint said the start of this year has been much better. But he acknowledged that a threat by President Donald Trump to put 25% tariffs on Chinese goods would be problematic. “Ten per cent was digestable,” he said. “If we get to 25%, that’s a very different order of magnitude. That could really start to disrupt supply chains.”
Piers Morgan’s vegan sausage roll spat lifts Greggs (GRG) shares. He may be disliked by much of the country, but Piers Morgan was in Greggs’ good books on Tuesday, after bumper sales of its vegan sausage rolls led to a profit upgrade. The divisive TV presenter berated the meat-free snack and spat it out on TV, which only gave more publicity to the product which hit headlines on its launch last month. The bakery chain said profits will be higher than expected this year as the pastry lifted sales. Greggs same-store sales rose 9.6% for the seven weeks to February 16, albeit the pace has eased off slightly this month. Its total sales were up 14.1%.
Cobham forks out £160m to end long-running row with Boeing. Aerospace supplier Cobham (COB) took a £160 million hit on Tuesday to settle a long-running row with US planemaker Boeing over supply delays. The UK company, which has struggled in recent years, will pay £86 million compensation to the Chicago-based giant and £74 million to finish work on an aerial refuelling pod. Shares rose 1% to 117p as the market cheered Cobham for finally drawing a line under the dispute. The row centres on Boeing’s KC-46 air tanker used by the US Air Force to refuel smaller jets mid-air. Cobham promised to make two refuelling systems for the jets but both were delivered later than expected, annoying Boeing.
