Vodafone Group (VOD) is to open bigger shops in a vote of confidence in Britain’s high streets. The telecoms giant, which has 20m mobile customers in the UK, will open 24 stores this year and has vowed to open another 50 in 2020. Expansion in the UK comes despite overall plans to slash more than 1,000 of its 7,700 shops across Europe. Nick Read, chief executive of Vodafone, said the company needed to improve its shops to keep up with Amazon and Apple. Many new stores will have spacious designs and focus on ‘experiences’, taking inspiration from those made famous by iPhone maker Apple.
Shares in easyJet (EZJ) slid from five-month highs in early trading on Tuesday as the budget airline’s fourth quarter trading update failed to meet investors’ high expectations. Easyjet said it benefited over the past few months from higher demand as strike disruption knocked two of its rivals, Ryanair and British Airways. In the second half of the year, total revenue per seat only decreased by 0.8% as the pilot strikes at its rivals took the heat off the competitive environment and demand for Easyjet flights picked up.
London Stock Exchange Group (LSE) has avoided a fall into the clutches of one of its global rivals after Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing dropped a £32billion takeover bid. HKEX said it will not be making a firm offer after failing to win over the LSE board during initial talks on its provisional approach. The decision to walk away comes less than a month after HKEX launched the surprise move. The writing seemed to be on the wall from the start with LSE quick to slam the approach as being at too low a valuation and ‘fundamentally flawed.’ HKEX had been making efforts to bypass the hostile board and go straight to major LSE shareholders but it appears they met a cold response there too.
Jersey Oil And Gas (JOG) slumped after it was snubbed by the UK arm of Norwegian energy giant Equinor. Equinor chose not to take a 50% stake in Jersey’s Greater Buchan field in the North Sea. The companies already work together on another project nearby. Jersey’s boss Andrew Benitz told investors that Equinor’s decision gives the company ‘greater flexibility’.
Salaries are booming and unemployment levels are at 45-year lows – but a double whammy of profit warnings from recruiters show there is more to the jobs market than meets the eye. People are staying put and becoming less inclined to switch jobs as political and economic uncertainty bubbles away in the background, according to Pagegroup (PAGE) and Robert Walters (RWA). Page pointed the finger at challenging conditions in the UK, France and China as it told the City it now expects profits to be between £140million to £150million this year, down from earlier estimates of £156.5million to £168million. Robert Walters, blamed a ‘cocktail of confusion’ amid US-China trade war tensions, a US-Europe trade war threat, Hong Kong riots and Brexit uncertainty for a new forecast that its full-year profits will be flat on the previous year.
Crossword Cybersecurity plc (CCS) rose after it signed a two-year contract with a chemicals firm for its flagship product Rizikon Assurance, which assesses how risky each of its strategic suppliers are.
