The founders of Hargreaves Lansdown (HL.) were more than £220million poorer last night after shares tumbled. The company warned that the savings and investment industry is having a tough time attracting new money from clients nervous about the outlook for the markets. The downbeat assessment sent shares sliding 5 per cent, or 97.5p, to 1850.5p, knocking £164million off the value of 32.2% stake owned by Peter Hargreaves, who co-founded the firm with Stephen Lansdown in 1981.
Catering company Compass Group (CPG) has poached the chief financial officer of B&Q’s struggling owner Kingfisher (KGF). Karen Witts, 55, will be finance head on a date yet to be agreed. It will be a blow to Kingfisher, which has been struggling to improve its fortunes after launching a turnaround plan. Scot Witts, a mother of two, has been finance boss since 2012. She has admitted being described as a ‘cruel but fair’ boss, and likes Pilates and roller skating.
The competition watchdog is investigating British Airways and other airlines over fears about transatlantic flights. Under the Atlantic Joint Business Agreement, International Consolidated Airlines Group SA (CDI) (IAG), American Airlines, Iberia and Finnair have teamed up on certain routes between the US, Canada, Mexico and Europe, co-operating on pricing, capacity and schedules. They say that it means passengers are able to mix and match flights across the airlines, use any of their websites, and connect between routes more smoothly. When the deal was struck in 2010, the airlines agreed to make landing and take-off slots available to competitors. However, those commitments run out in 2020. The European Commission could reassess the agreement but may no longer be responsible for competition in the UK due to Brexit. Therefore, the CMA has decided to review the deal.
The owner of the ‘i’ newspaper has put itself up for sale in a last-ditch bid to tackle its £220million debt pile. Johnston Press (JPR), which also publishes The Scotsman and The Yorkshire Post, acted after more than a year of speculation about its future and a review launched last year. It has been trying to find ways to restructure or refinance its debts, which are due for repayment next June.
WH Smith – the UK’s longest running retail chain – has pushed the button on an overhaul of its under-pressure high street business after a year of declines. The group, which has been buoyed by its vast portfolio of airport and train station stores, said it is taking action to ensure its 225-year old High Street arm is ‘fit for purpose now and for the future’. As part of a detailed review of the whole division, WH Smith (SMWH) said it will close six of its 610 High Street shops and swing the axe on its fledgling Cardmarket and WH Smith Local chains. It will also shake up its ranges, focusing on the core products it is best known for – like stationery. The overhaul, which triggered a 10% fall in its share price in early trading, comes as WH Smith strives to defend itself against the ‘well-documented challenges of the UK High Street’. Its trading profits in this division fell by 3% to £60million – a stark contrast to its travel arm where earnings advanced 7% to £103million.
Stock up on Unilever (ULVR) and Diageo (DGE) in these turbulent times: Top UK shares to ride out the trade war and Brexit storms. Canaccord Genuity has picked 18 stocks that can weather trade wars and Brexit. They include consumer goods giant Unilever and drinks company Diageo. Other well known names include Carnival (CCL), Coca-Cola HBC AG (CDI) (CCH) and Burberry Group (BRBY)
The company behind the Jacamo, Simply Be and JD Williams brands has seen its share price fall by nearly 20% this morning. After posting a ‘disappointing’ set of first half results, N Brown’s chairman, Matt Davies, admitted that while the group is ploughing ahead with its plan to go purely online, ‘we have not yet achieved the growth in product or international that we would have hoped for.’ As a result of the group’s poor performance, investors in Brown (N.) Group (BWNG) have had their dividend cut by 50% to 2.83p.
Backers of James Bond’s favourite car maker Aston Martin Holdings (AML) will be feeling shaken and stirred after a rocky first week on the stock market concluded with a major investment bank advising them to sell. Jefferies analysts, led by the automotive expert Philippe Houchois, initiated their coverage of the historic firm with an ‘underperform’ rating. Long-term investors, who bank on Aston Martin’s value going up over time, are likely to stay ‘on the sidelines’, Houchois said. This is because the lock-up period, which prevents company insiders from selling their own shares straight away, is a relatively short six months, implying they may not have much faith the company will continue to climb.
Ebiquity (EBQ) has been given the thumbs-up from the UK’s competition regulator to sell its advertising intelligence business to rival Nielsen. The £26million deal hit a brick wall when the Competition and Markets Authority announced a probe but its concerns have been provisionally allayed. Ebiquity’s shares shot up 9p, to 69.5p. Ebiquity wants to focus on its core consultancy business, and is aiming to reduce its debt pile.
Amid a broader stock market sell-off, the FTSE 100 slid 1.9% or 138.81 points to 7006.93 in its biggest one-day fall since June. Miners Fresnillo (FRES) and Randgold Resources Ltd. (RRS) were the largest risers, as suddenly cautious investors rushed towards defensive stocks. Fresnillo climbed 66.8p, to 839p, while Randgold shot up 440p, to 5706p.
Keller Group (KLR), which specialises in ground engineering projects such as house foundations and tunnels, plummeted 300p, to 662p. Keller released a trading update saying that its Asia Pacific division now expected to make a loss of between £12million and £15million for the year, rather than the ‘small profit’ it had previously guided towards. Deteriorating market conditions in the countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, especially Malaysia, were to blame for the decline, it said. Management had recently changed in both its Asia Pacific division and waterway branch, which prompted a ‘reassessment’ of how their projects were performing. Keller will now launch a ‘strategic review’ of both businesses.
Hays (HAS) didn’t impress investors either, as its growth rate slowed. Despite posting a 9% increase in like-for-like fees, shares slumped 11%, or 19.3p, to 156.7p. Russ Mould, investment director at AJ Bell, said: ‘The market’s current state of mild panic may help explain the extremely negative reaction to an apparently solid quarterly performance from recruiter Hays. ‘The focus appears to be on a slowing in net fee growth, which was hit by the relative strength of sterling against the Aussie dollar and the euro.’ Though Hays sounded positive on the future, recruiters do best when the economy is strong and employers are confident about hiring. With economists getting gloomier, investors appeared to be anticipating the worst.
Countryside Properties (CSP) also set alarm bells ringing, even though most of its trading update was largely upbeat. A comment that it was seeing a ‘more subdued tone’ from buyers who own a home set shares back by 34.2p, to 282.2p.
