Gold miners in £14billion mega-merger: London loses another listed company. The FTSE 100’s largest gold miner is being sold to a Canadian rival in a £14billion mega-merger. London-listed Randgold Resources Ltd. (RRS) is joining forces with Barrick Gold to create the world’s largest gold mining business. The move – which will see Randgold removed from the UK stock exchange – comes amid a slump in the price of gold that has driven down the value of both company’s shares.
We Buy Any Car boss sells £11m worth of shares – having already trousered a £29m bonus earlier this year. One of the UK’s highest-paid female executives has sold £10.7million worth of shares. We Buy Any Car owner BCA Marketplace (BCA) chief executive Avril Palmer-Baunack, who was slammed by City experts earlier this year for her £29million bonus, sold more than 5m shares to investment funds at an average price of 212.5p each.
Sky bigwigs land £384m windfall: Bonus scheme to pay out after £30bn takeover. Sky (SKY) executives and management could scoop £384million when the business is sold to Universal Studios owner Comcast for £30billion. Some 700 senior staff, including high profile Sky News presenters, are members of a scheme that will see them handed up to 22.25m shares. The value of these shares has soared due to the bid battle, meaning these staff will pocket an average of as much as £550,000 each.
Debenhams (DEB) is gambling on gin-and-tonic bars, make-up tutorials and X Factor-style auditions to recruit staff in an attempt to overcome the crisis gripping the High Street. Chief executive Sergio Bucher last night pledged to make shopping fun again as he unveiled what he described as the ‘department store of the future’. The new flagship store in Watford will stock 25% fewer products as Debenhams makes space for personal styling, beauty makeovers and massages as well as restaurants and bars selling prosecco and gin and tonic.
Thomas Cook Group (TCG) shares slumped by almost a quarter today after the travel firm issued another profit warning, blaming the exceptional UK summer for a decline in trips abroad. The scorching British summer dented Briton’s appetites for heading overseas, with the prolonged spell of good weather from May to August meaning the travel agent had to offer bigger discounts to tempt them not to stay at home or holiday in the UK. Thomas Cook, which already warned on profits in July, said it now expected full-year underlying operating profit of about £280million, down from previous estimates of £323million.
Hedge fund chief Sir Chris Hohn ditches most of his 5.1% stake in the London Stock Exchange Group (LSE)
Trakm8 Holdings (TRAK) announced a three-year contract with US-based major data provider Lexis Nexis Risk Solutions. LexisNexis will use Trakm8’s technology to supply its clients in the insurance and vehicle sectors. John Watkins, the company’s executive chairman, said the contract was ‘expected to be a significant one’.
Storm clouds were forming over the travel sector as Thomas Cook Group (TCG) blamed the summer heatwave for beating down its profits. Ripples of fear spread across the sector, as investors backed away from rivals TUI AG Reg Shs (DI) (TUI) and On The Beach Group (OTB). Tui was the FTSE 100’s biggest faller, edging down 42p, to 1382p, while On the Beach dropped 31p, to 478p.
Oil companies excelled as Brent crude hit its highest level since November 2014. The price of Brent crude climbed 3% on the day to more than $81, after the Saudi Arabia-led oil cartel Opec rejected President Trump’s calls to increase production. Premier African Minerals Ltd (PREM) rose by 4.6p, to 129.3p, Tullow Oil (TLW) by 7.2p, to 254p and Cairn Energy (CNE) by 6p, to 227p.
Investors were unimpressed by the performance of asset manager River and Mercantile Group (RIV). At the end of June the firm was investing £33.8billion on behalf of savers, up 9% on the first half of last year, but it warned that profits had slipped from £16.4million to £16.1million for the first half of the year. During that time, River and Mercantile was also forced to sack one of its fund managers, Philip Rodrigs, over ‘problematic conduct’.
