 | Shares in Future (FUTR) plunged yesterday after bosses sold stock worth £44million. It involved the sale of just over 3.1m shares, regulatory filings revealed. But it spooked investors, with Future shares sinking by as much as 12% at one stage yesterday. Among the bosses to cash in were the chief executive Zillah Byng-Thorne and Penny Ladkin-Brand, the finance chief. Byng-Thorne, 45, sold 1,045,344 shares for about £14.6million. It came after she was thought to have been awarded 1.24m performance-linked shares after a surge in the company’s stock and profits in recent years. |
 | Royal Bank of Scotland Group (RBS) has launched a new digital bank, Bo, to fend off start-up rivals such as Monzo and Starling. But it could spell bad news for traditional Natwest customers, as RBS hopes Bo will give it an excuse to close more branches and call centres. Bo’s management want Natwest account holders and new customers to switch to the new bank in their millions, opening up accounts through their mobile phones and piling in deposits which RBS can then use for activities such as mortgage lending. Because Bo offers so many features through its mobile phone app, RBS believes that it would limit the need for branches and call centres. |
 | A backlash against vaping in the US has hit sales at British American Tobacco (BATS). It says full-year revenue growth at its ‘new category’ division, which sells e-cigarettes, will be at the lower end of a 30%-50% forecast amid health fears over the products. Roughly 3.6m people vape in the UK. However, there is growing concern about the effect on users’ lungs. The issue has attracted the attention of Donald Trump, and US health officials have reported more than 2,000 cases of vaping-related lung illness and 47 deaths linked to its use, which has led to a drop in demand. |
 | Lloyds Banking Group (LLOY) is set to slash its boss’s pay by £228,000 amid criticism of its generous executive pensions policy. Antonio Horta-Osorio, 55, who has been paid £51.4million since becoming chief executive in 2011, last year got £573,000 towards his retirement – 46% of his basic salary. He will this year get nearly £419,000 – 33% of his £1.3million basic salary – but next year this will be cut to 15%, just over £190,000. At the same time, Lloyds staff will see the amount they can receive towards their retirement rise from 13% of salary to 15%, in a bid to put the 65,000 employees on the same footing as its top brass. |
| Blackbird Plc (BIRD) soared after it inked a deal with Bloomberg Media that will bring in ‘significant’ annual revenue. Blackbird provides a platform that lets companies edit and publish videos online. Its service allows people to work on videos at the same time without needing to be in the same place, which makes the process fast and saves money on hardware. | |
| Aston Martin Holdings (AML) surged 56.6p, to close at 586.8p, and its shares have risen by a third since it launched its first family SUV a week ago. Aston has pinned hopes of a revival on the £158,000 DBX. It has had a small but steady news stream this week, teaming up with British Airways on ten limited edition, Concorde-inspired cars, and a partnership with distiller Bowmore to make whiskies and other products. And on December 6 it will officially open the Welsh factory that will build the DBX. But the real driving force behind the rally is the warm reception the vehicle has received. Under a loan deal, Aston will need to tell the stock market when it has had orders for 1,400 DBXs, which could take a while. | |
 | SCS Group (SCS) blamed Brexit and political uncertainty for customers tightening the purse strings, as like-for-like orders dived 7.1% in the 17 weeks to November 23. While few shoppers consciously think ‘I can’t buy a sofa because of Brexit,’ data suggests many are putting off home renovations, big-ticket purchases and moving home until there is more certainty and it is clear what will happen to property prices. At the moment they don’t know if it would be better to move or stay put, so are holding off spending on things such as furniture. |
 | Marston’s (MARS) climbed despite an annual loss of £20million – from a profit of £54.3million last year – after it had to cut the value of underperforming pubs by £43million. Last month it warned profits would be lower than expected because customers have been drinking more but spending less on pub grub. Shares in the company rose 4p, to 131.4p, as sales in the year to September climbed 2.9% to £1.2bn. |
| Future (FUTR), the publisher everyone wants to own after it defied a tough media market to treble in value. Yet a notable exception has emerged in the surprising shape its own chief executive. Zillah Byng-Thorne, the 45-year-old who through quickfire dealmaking has boosted Future’s valuation to £1.4bn over an extraordinary 2019, has sold most of her shares, netting cash returns of more than £14.6m. She was the biggest beneficiary of a placing of 3.2% of Future that crystalised a total of £43.7m for a group of 19 current and former managers. Ms Byng-Thorne sold more than a million shares, representing 70% of her holding. |
 | Primark faces the prospect of a shareholder revolt next week over a bonus scheme which could hand boss George Weston up to £7m. Associated British Foods (ABF) is under fire from shareholder advice group Pirc over a new long-term bonus scheme. Mr Weston would get a maximum of £7m in pay and perks if he hit all targets. Pirc warned that changes to long-term bonuses mean they could now exceed its recommended maximum, and called on investors to oppose the tweaks in a binding vote at ABF’s annual meeting next month. |
| Marston’s (MARS) sunk to an annual loss after slashing the value of poorly performing pubs by £43m. The company took the hit on properties which are struggling to turn a profit, sending it tumbling to pre-tax losses of £20m for the year to September. Marston’s warned last month that annual profits would be lower than expected, as increased spending on drinks was offset by a poor performance on food. Overall, revenues rose 2.9% to £1.17bn. Chief executive Ralph Findlay said the firm remains focused on cutting net debt by £200m by 2023 through a sale of assets. |
| The new digital bank set up by Royal Bank of Scotland Group (RBS) to compete with rival financial technology groups has become a target for fraudsters. It is understood that about 30% of applications received by Bó since the app-based venture went live two weeks ago were fraudulent. The figure underscores the scale of the challenge facing British banks in the digital age as they seek to counter money laundering and cybercrime. RBS is one of Britain’s biggest lenders and is led by Alison Rose, 49, who took charge of the bank at the start of this month. It has about 18.9 million customers and is behind the Natwest and Ulster Bank brands. |
| Better growth in the United States than expected and signs of a rapprochement between Washington and Beijing have raised hopes that the global economy has turned a corner and pushed Wall Street to fresh highs for a third day. Last month the International Monetary Fund downgraded its forecasts and warned of a “synchronised slowdown” if weak growth in advanced economies did not improve and trade tensions were not resolved. However, traders said yesterday that the bull market was “back on track”. The S&P 500 and the pan-European Stoxx 600 index hit new highs. President Trump added to the holiday spirit before Thanksgiving today by claiming that the US was in the “final throes” of securing a trade deal with China. | |
 | A French law to protect farmers and smaller distributors from the impact of promotions by large retailers has put a big dent in the profit of one of Britain’s biggest soft drinks groups. Britvic (BVIC) said that it had been a challenging year in the country, due in part to a “major impact” from the introduction of the so-called EGalim law. The law was brought in primarily to rebalance commercial relationships between smaller suppliers and retailers by specifying minimum limits on retailer margins and a maximum on supplier volumes sold on promotion. |
| Amigo Holdings (AMGO) has been ordered to explain more carefully the risks that people are taking on when they agree to guarantee a loan for a family member or friend. The company, the market leader in guarantor loans, admitted yesterday that the Financial Conduct Authority had identified areas where there was room for improvement, but it insisted that the regulator had not raised any concern about its main product or its business model. Shares in the company crashed by more than 50 per cent in August after it reported a rise in bad debts, earmarked more cash for customer complaints and said that loan growth would slow to a standstill after a regulatory crackdown. | |
| Future (FUTR), the magazine publisher behind Practical Caravan and Total Film lost almost a tenth of its value after a clutch of senior managers offloaded shares worth nearly £44 million. The executives at Future decided to cash out after a long-term bonus plan paid out in full. The Bath-based company, which owns a variety of special interest print titles and websites, is the strongest performer on the stock market this year. Under Zillah Byng-Thorne, its chief executive, it has struck a series of progressively larger takeover deals, boosting its online advertising and ecommerce revenues. Its share price has tripled since the start of January, lifting Future’s market value to £1.4 billion. When Ms Byng-Thorne, 45, took charge in 2014, it was worth less than £100 million. |
| The pay and pensions of bosses at three of Britain’s biggest banks are to be cut in the not-too-distant future. Lloyds Banking Group (LLOY) confirmed yesterday that António Horta-Osório, its chief executive, would have his pension allowance next year reduced from 33% of his base pay to 15% to put him on an equal footing with ordinary staff, in line with new guidelines set by the large City investing institutions. The bank’s contribution to the pensions of ordinary employees will rise from a maximum of 13% of their base pay to 15%, a concession costing the bank £20 million. |
 | Pressure Technologies (PRES), a precision engineer and producer of high pressure gas storage cylinders to Royal Navy submarines and Royal Air Force aircraft has been found guilty of the death at work of one of its maintenance engineers. Pressure Technologies, better known locally and in the industry under its Chesterfield Special Cylinders trading name, was found guilty by a jury at Sheffield Crown Court. Pressure Technologies has been fighting the case for the past four years, rejecting liability for the death at the age of 64 of John Townsend, a long-time employee. Sentencing in the case brought by the Health and Safety Executive, and the size of an expected fine, will be heard on Monday week. |
 | On The Beach Group (OTB) has taken a £7.7 million hit to its profits from the collapse of Thomas Cook. On the Beach Group said that lost revenue, refunds and the cost of getting its customers home had totalled £25.6 million, of which it had been able to reclaim £18.5 million through a “chargeback” insurance scheme. It also had to foot a bill of about £600,000 in additional costs from dealing with the fallout from the collapse, plus the loss of money held by Thomas Cook agents. About 15% of On the Beach customers had booked Thomas Cook flights. |
| British American Tobacco (BATS) has played down the impact of tougher vaping regulation in the United States and told investors that its revenue will be towards the top of previous forecasts. The tobacco company said in a trading update yesterday it was “well placed to succeed”, even as American scrutiny of electronic cigarettes intensifies because of concerns that they can make people ill. BAT said that its revenue growth will be “in the upper half” of its long-term guidance of between 3% and 5% on an adjusted basis this year, thanks to stronger prices and market gains by its traditional smoking products. |
| The impact of soaring costs on pub profits sent Marston’s (MARS) tumbling to a full-year loss of £20 million after impairments and writedowns totalling £121 million. The pub operator and brewer said that although its underlying profits had been broadly flat, its statutory profit had been wiped out by asset impairments, reorganisation costs and losses on interest rate swap valuation movements. Its destination and premium pub division suffered a £43.4 million hit, while there was a £9.9 million write-off of acquisitions and developments that the company had decided not to go through with. The hit from an interest rate swap was £48.7 million. |
| Pre-election jitters have been blamed for a slump in orders at SCS Group (SCS), with consumers reluctant to splash out so-called big-ticket items such as the retailer’s sofas and flooring. SCS said yesterday that orders had slipped by 7.1% over the 17 weeks to November 23, dragging its two-year like-for-like order intake down by 4%. SCS, which stands for Sofa Carpet Specialist, was founded in Sunderland in 1894 as a family-owned home furnishing business. It now employs 2,000 people in Britain and has 101 stores. It was bought out of administration in 2008 by Sun Capital Partners, a private equity firm specialising in company turnarounds, and returned to the stock market in 2015 with a £70 million valuation. |
  | FirstGroup (FGP) has hired all of Virgin Trains’ existing management team to run the London to Glasgow West Coast service when First takes over from Virgin next month. Phil Whittingham, the managing director of Virgin Trains since 2013, and a Virgin man since 1999, will become managing director of First’s West Coast Partnership rail service on 8 December. First confirmed that the existing senior management team at Virgin Trains will also join him – a host of directors in charge of people, finance, commercial, information technology, and corporate affairs. Even existing interim appointments – including acting customer experience and operations directors – will take their roles to the new organisation. While the majority of rail staff such as drivers and crew are automatically given jobs at the new operating company under TUPE transfer rules when a franchise changes hands, it is unusual for all the senior managers to retain their roles. The move could be seen as a tribute to Virgin’s performance – or another indictment of the rail franchising system which has been condemned as unfit for purpose and is now subject to review. The West Coast Partnership was awarded in August despite the fact that Keith Williams, chairing the rail review, had indicated franchising was dead, and not long after another major franchise competition, South Eastern, had been scrapped. Virgin, with partner Stagecoach Group (SGC), had been disqualified from bidding after a row over pensions liabilities and is still pursuing legal action. |
| Lloyds Banking Group (LLOY) to cut chief executive’s pay by £220,000. Pension reduction comes as bank offers £20m boost for rest of staff |
 | World’s largest caterer Compass Group (CPG) scales back on signs of global weakness. Group to shrink operations in Europe, Japan, and Brazil |
 | Lex – De La Rue (DLAR): the folding stuff. The king of cash is not dead yet. But he is very poorly |
 | Pets at Home Group (PETS) shares jump after upgrade to profit forecast. Retailer expects to groom 25,000 animals in week before Christmas |
 | Former Eddie Stobart Logistics (ESL) boss tables rival rescue proposal. Andrew Tinkler’s TVFB plans emergency equity raising of up to £70m to cut group’s debt |
 | Mongolia says Rio Tinto (RIO)-led copper project will go ahead. Ulan Bator to seek better terms over delayed expansion of Gobi Desert project |
 | UK retail woes hit West End landlord Shaftesbury (SHB). Shop valuations fall in prime London locations |
| De La Rue (DLAR) shares plunge on warning about its future. UK group points to ‘material uncertainty’ if a turnround plan does not tackle debt pile |
| Eddie Stobart’s former boss has launched a rescue bid for the company in an attempt to hijack a proposal by Dbay Advisors. Andrew Tinkler, who was chief executive of the troubled haulier until 2014, said Dbay’s offer was ‘not in the best interests of shareholders’. Eddie Stobart Logistics (ESL) revealed it had discovered a massive black hole in its accounts in August, caused by years of poor accounting practices and mis-stating the value of its contracts. Rather than buying the company and taking it private, as Dbay was suggesting, Tinkler now wants to pump £70million into Eddie Stobart by selling new shares. This could be used to pay some of the £200million debt pile and keep the business running. Tinkler, 56, has pledged he would provide a ‘significant amount’ of the cash, while the rest would come from new and existing shareholders. The ex-son-in-law of Eddie Stobart’s founder said he ‘has identified and can fix the issues’ which have dogged the company in recent years. |
| Around £2.5billion was wiped off Compass Group (CPG) value yesterday after it warned it will cut jobs amid tougher trading in Europe. The catering group said there was less demand for its staff in office canteens because businesses in Europe have been reducing their workforces. Compass serves 5.5billion meals a year for schools, army barracks and employers such as Google, HSBC, Boeing and Coca-Cola. It brings in around 40% of its revenue from catering for businesses. Compass has set aside £300m for writedowns in 2019 and 2020. Around half of this will fund a restructuring, which will include a redundancy plan for up to 0.5% of its 600,000 employees worldwide – equal to around 3,000 roles. |
| Pets at Home Group (PETS) shares rose after it said its turnaround strategy is bearing fruit and it now expects full-year profits to come in at the top end of market expectations. Despite the ongoing retail sector malaise, Pets at Home managed to increase like-for-like sales by 7.8% in the six months to October 10, while sales at its veterinary business rose 6.4% in the period. Thanks to the strong first-half performance, the company now expects full-year profits to come in the top end of the £87million to £93million underlying profit range. |
| Shaftesbury (SHB) has seen its property empire hit by turmoil on the High Street. The West End landlord, which owns London’s Chinatown and Carnaby Street, said the value of its portfolio fell 0.6% to £4billion in the year to September 30. It was dragged down by a 19.4% fall in the value of its retail arm, which includes large stores in Covent Garden. Tenants included Jack Wills, which went bust in August but was later bought out of administration by Mike Ashley’s Sports Direct for £13million. Shaftesbury said its annual property income rose 4.5% to £98million, but profits plunged 85.2% to £26million. This was after it pumped £30.9million into its portfolio, which includes a proposed 70,000 sq ft office block in Soho’s Broadwick Street. |
 | Topps Tiles (TPT) suffered a sharp drop in customer demand since the General Election was called, the home improvement firm said today. In the first eight weeks of its new financial year sales slumped by 7.2% – a rapid acceleration on the 1.9% drop recorded in the same period last year. Outgoing boss of 12 years Matthew Williams said that trading has become tougher, ‘with consumer demand weakening further’ since the December snap election was announced at the end of October. Williams anticipates that ‘external events’ will continue to weigh on shopper confidence ‘for the immediate future’, as many people put off moving house or taking on big home improvement projects for the time being. |
| Shares in De La Rue (DLAR) tumbled more than 20% after the banknote printing company cast doubts over its future, suspended its dividend and announced plans to accelerate its restructuring amid growing debts. De La Rue – which lost the contract to print Britain’s post-Brexit blue passport to a French company last year – has warned it could breach its its banking covenant with banks if trading conditions keep getting worse and it doesn’t make enough money. ‘We have concluded there is a material uncertainty that casts significant doubt on the group’s ability to continue as a going concern,’ it said along its half-year results. It comes as De La Rue slumped to a £9.2million loss in the six months to the end of September, compared to profits of £10million a year earlier, due to charges incurred as a result of the restructuring announced in May. |
 | Identity intelligence firm GB Group (GBG) rallied after first-half profits jumped from £3.6million to £8.6million. Revenues surged to £94.3million – boosted by takeovers and the timing of contracts for its fraud arm. It provides firms and public bodies with identity, age and location software that helps them decide with whom to trade and protects them against fraud. It can identify around 60% of the world’s population for its customers, which include Asos, HSBC and William Hill. |
 | Petra Diamonds Ltd.(DI) (PDL) was given a boost yesterday, rising 0.41p, to 8.83p, after brokers at Peel Hunt started covering the stock with a ‘buy’ rating and a bullish 18p target price on its stock. Analysts believe the company, which operates the Cullinan mine behind the namesake diamond in the Crown Jewels, is ‘far healthier than it seems’. Its shares offer ‘a compelling story’, Peel Hunt says, and the management are doing everything in their power to trim costs as the diamond market tightens, offering a great opportunity to buy up now while they’re cheap, they believe. |
  | easyJet (EZJ) was singed by a downgrade from Berenberg from ‘buy’ to ‘hold’, despite raising its target price from 1260p to 1410p. Analysts at the German investment bank reckon Easyjet shares do not have much higher to go – and the market has already factored in all the benefits it could see from Thomas Cook’s collapse and rivals’ modest growth plans. They’ve advised investors to pick up shares in British Airways-owner International Consolidated Airlines Group SA (CDI) (IAG). |
 | Greencore Group (GNC) tumbled after it revealed a 3.5% fall in annual revenues to £1.4billion and said operations boss Peter Haden will leave next April as part of a plan to simplify the management structure. Its shares fell 8.4p, to 239.9p despite hiking its dividend by 11% and profits rising 16% to £92.3million. It is eyeing more acquisitions similar to a £56million deal it struck in September to buy salad and chilled snack maker Freshtime. |
 | Politicians and campaigners have urged Jeff Fairburn to reveal whether he has donated a portion of his controversial £75m bonus, as it appears no charity has been set up in the former Persimmon (PSN) boss’s name. A year after Mr Fairburn was forced to step down from his role, the Charity Commission says it does not have any record of a trust bearing Mr Fairburn’s name. Neither does it appear that the ex-housebuilding chief executive is a trustee of any charity in England or Wales. |
| Compass Group (CPG), one of the world’s biggest catering companies, is to axe thousands of jobs across Europe as sweeping cuts across the banks and carmakers hit staff canteens. Compass is to cut around 3,000 roles as part of a programme to make £300m of savings over the next two years. Boss Dominic Blakemore said: “[There has been a] significant reduction in the number of people eating at our restaurants,” he said of Compass-operated staff canteens across Europe. The number of job cuts in Britain would be in the “low hundreds”, he added, some of which will be achieved by not filling new positions. Around £1.8bn was wiped off Compass’ market value as the company’s shares fell almost 6%. |
 | Colombian billionaire Jaime Gilinski Bacal, one of the wealthiest people in Latin America, has bought a chunk of troubled Metro Bank (MTRO) as the UK lender fights to move on from the worst period in its history. The banker, once the biggest investor in TSB’s Spanish owner Banco de Sabadell, is now one of Metro’s top five shareholders after buying a 4.28% stake in the business. The move, announced to the stock market on Tuesday afternoon, follows a disastrous year for the bank in which a major accounting gaffe has left investors nursing huge losses. Mr Gilinski’s stake is worth almost £15m. |
 | Questor: even after huge gains for readers, CLS Holdings (CLI) remains a rock-solid option. Questor share tip: the property firm is achieving higher rents, has few vacancies and carries a reasonable level of debt |
 | Questor: rejuvenated ASOS (ASC) has better algorithm than Amazon. Operational problems seem fixed and profit margins should recover |
| The turmoil in the retail industry has hit the West End of London, as Shaftesbury (SHB), the owner of large parts of Covent Garden, Chinatown and Carnaby Street, has suffered a fall in earnings. Yesterday it reported an 85% slide in annual pre-tax profit to £26 million after the value of its Covent Garden properties was written down. The value of the company’s portfolio fell by 0.6% in the 12 months to the end of September, including an 8.5% drop in its Longmartin joint venture, which owns St Martin’s Courtyard in Covent Garden. Shaftesbury owns about 15 acres in the West End, including 600 buildings in Covent Garden, Chinatown, Soho, Fitzrovia and Carnaby Street. |
| The printer of Britain’s banknotes has warned that it could go bust. De La Rue (DLAR) admitted yesterday that there were doubts about its survival as it scrapped dividend payments and revealed a litany of issues. Reporting first-half figures that showed a slump into the red and a danger of breaking banking covenants because of spiralling debts, Kevin Loosemore, the chairman, told the stock market: “We have concluded there is material uncertainty that casts significant doubt on the group’s ability to continue as a going concern.” The news sent shares in De La Rue tumbling, closing down at 134p, a 19-year low. |
| Mortgage approvals by the big lenders fell to a seven-month low last month as uncertainty about the general election and Brexit put off buyers. The number of approvals for house purchases, which is regarded as an early indicator of the health of the property market, fell by 1,000 to 41,219 from 42,216 in September, figures from UK Finance, the industry association, showed. It was the third month running that approvals dropped and comes amid signs that the economy is struggling. Monthly approvals are now almost 2,000 below the recent July high. Gross mortgage lending, at £25.5 billion, was down 0.9% compared with October last year. | |
| The boss of Virgin Trains has defected to FirstGroup (FGP) to run the west coast main line rail franchise just before it takes over the country’s most lucrative network next month. Phil Whittingham, a stalwart of Virgin Trains since it was handed the franchise at privatisation 23 years ago, is to continue running the line that links London, Birmingham, Manchester and Glasgow. This is despite Virgin’s criticism of the Department for Transport’s decision to ditch it in favour of a First Group joint venture with Trenitalia, the Italian state railway. Mr Whittingham, 48, Virgin Trains’ managing director since 2013, will lead a mass migration of his management team to First Group. |
| Compass Group (CPG), the world’s biggest catering group has sounded a warning about the European economy after being forced to take a £300 million hit amid deteriorating conditions in several countries on the Continent. Compass Group, which provides food for factory and office canteens, warned that fewer people were eating its products because several of its multinational clients in the automotive and banking sectors were cutting their workforces. It said that it was “not immune to the macro environment” and that there would be redundancies among its own employees, affecting about 3,000 of its global staff of 600,000 and “in the low hundreds” of its 60,000 UK workers. |
| Pampering more pooches and overhauling its vet practice has helped Pets at Home Group (PETS) to raise its profit guidance after an improvement in sales. Peter Pritchard, who took over as chief executive last April, has reacted to fears that the retailer was losing customers to online competitors by cutting prices and offering services, such as pet pedicures and dog walking, that cannot be bought on the internet. Pets at Home was founded by Anthony Preston in 1991 and has 452 stores. Last year its stock was the third most heavily shorted as hedge funds bet against its turnaround ambitions. The upbeat results propelled the shares up by 34¼p, to 233½p. |
| Codemasters (CDM) has had a storming first half, with millions more players signing up to its digital platforms. The video games developer known for its motor racing games, made a profit of £10.5 million, reversing a loss of £7.7 million previously. The company said that revenue in the six months to the end of September had inched up to £39.8 million from £39.7 million last time. Digital sales of games such as F1 2019, F1 Mobile Racing and Dirt Rally 2.0 continued to increase, representing 61.7% of total sales, compared with 53.4% last year. | |
 | One of Just Eat’s leading investors is calling on fellow shareholders to stem the “terrible value destruction” of recent years and accept the recommended all-paper bid from Takeaway.com. Cat Rock Capital Management, which has shares in both companies, has sent an open letter to shareholders claiming that the deal, worth 682p a share at the present Takeaway.com share price, would create a “formidable global leader”. Alex Captain, the Cat Rock founder and managing partner, also urges Just Eat (JE.) investors to rebuff a rival all-cash offer from Prosus, a Dutch subsidiary of Naspers, the South African technology group, dismissing the 710p-a-share level as “an incredibly low price”. |
 | Labour’s plan to force landlords to submit their properties to an annual check would be good for the private rental market, according to Britain’s biggest specialist lender in the field. Banks already impose strict conditions on landlords as part of their loan agreements, so forcing the whole sector to raise standards would not be an extra burden for lenders, Nigel Terrington, chief executive of Paragon Banking Group (PAG), said. Jeremy Corbyn has pledged to introduce a legal requirement for landlords to submit their properties for annual inspection. “We do that anyway. Before we make a loan, we send a surveyor and if a property is not up to scratch we do not lend against it,” Mr Terrington said. |
 | Converting rubbish to energy is ensuring that profits rise at Pennon Group (PNN), despite falling revenues in supplying water to the West Country, where most households are metered. Despite the uncertainties caused by Labour’s pledge to bring the monopoly regional water suppliers back into public ownership, the news sent shares in Pennon close to an all-time high. Pennon is valued at almost £4 billion and comprising South West Water, the regulated utility, and Viridor, the waste management company. The group floated in the 1989 water privatisation, moved into rubbish and recycling in the 1990s and consolidated acquisitions into what became Viridor. |
| Mike Ashley’s , which has attracted criticism from politicians and investors over working conditions and its approach to business, has announced plans to rebrand itself as Frasers Group. The retail group, which has a market value of £1.8bn, said it was seeking to elevate its image beyond the sportswear through which the billionaire chief executive made his fortune. Shareholders will vote on the name change at a general meeting in London on 16 December. The company requires 75% of the votes cast at the meeting to change the name, but Ashley owns 65% of the shares. The unusual move for a FTSE 250 company comes after Ashley led a year-long buying spree of struggling retailers, most notably House of Fraser in a £90m deal. Other retailers bought in the last 18 months by Sports Direct include Evans Cycles, Sofa.com and Game Digital. | |
| Hopes on the high street of a pick-up in business during the pivotal Christmas period have been boosted by the latest retail health check from the CBI. In its monthly distributive trades survey, the employers’ organisation said the broadly unchanged level of activity in November had broken a six-month-long streak of falling sales. The peak Christmas shopping season starts with this week’s Black Friday offers, and the CBI said the stabilisation reported in its survey of 52 retailers provided some reasons for cautious optimism. Anna Leach, the CBI’s deputy chief economist, said: “Retailers are entering the festive season with a bit of hope that sales will head up, with the strongest expectations in half a year. Actual sales have also stabilised and have nudged above average for the time of year. And employment has stopped falling after three years of decline. But Brexit uncertainty continues to weigh on investment plans for the year ahead, which remain weak. | |
| The world’s use of coal-fired electricity is on track for its biggest annual fall on record this year after more than four decades of near-uninterrupted growth that has stoked the global climate crisis. Data shows that coal-fired electricity is expected to fall by 3% in 2019, or more than the combined coal generation in Germany, Spain and the UK last year and could help stall the world’s rising carbon emissions this year. The steepest global slump on record is likely to emerge in 2019 as India’s reliance on coal power falls for the first time in at least three decades this year, and China’s coal power demand plateaus. |
| Mike Ashley to change name of to Frasers. Rebrand aims to help group shed bargain image, although sports stores to keep old name |
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