 | Lombard – Lloyds Banking Group (LLOY) needs rates boost to accelerate margin. Direction of travel on net interest income matters more than car lease impairments |
 | Carpetright (CPR) set to be taken private by leading shareholder. Meditor Capital in talks to table an offer valuing retailer at £15m |
 | Crest Nicholson Holdings (CRST) warns of lower profits for next 2 years. Shares fall after UK housebuilder announces weaker sales due to Brexit uncertainty |
 | Rio Tinto (RIO) expects higher costs for flagship iron ore business. Miner sees up to $500m of extra spending on assets and infrastructure in Australia |
| Lloyds Banking Group (LLOY) quarterly profits almost wiped out by £1.8bn PPI charge. UK bank makes progress with its cost-cutting drive |
 | BT Group (BT.A) holds dividend as it shrugs off poll risk to fibre plans. Telecoms group says even a Corbyn government would support multibillion investment drive |
 | Smith & Nephew (SN.) raises revenue guidance for second straight quarter. Last results under outgoing chief Namal Nawana who quit over pay |
 | Profits at International Consolidated Airlines Group SA (CDI) (IAG) hit by British Airways pilots’ strikes. Industrial action and rising fuel costs blamed for drop in airline group’s earnings |
| BT Group (BT.A) boss repeatedly refused to rule out cutting its prized dividend to fund investment in broadband. Philip Jansen said the payout to shareholders – worth about £1.1 billion – was safe for this financial year. But it could be cut in future. BT is preparing to ramp up its rollout of cutting-edge broadband across the UK. But the firm has not yet decided how the plans would be funded. It plans to connect fibre cables, which provide faster internet speeds and are cheaper to maintain than existing copper wires, to 4m homes and businesses by 2021. But Jansen said this could rise to 15m by the mid-2020s if regulator Ofcom and the Government agree to ease taxes on broadband wires and relax pricing restrictions. |
| Meditor, which is headed up by former Old Mutual fund manager and poker player Talal Shakerchi, said it would be willing to pay 5p a share for Carpetright (CPR), which values it at just £15.2million. Carpetright, which is grappling with a £56million debt pile, has been seeking alternative financing as its existing facilities near expiry. It said it requires around £80million to repay lenders, meet ongoing payment requirements and execute its recovery strategy. Last year, it turned to Meditor for two short-term loans, and in August the investor took control of Carpetright’s revolving credit facility of £40.7million from previous lenders NatWest and AIB. The move was broadly interpreted as a show of confidence in the struggling chain. |
| Lloyds Banking Group (LLOY) yesterday revealed it had been forced to set aside another £1.8 billion to compensate customers who had rushed to make a claim before the August 29 deadline imposed by the City watchdog. This takes its total tally to just under £22 billion – more than half of its current market value. One leading analyst called the results for the three months to the end of September a ‘nightmare’ as the mis-selling of payment protection insurance continued to haunt the High Street banking group. Profits were virtually wiped out, revenues fell, and losses from bad loans increased. The spiralling PPI bill at Lloyds echoes the extra money set aside by rivals in recent days. |
 | Royal Dutch Shell ‘B’ (RDSB) has experienced a large fall in third-quarter profits due to weaker oil prices. Earnings after stripping out fluctuating expenses fell 15% to £3.7billion, well below estimates it might reach almost £5billion. Shell was able to charge an average of £43.25 per barrel of oil it produced in the quarter, down from £52.69 in the same three months last year. It was even more than a dollar lower than the second quarter price. This combined with slightly lower production, at 3.56million barrels of oil equivalent a day, to give the oil firm a bloody nose. Chief executive Ben van Beurden said: ‘This quarter we continued to deliver strong cash flow and earnings, despite sustained lower oil and gas prices, and chemicals margins. ‘Our earnings reflect the resilience of our market-facing businesses and their ability to capitalise on market conditions, including very strong trading and optimisation results this quarter.’ |
 | Foxtons Group (FOXT) stumbled after revenues were hit by the slowdown in the capital’s property market. Revenue between July and September fell 7% to £32.5m, though it said it grew its share of the lettings market after it decided not to increase fees to landlords. Chief executive Nic Budden said it was a ‘resilient’ performance given the current downturn, which has been put down to Brexit uncertainty and slower economic growth making people warier about selling their houses. |
 | Future (FUTR) surged after it revealed plans to buy TI Media, which owns Marie Claire, Horse & Hound and Country Life, for £140m. It announced the acquisition after the market closed on Wednesday. |
| Lloyds Banking Group (LLOY) has set aside almost £22bn in total to cover the rush of complaints for PPI mis-selling – more than all of its combined profits since it started paying for the scandal in 2013. The lender earmarked an extra £1.8bn to cover PPI costs on Thursday after being stung by a last-ditch scramble for compensation ahead of a deadline for claims earlier this year. This extra hit almost wiped out profits for the third quarter of 2018. It dragged them down to just £50m, 97% less than a year earlier. Lloyds has now put aside money for the scandal equivalent to the UK’s policing budget for 18 months, with more than £1bn worth of change left over. |
| Profits spiralled 15% at oil behemoth Royal Dutch Shell ‘B’ (RDSB) as it was battered by lower energy prices and weak global growth. Shell warned that bleak trading conditions could hamper its bid to reduce debt levels and delay a $25bn (£19bn) scheme to return cash to investors through the world’s biggest share buyback. The company’s stock was down around 4% on Thursday afternoon, wiping £15bn off the value of one the FTSE 100’s biggest members and making it the day’s biggest faller on the blue-chip index. Despite the drop in profits from a year ago, Shell still posted much better-results than expected. Lifted by a healthy oil and gas trading division, the company made $4.8bn in the third quarter of 2019. |
| Royal Dutch Shell ‘B’ (RDSB) has warned that slowing global economic growth is depressing oil and gas prices and could delay the completion of its $25 billion share buyback programme. Shares in the Anglo-Dutch oil giant sank yesterday after it said that prices were lower than it had planned for and could leave an $9 billion hole in its cashflow assumptions if they persisted. Shell issued the warning as it reported third-quarter results in which underlying profits, excluding one-off gains, fell by 15% to $4.8 billion because of the impact of lower prices and weaker margins in its refining and chemicals businesses. The group has said increasing its dividend would be dependent on a “line of sight” to completing the buyback programme. It indicated yesterday that a dividend increase now looked further off. Jessica Uhl, chief financial officer, said: “We are focusing on completing the buyback programme and then looking to grow dividend per share in the coming years.” Ben van Beurden, the chief executive, made an unscheduled appearance on a call with analysts to insist that “nothing has changed” in Shell’s plans or intentions. However, economic conditions had changed and “the current macro, if it persists, is going to affect us”, he said. |
| Profits at Lloyds Banking Group (LLOY) plunged after it took a further £1.8 billion charge for mis-selling payment protection insurance, taking its total bill for the scandal to almost £22 billion. António Horta-Osório, Lloyds’ chief executive, said that he was disappointed by the near wiping out of quarterly profit by the latest PPI hit, which had been generated by an unprecedented flood of claims before the August deadline. Lloyds PPI is the UK’s biggest ever mis-selling scandal and cost banks a total of £50 billion. Lloyds has borne the biggest cost for its clean-up, reflecting the fact that it was the biggest seller of the toxic product in the 1990s and early 2000s. |
 | Goals Soccer Centres (GOAL) has admitted that its historic profit figures may have been overstated by up to £40 million after an investigation into its accounts. The five-a-side football operator has been in the stock market spotlight since March when its shares were suspended after an accounting inquiry by BDO. It was suggested that it owed £13 million in VAT. Goals said yesterday that its historic profit figures could have been overstated by up to £40 million. Details on the financial issues dating back to 2009 have been handed to the Serious Fraud Office. Goals alleged that it had uncovered the apparent creation of false fixed assets, false revenues, fake invoices and the wrongful payment of cheques to individuals associated with the company. |
| The CEO of BT Group (BT.A) has called on the next government to prioritise plans for faster broadband and dismissed concerns about nationalisation under a Corbyn administration. Philip Jansen said that BT was prepared to accelerate the expansion of full-fibre networks to help hit Boris Johnson’s target to connect all premises to networks offering “gigabit speeds” by 2025. However, BT was waiting to hear from ministers and regulators about its return on what would be a multibillion-pound investment that could threaten its dividend. There is new uncertainty surrounding the plans because of next month’s general election, the announcement by Nicky Morgan, the culture secretary, that she is standing down as an MP, and the search for a successor to Sharon White as head of Ofcom, the regulator. |
| The owner of British Airways has taken a €155 million hit from the first strike by pilots in the carrier’s history. Underlying operating profits fell 7% to €1.4 billion in the third quarter and the group warned that annual earnings would be 6% lower, according to accounts for International Consolidated Airlines Group SA (CDI) (IAG). Pilots downed controls in September in a dispute over pay, forcing BA to axe about 1,700 flights. Members of the BA pilots’ union had planned another strike at the end of that month but called it off to allow for more negotiations. Willie Walsh, IAG’s chief executive and a former Aer Lingus pilot, said that the company would not be providing a running commentary on talks but added that he expected a resolution before the end of the year. Mr Walsh, who has run the company and its predecessor for a decade and a half, said that he would step down within two years. “I’m 58 and I will not be in this job when I’m 60,” he said. The Irish executive, who joined BA from Aer Lingus in 2005, once said he would resign when he was 55. |
| Crest Nicholson Holdings (CRST) has issued a profit warning after a period of volatile trading that the housebuilder said was largely driven by Brexit-related consumer uncertainty. The company said that it expected to report full-year pre-tax profit of between £120 million and £130 million. That is down from the £176.4 million it achieved last year and below average analyst estimates of £152.9 million. The trading update sent the shares lower. The company said that it had written down the value of its London developments by £10 million across about five sites “to reflect current market conditions”. It has also recorded an exceptional charge of £17 million for remedial work that it expects to carry out after changes to government building regulations since the Grenfell tower fire tragedy. |
| The luxury trappings of tycoon life have been revealed in Mike Ashley’s latest accounts as they show billed his family £2.1 million for using the company’s private jet and helicopter. Sports Direct took delivery of a $51.1 million Dassault Falcon 7X corporate jet in 2016. Flight tracking data reveals that the plane has this year made trips to Miami, where Mr Ashley has a holiday home, Toronto and Glasgow. Carl Tennants, head of brand at Flannels, has posted on Instagram details of his “average day” flying between the company’s House of Fraser store in Glasgow and a football match at Newcastle United, which Mr Ashley owns. Accounts for Mash Holdings, which includes all the 55-year-old billionaire’s business interests. reveal that the company also spent £113,000 on matchday hospitality at Newcastle for Mr Ashley’s family. Mr Ashley’s son, Oliver, 29, caused a £500,000 hit to Mash’s accounts after winding down his grime radio station, Radar Radio. | |
| The largest shareholder in Carpetright (CPR) has swooped on the flooring retailer to try to take it private in a cut-price £15.2 million deal. Meditor Capital yesterday tabled a 5p a share offer for the 70% of shares it does not already own. The move has backing from a quarter of investors because of fears that the alternative is administration. As well as building a 29.9% stake in the business, Mr Shakerchi bought out Carpetright’s £40 million of debt in September in addition to a £25 million loan he provided to help with working capital requirements. |
| The new boss of Smith & Nephew (SN.) plans to continue the turnaround strategy introduced by its outgoing chief executive, whose departure was announced suddenly last week after a pay dispute. Roland Diggelmann, 52, was appointed to replace Namal Nawana, who had been in the top job for 18 months. His exit surprised shareholders as Mr Nawana, 48, was in the early stages of attempts to drive improvement in the medical equipment company after years of sluggish performance. The company is consulting with shareholders on a new executive remuneration policy. A spokeswoman said last week that “there was too big a gap between Namal’s aspirations on pay . . . and what’s acceptable in terms of UK corporate governance best practice”. |
 | Human rights lawyers have taken the first steps in a legal action against British American Tobacco (BATS) on behalf of almost 2,000 tobacco tenant farmers, including hundreds of children, from Malawi accusing the company of forced labour and child labour. The group, represented by Leigh Day, have sent a pre-action letter to the tobacco giant. The law firm said that if no satisfactory response was received to the letter “the case will be issued in the High Court in London”, as BAT has its headquarters in the capital. The farmers accuse the tobacco company of unjust enrichment, namely that it made huge profits from the leaves that were picked by the farmers who were effectively forced to work for very little pay and left no option but to put their children to work too. |
 | Generic competition to a blockbuster anti-opioid treatment at Indivior (INDV) has wiped out half its market share and hit revenue and profit. Net revenue fell by 18% to $199 million and operating profit fell by 16% to $57 million in the three months to September 30. Indivior is a leading anti-addiction drugs company through its Suboxone treatment in the United States which is grappling with an opioid epidemic. Its dominance has come under threat after months of costly legal patent battles failed to stop generic competitors from launching and hitting its market share. |
 | Capita (CPI) said it had renewed its contract with the Co-operative Bank to run its British mortgage servicing operation and support its digital transformation. The contract is worth £141 million over six years. |
| A note from Shore Capital on the betting and gaming sector, advising investors to sell shares in Flutter Entertainment (FLTR), failed to knock the stock. Although the analysts said they were encouraged by the momentum in the US sports betting industry, they saw this opportunity as already well reflected in Flutter’s valuation, but underrepresented in those of rivals William Hill and GVC. | |
| Codemasters (CDM) said that it had extended its contract with Liberty Media to develop and publish the Formula One game at least until 2025 and potentially until 2027. The company has held exclusive rights to the console and computer game since 2008. Analysts at Liberum said the extension of the contract “highlights the increasing strength and value of this partnership”, noting that Codemasters would benefit from trackside advertising at Grand Prix. | |
 | Burford Capital (BUR) climbed 15p to 879½p. It had its bonds rated for the first time this morning in response to criticism. Moody’s rated its outlook as positive, which Numis said would open opportunities in the corporate bond market. “Burford still has some way to go to regain real investor credibility, but this is another step in the right direction,” Peel Hunt said. “We believe it can get there, that it will take time, and that there is good upside even on a base case.” |
| Tempus – Carpetright (CPR): Hold. Shares are trading below the takeover offer |
 | Standard Life Aberdeen (SLA) is introducing one of the UK’s most generous parental leave policies, offering nine months of full pay for all new parents. The new policy, which comes into force on 1 January 2020, will apply to all new mothers and fathers working for the company, including those who adopt or have a child through a surrogate. Campaigners said the move was the sort of initiative that could help to close the country’s yawning gender pay gap, in which women are paid £260,000 less than men over their careers. Fathers and same-sex parents working for Standard Life Aberdeen will be able to take a full nine months of paid leave, without having to ask their partner to cut their time short or share their entitlement. Sam Smethers, chief executive of the women’s campaign group the Fawcett Society, said it was a “potentially transformational” policy for Standard Life Aberdeen employees. “It is at the generous end of the spectrum and extremely rare.” |
 | Lombard – De La Rue (DLAR) past failings tear up a £500m business. Printing group’s polymer banknotes may be hard to rip, but its share price is not |
| Standard Life Aberdeen (SLA) to offer 9 months’ parental leave. Fully paid package comes as asset managers are under pressure to be more family friendly |
| De La Rue (DLAR) shares slide 20% after second profit warning this year. Banknote printer has been hit by host of setbacks, including SFO investigation |
 | Standard Chartered (STAN) beats estimates with 16% rise in quarterly profit. Upbeat results to ease pressure on chief executive Bill Winters from pay dispute |
| De La Rue (DLAR) has issued a second profit warning in five months. The company, which suffered heavily from losing out on the Government’s contract to make new blue UK passports, said profits will be ‘significantly lower than market expectations’. Investors took flight, with shares plunging 20% in early trading, down 36p to 151p. The share price has now sunk nearly 65% since the start of the year. There is also an £18million black hole in the accounts after the company revealed in May that the Venezuelan central bank has been struggling to pay its bills. |
 | AstraZeneca (AZN) has signed a $239million deal to sell a revenue-generating anti-psychotic drug as it bids to move away from mature treatments and invest in innovation. Germany’s Cheplapharm Arzneimittel bought the rights to sell schizophrenia and bipolar drugs Seroquel and Seroquel XR in Europe and Russia from the Anglo-Swedish pharmaceutical giant. It will pay $178 million upfront, but the figure could rise to $239million based on how well the drugs sell. ‘Seroquel is an important established medicine and this agreement with Cheplapharm will help ensure continued patient access,’ said Ruud Dobber, AstraZeneca’s executive vice president for biopharmaceuticals. ‘It forms part of our strategy of reducing the portfolio of mature medicines to enable reinvestment in our main therapy areas.’ AstraZeneca has already sold the rights to the two versions of Seroquel in the UK, Japan and elsewhere. |
  | founder Mike Ashley has attacked the competition watchdog over its investigation into the takeover of Footasylum (FOOT) by JD Sports Fashion (JD.). Sports Direct claimed the Competition and Markets Authority published ‘incorrect estimates’ of its market share data in its analysis of the £90 million deal. The watchdog is looking at whether competition will be reduced following the acquisition of the high street retailer. The CMA has launched an in-depth phase two investigation after the regulator warned the deal could lead to ‘higher prices, less choice and a worse shopping experience for customers’. Sports Direct said the analysis ‘wrongly suggests that Sports Direct would have a comparable market share of supply to the merged parties’ in the sports-casual clothing and footwear categories. The retail giant said the CMA ‘substantially overstates’ its presence in each of these markets. It said it ‘does not have a meaningful, if any’ presence in these two retail markets. Ashley called for a ‘correction’ of its market share data by the watchdog during the second stage of the investigation. |
 | Shares Next (NXT) tripped up in early trading on Wednesday despite the company reporting a sales uplift for the past three months. The fashion giant’s overall sales advanced by 2% in the most recent quarter, thanks to a stellar performance in October when temperatures in Britain started to drop. However, while its online Directory division surged by nearly 10% during the period, sales across its sprawling store estate continued to fall – this time by a bruising 6.3%. Next revealed that the month of August was particularly weak, with September also ‘adversely affected by unusually warm weather’. According to retail sales data from the British Retail Consortium and KPMG, last month was the worst September for retailers since at least 1995 as shoppers held back on spending amid the ‘spectre of no-deal’. The company claimed that its slow September had been offset by a 5% uplift in October. |
 | Convatec Group (CTEC) rose as growth in four main divisions surged, stoking hopes that the troubled company was on the path to recovery after a shock profit warning last year. |
 | Smurfit Kappa Group (SKG) clocked a rise after it said revenues were up 3% to £5.9 billion in the first nine months of the year and said it is well-positioned to benefit from the huge increase in demand for sustainable packaging. |
| Standard Chartered (STAN) chief executive Bill Winters has been boosted in the bank’s row with investors over his pay after the lender posted a solid set of results. The bank beat analyst expectations and outshone many of its peers on Wednesday morning as it unveiled a profit boost of 16% for the third quarter. Its performance stands in contrast to rival HSBC, which reported an 18% profit drop for the same period. The figures come at a good time for Mr Winters, who has faced scrutiny over his controversial pension pot – worth £474,000 this year alone – amid a wider move in the UK to decrease the pension contributions made to top executives. |
 | Questor: Sequoia Economic Infrastructure Income Fund Limited (SEQI) – a 5% yield from a cautiously managed trust? Welcome to ‘infrastructure debt’. Questor investment trust bargain: these little-known assets require specialist handling but defaults are rare despite the generous income and there’s scope for capital gains on top |
| Future (FUTR) is buying consumer titles including Country Life and Wallpaper* for £140 million in cash. The specialist publisher is acquiring the TI Media magazine stable from Epiris, a British private equity firm. Future will sell a block of 8.2 million shares to fund the takeover, which is the latest in a series of deals by Zillah Byng-Thorne, chief executive, who has been in charge for the past six years. The TI media deal adds Decanter, Woman & Home, Golf Monthly, TV Times and Horse & Hound to Future’s portfolio. Its titles reach 11.7 million adults in Britain monthly across print and digital editions. |
 | Strong sales of a new shingles vaccine have revived spirits at GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) and prompted it to raise its annual earnings outlook. The drugs company yesterday announced an 11% increase in third-quarter group sales to £9.4 billion, beating City forecasts of about £9 billion. Glaxo’s fortunes have been affected by generic competition to Advair. The decline in its market supremacy has weighed on earnings forecasts. However, the performance of Shingrix, sales of which surged by 76% to £535 million, outpacing forecasts of £464 million, offset Advair’s fall. |
| Sensyne Health (SENS) suffered an investor revolt yesterday over £1 million of undisclosed executive bonuses. More than a quarter of voting shareholders, 28.7%, rejected the remuneration report at Sensyne Health’s first annual shareholder meeting as a public company, despite concessions ahead of the vote. Lord Drayson, 59, and his wife Elspeth, Sensyne’s two largest shareholders, accounted for more than half of those investors voting in favour. The rebellion comes after scrutiny over post-flotation bonuses of £850,000 to Lord Drayson and £200,000 to Lorrie Headley, the chief financial officer, as well as large salary increases. | |
| Funding Circle (FCH) appears to have listened to complaints from investors waiting for as long as four months to take their money out of the platform. The peer-to-peer lender has set new rules for its secondary market, which lets investors sell their loans. It said that the change would speed up access to money, improve fairness and possibly help to create greater demand. The move comes after an internal review, which was started as anger grew among investors who were waiting for months to sell out of their positions. | |
| The new chief executive of De La Rue (DLAR) yesterday issued the banknote printer’s second profit warning this year. Clive Vacher is leading a review of the business and he said that he would provide an update on its progress when the company reports its half-year results on November 26. De La Rue said that it expected half-year adjusted operating profits for the six months to September 28 to be in the “low-to-mid-single-digit millions” and over the year to be “significantly lower” than forecasts. The City had expected full-year profits of between £50 million and £53.5 million. |
| Standard Chartered (STAN) has received a boost after a rise in profits suggested its recovery plan is bearing fruit. The emerging markets bank reported a 16% rise in underlying pre-tax profits to $1.2 billion for the third quarter, with statutory profits before tax up 4% to $1.1 billion. The figures, which were better than City analysts had expected, will ease the pressure on Bill Winters, 58, the chief executive who has been trying to revive the bank since taking charge in 2015. He announced a second turnaround programme in February that was rapidly overshadowed when almost 40% of shareholders refused to back the bank’s executive pay policy amid anger over his retirement benefits. |
| Warmer than average weather at the end of the summer has held back sales growth at Next (NXT). Next yesterday announced a 2% year-on-year rise in full-price sales for the three months to the end of October, slower than the 4.3% advance that it achieved over the previous six months. High street sales continue to slump, with a 6.3% drop in shop sales during the quarter, although this was offset by a 9.7% rise in online sales. The slowdown in sales growth and the company’s decision to maintain its annual profit guidance of £725 million disappointed the City and the shares fell. |
| Smurfit Kappa Group (SKG) switch to sustainable packaging has enabled it to ride the wave of environmental activism. The company reported a 3% rise in revenue from last year to €6.8 billion in the nine months to the end of September, despite economic and political pressures. Tony Smurfit, its chief executive, said that consumers were “increasingly demanding sustainable packaging solutions” and that the company was “ideally positioned” to take advantage of the trend. |
   | Persimmon (PSN) dropped 29p to £22.98; Taylor Wimpey (TW.) lost ¾p to 166½p; and Barratt Developments (BDEV) shed 4¾p to 637¾p. Analysts at Liberum said: “If history is a guide, we should expect the housing market to slow in the run-up to the announced general election, but, if the opinion polls and bookmakers are correct, the housebuilders’ shares could outperform if a Conservative victory is the outcome. It is difficult to see a clear picture in how housebuilders’ shares perform immediately before or after a general election, although we do note that the sector performed well during the 2015 and 2017 elections won by the Conservatives.” |
 | Serco Group (SRP) signed a ten-year contract with the Ministry of Justice worth £800 million, starting in August next year, to provide prisoner escort and custody services for the south of England, expanding the group’s contract beyond London and the east of England. |
 | Whitbread (WTB) slipped after analysts at Bank of America Merrill Lynch downgraded the stock’s rating to “underperform” and cut their price target from £42 to £39.50. They said that Whitbread’s expansion in Germany was an opportunity that would bear fruit in the medium term, but was capital-thirsty in the short term, adding that a Brexit deal would be likely to remove uncertainties and have a significant impact given Whitbread’s domestic focus. |
| Power Metal Resources Plc (POW) climbed 25% after it said that it expected its project in Botswana to be “highly prospective” for huge nickel sulphides. Nickel prices have fallen dramatically on the London Metal Exchange, but the company expects the metal to appreciate accordingly. Adriatic Metals, an Australian miner, said that it would list in London before the end of the year, having floated in Australia last year. It is trading 450% above its listing price. | |
 | Volution Group (WI) (FAN) shares rose due to Government plans to tighten building regulations for new homes to cut emissions next year raised expectations that demand would rise for Volution Group’s low-carbon ventilation products. The regulations form part of Britain’s commitment to become a net zero-carbon economy by mid-century. Analysts at Liberum raised their target from 235p to 250p, encouraging investors to buy the shares. They noted that the group was using its strong cashflows to acquire and improve other ventilation companies in a fragmented market, adding that awareness of indoor air quality was increasing, which could increase demand for its higher-specification products. |
 | Tempus – BP (BP.): Hold. Await all-important strategy update next year |
| Tempus – Convatec Group (CTEC): Buy. Update has reinforced growth prospects |
 | Marks & Spencer Group (MKS) will start offering a “buy now, pay later” service on its website next month as it tries to attract younger customers and boost trade going into the key Christmas period. The retailer has teamed up with Clearpay to offer customers the option of paying for orders of more than £30 in interest-free instalments. The Australian firm and its better known rival Klarna are among a wave of fintech companies being embraced by millennials on tight budgets. Many of M&S’s rivals, including H&M and Asos, already offer delayed payment services and the struggling business is eager to attract a younger generation of shopper, including families with young children. M&S said its customers were increasingly looking for ways to spread the cost, particularly of larger purchases. The Clearpay service enables customers to spread the total over four instalments paid back across six weeks. The maximum spend is £800 and does not require a credit application and customers can manage their payments through a phone app. |
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