 | Lombard – Metro Bank (MTRO) decides the Vernon Hill show mustn’t go on. ‘The PT Barnum of banking’ had created a roadblock to securing new capital |
 | Tesco (TSCO) incoming chief: tough but charming. Tough, but charming Irishman Ken Murphy called a ‘great fish in the executive pond’ |
| Dave Lewis declares ‘mission accomplished’ at Tesco (TSCO). CEO ‘who saved Tesco’ to move on having restored profitability at UK’s largest grocer |
| Flutter Entertainment (FLTR) – Paddy Power and PokerStars owners agree £10bn tie-up. All-share takeover will create world’s biggest online betting operator by revenue | |
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| Strong signals that a slowdown in global manufacturing intensified in September sent stock markets tumbling on Wednesday, as leading indices in Europe and the US retreated. In London the FTSE 100 rolled back all the gains made since mid-August as it dropped 237 points to 7,122, falling 3.2% in its biggest one-day fall since 2016. Extending the losses overnight on Asian markets, shares on continental European markets also experienced losses with the Paris CAC falling 3.1% to 5,422. The Dow Jones index in New York compounded its decline on Tuesday by falling close to 500 points on Wednesday, or 1.86%. The trigger for the declines came from the latest batch of surveys to show manufacturers responding to a sharp fall in orders by cutting back production and jobs. | |
| The US is set to impose $7.5bn (£6.1bn) of tariffs on exports from the EU including scotch whisky, French wine and cheese and aircraft in retaliation for subsidies given to the aerospace group Airbus after a World Trade Organization (WTO) ruling.. The tariffs announced on Wednesday could come into effect as early as 18 October and represent a significant widening of the Trump administration’s trade dispute with the EU, adding to growing tensions in the world economy. The US trade representative’s office (USTRO) released a list of hundreds of European sagricultural products that will be subject to a 25% tariff, including British woollen jumpers and pullovers. Cookies, salami, butter and yogurt from some countries will be affected, along with olives from France, Germany and Spain, EU-produced pork sausage and other pork products other than ham, and German coffee. |
 | ASOS (ASC) has appointed a slew of heavy-hitting directors to revive its fortunes. Four new non-executive directors, with experience at companies from Ocado to Burberry, will ‘reflect Asos’s increased size and scale’. They replace Hilary Riva and Rita Clifton, to leave the board when their six-year tenures expire in April. Karen Geary, a non-executive director at National Express and formerly chief human resources officer at software firm Micro Focus, joined yesterday. Luke Jensen, the boss of Ocado’s technology division, will take his place on Asos’s board at the beginning of November. |
| Metro Bank (MTRO) has finally managed to shore up its balance sheet as chairman Vernon Hill agreed to leave by the end of the year. Metro, forced to pull a £200million bond issuance last week after failing to garner enough interest from investors, launched a new £350million bond yesterday. The bank promised investors a yield of 9.5%, even higher than the 7.5% it was advertising on its last failed fundraising. The bond launch came as Hill, Metro’s founder, said he would step down as chairman of the lender by the end of the year even if a replacement has not been found. And he will leave the board altogether. This summer, the US businessman said he would retire as chairman but only once a replacement was found. He also planned to remain as a non-executive director. |
Aston Martin Holdings (AML) shares slumped another 6% yesterday as it capped off a torrid first year as a public company. Britain’s only listed car maker floated at 1900p a year ago today – but has plunged 75% since and last night closed at just 478p. | |
Paddy Power and Betfair owner Flutter Entertainment (FLTR) has agreed to buy Canadian rival The Stars Group in a £9.3billion deal aimed at creating the world’s biggest betting firm. Flutter’s chief executive, Peter Jackson, said the deal would help the group ‘turbocharge’ its expansion and means it will have customers in over 100 markets. If shareholders approve the deal, Flutter will own 54.6% of the newly formed group, with Stars shareholders holding the remainder. The newly-formed firm will have its headquarters in Dublin and be listed on the London Stock Exchange, as well as on Euronext Dublin. The takeover of Stars by Flutter will allow the two firms to make savings of £140million a year, while there will also be potential cross-sell in international markets and lower finance costs. | |
| Dave Lewis, boss of Tesco (TSCO), has revealed plans to step down next summer after five years at the helm. Lewis, who was parachuted in to lead Tesco’s drastic transformation in 2014, said his work ‘is complete’ as the retailer now moves from ‘turnaround to growth’. The supermarket chief will be succeeded by Boots lifer Ken Murphy. Lewis said: ‘My decision to step down as group CEO is a personal one. I believe that the tenure of the CEO should be a finite one and that now is the right time to pass the baton. ‘Our turnaround is complete, we have delivered all the metrics we set for ourselves. The leadership team is very strong, our strategy is clear and it is delivering.’ |
 | City veteran Martin Gilbert has called time on his three and a half decade tenure at fund management giant Standard Life Aberdeen (SLA) and one of its two forerunners, Aberdeen Asset Management. The firm announced that Gilbert, who is vice chairman of the group and chairman of Aberdeen’s investment arm, will not be standing for re-election at the company’s shareholder meeting next May and therefore departs in September. In March Gilbert stood down as the firm’s co-chief executive, the role he had held since the merger with rival Standard Life in 2017. |
 | Eye disease specialist ReNeuron Group (RENE) had mixed results from an ongoing trial. The treatment involves injecting a stem cell therapy into the eyes of people with a genetic condition called retinitis pigmentosa, which causes degenerative blindness. This worked rapidly and profoundly on the first few candidates – judged by reading letters on a chart – but with a lower rate of improvement in subsequent patients. |
 | Hochschild Mining (HOC) slipped after it bought a deposit of rare earth minerals in Chile for £46million in cash. It said the market for the minerals is forecast to ‘grow exponentially’ as they are used in renewable technologies such as electric cars and wind turbines. China currently dominates world supply and has threatened to slash exports in its ongoing trade war with the US – so getting hold of deposits elsewhere is a priority for many mining groups. |
 | Infrastrata (INFA) the energy infrastructure firm that has rescued Belfast shipyard Harland & Wolff soared as it said it had completed a number of pre-construction milestones that it needed to finish in September. It is still on schedule for other preparations it needs to complete this year, it added. |
 | Motif Bio (MTFB) was on the up after it conditionally raised £600,000 to enable a restructuring, announced earlier this week, that would see it sell off its main asset, an antibiotic called iclaprim. |
| Tesco (TSCO) has stunned analysts by hiring a relatively unknown businessman to replace Dave Lewis after his shock resignation as chief executive. The grocer named Ken Murphy, a former senior executive at pharmaceuticals behemoth Walgreens Boots Alliance, as its new boss – and is paying him more than veteran leader Mr Lewis, who is widely credited with saving Tesco from collapse. Experts were stunned by the decision, which will leave one of the country’s most famous names in the hands of a chief executive who has never been in charge of a company before. |
| Metro Bank (MTRO) finally completed a crucial £350m fundraising after controversial founder Vernon Hill quit as chairman in the face of an investor backlash. Mr Hill – who once said that he was so committed to Metro he would “probably die there” – will leave the board altogether, despite vowing earlier this year to stay on as president after handing over to a new chairman. The 74-year-old’s decision to quit came days after the bank was forced to cancel the previous attempt due to lack of interest prompting fears for its future. |
 | Bob Dudley, chief executive of BP (BP.), confirmed he will step down from the energy giant next year when he turns 65 – even though the company’s board has yet to make an announcement on his future. Mr Dudley has run the firm since predecessor Tony Hayward left in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico. His departure plans, announced at an energy conference in Moscow, added to the damage for shares in the company, which was the heaviest dropper on the FTSE 100 on Wednesday on a day of destruction for the stock markets. |
| Martin Gilbert is standing down from the board of Standard Life Aberdeen (SLA) as he waits for approval to join Revolut as its chairman. The City heavyweight, who ran Aberdeen Asset Management for more than three decades prior to its £11bn merger with Standard Life in 2017. The company said today Mr Gilbert – who was the longest-serving boss of a FTSE 100 business, and the second-oldest at 64 – will not seek re-election at its Annual General Meeting in May 2020. |
| ASOS (ASC) beefed up its board on Wednesday with a string of appointments including Ocado executive Luke Jensen. Former ITV chief executive Adam Crozier, who became chairman in April, has drafted in a raft of new board members as he battles to revive the online fashion firm following two profit warnings. In addition to Mr Jensen, who heads up Ocado’s technology division, Asos has also appointed Sky’s former chief commercial and strategy officer Mai Fyfield, former Burberry executive Eugenia Ulasewicz, and Karen Geary, who has held top HR roles at Micro Focus, Wandisco and Sage Group |
| The owner of Paddy Power and Betfair faces a backlash from watchdogs after unveiling a £10bn merger with Sky Bet owner Stars Group. Flutter Entertainment (FLTR) proposal, which shocked investors on Wednesday morning, would create the world’s biggest online betting group. But it is likely to face fierce scrutiny from competition regulators, not least in Britain where the merger would hand the firm a 40% share of the gambling market. The Competition and Markets Authority typically opens an investigation into a merger if combined UK turnover exceeds £70m or a combination is created with a market share of 25% or more |
| Equity markets tumbled yesterday as fears mounted over global economic growth and Washington received the green light to impose tariffs on European goods worth $7.5 billion. Weak US employment and manufacturing data intensified fears over the impact of President Trump’s trade war with China. The FTSE 100 endured its worst day in almost four years. Political fears also rattled investors as Mr Trump attacked Democrats preparing an impeachment inquiry and Britain submitted new Brexit proposals to Brussels only four weeks before it is due to leave the European Union. | |
| Metro Bank (MTRO) has raised £350 million from a bond sale after its founder bowed to investor pressure and agreed to leave the lender’s board. The challenger bank was successful yesterday in its second attempt to sell new debt that it needed to raise by the end of the year to meet EU rules. The sale came hours after it had announced that Vernon Hill would step down as chairman and would leave the board altogether by the end of the year. Mr Hill had said previously that he would “probably die” before leaving. |
| One of Tesco’s biggest shareholders has said it is “irresponsible” for Dave Lewis to step down as chief executive before delivering the benefits from the supermarket’s takeover of Booker, the cash-and-carry group. Tesco (TSCO) surprised the City yesterday when it said that Mr Lewis wanted to stand down next summer after more than five years in charge. Ken Murphy, former chief commercial officer at Walgreen Boots Alliance, was named as his replacement. David Samra, fund manager at Artisan Partners, the fifth biggest shareholder, said that Mr Lewis had done an “incredible job”, but questioned the timing of his departure. |
| The consolidation of the gambling industry gathered pace when the companies behind Paddy Power and Poker Stars announced an all-paper merger to create the world’s biggest online betting group. Flutter Entertainment (FLTR) is tying the knot with The Stars Group, the Canadian player that bought Sky Bet last year, in a deal that at last night’s closing prices valued the combined company at £9.8 billion, or £14.2 billion including debt. | |
 | Barclays (BARC) has indicated that it will no longer use off-payroll contractors as it prepares for a government clampdown on tax avoidance linked to the use of self-employed private sector workers. A leaked internal email sent to line managers at the bank said that they must no longer use freelancers “who provide their services via a personal services company, limited company or other intermediary”. Barclays said that it would expect the recruitment agencies it used to move contractors to the PAYE system through which direct employees were paid. The bank told staff the move was designed to prepare for a reform of the IR35 rules. |
 | QinetiQ Group (QQ.) is to more than double its operations in the United States by acquiring a business that has been helping American soldiers to see in the dark. Quinetiq is paying $105 million for the Virginia-based Manufacturing Techniques, known as MTEQ, which last year made $11 million of profits on revenues of $167 million. One of MTEQ’s biggest contracts has been Webs, the US army’s warrior enabling broad sensor system, its next-generation night-vision technology. It also can be used to detect unconventional explosives used against troops in the Middle East and Afghanistan.MTEQ is also on the DAGRS (deployable adaptive global responder support) programme delivering sensor technology to counterterrorism and cybersecurity projects in the US. |
| Martin Gilbert ended months of speculation yesterday by announcing that he was leaving Standard Life Aberdeen (SLA). Mr Gilbert co-founded Aberdeen Asset Management in 1983 and is deputy chairman of the combined group. He said that he would go on to a four-day week from January, would not seek re-election to the board at the annual meeting in May and would retire in September. Mr Gilbert told The Times that he was getting old and wanted to spend more time skiing and playing golf. “I already knew I was the longest-serving FTSE chief executive and then I read I was the second oldest and I thought, ‘Oh my God.’ ” |
 | Twelve years after entering the then booming car market in China, Inchcape (INCH), said yesterday that it was shifting into reverse and leaving the country. The British-based global car retailer said that it was pulling out of its last three dealerships for Porsche, Mercedes-Benz and Lexus because it had been unable to expand. China has become a tough market for companies trying to sell upmarket cars. Slow economic growth excaerbated by a trade war with the United States, new vehicle emissions rules, the end of subsidies for foreign-built models and a knockback against conspicuous consumption have affected sales. |
| The chief executive of BP (BP.) said yesterday that the oil company’s board had yet to make a decision on his plans to leave next year. Bob Dudley is preparing to resign after a decade running the company, ending a tumultuous tenure in which it swung back from near-collapse in the wake of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill in 2010. At an energy conference in Moscow, he said that he had long planned to resign at the age of 65, which he will reach next September. However, he said that BP’s board had yet to confirm his resignation. |
 | Jaywing (JWNG) rose as Lord Ashcroft threw more of his weight behind the digital marketing minnow. The billionaire is Jaywing’s biggest shareholder, with a 25.6% stake in the business. Along with another big investor — Lombard Odier, the Geneva-based asset manager — Lord Ashcroft, 73, has acquired a £5.3 million loan that Jaywing had with Barclays and they have pumped in an extra £3 million to help to clear its overdraft and bolster the balance sheet. The company said yesterday that the intervention of its two biggest backers had put it in a “much stronger financial position”. |
 | Hastings Group Holdings (HSTG) was among the heaviest fallers losing 9p to close on 194½p. Analysts at RBC cut the stock to “underperform” and chopped their price target to 170p, arguing that claims are rising while premiums remain flat. “Hastings is most exposed to this, with circa 90% of premium from UK motor, and therefore faces an unavoidable trade-off between margin and volume,” the Canadian bank’s team said in a note to clients. “Either way, we believe the insurer’s earnings will suffer.” |
 | Tempus – Convatec Group (CTEC): Buy. Realistic recovery plan from a market leader in its field whose shares are almost certainly undervalued |
| Tempus – Hochschild Mining (HOC): Hold. Acquisition has potential but feasibility study crucial |
 | Marks & Spencer Group (MKS) admits turnaround plan 18 months behind schedule. Analysts attack ‘whack-a-mole’ promises to cut clothing and home product lines |
 | British Land Company (BLND) wins permission for £3bn London development. Canada Water scheme would create new ‘town centre’ across Thames from Canary Wharf |
| Titanic builder Harland and Wolff thrown lifeline in £6m deal. UK energy infrastructure group Infrastrata (INFA) agrees deal to buy shipyard from administrators |
 | Greggs (GRG) warns of Brexit pressure on food and labour costs. UK bakery chain’s shares fall 12% as it cuts forecast for new-store openings |
| Greggs (GRG) had another ‘very strong’ quarter of rising sales as more customers popped in its stores to grab breakfast on their way to work, but the rapid growth is easing back. The company, which has been making headlines with the success of its vegan sausage roll, did not mention the V word once in its latest trading update, but said it had added some new chicken sandwiches to its autumn menu. Greggs also said it has stockpiled ingredients ahead of possible Brexit disruption, which it expects will put pressure on labour and input costs in the coming months. ‘As expected, the rate of year-on-year sales growth moderated as we came up against stronger comparative sales from the previous year, but sales were still up strongly, driven predominantly by growth in customer numbers,’ Greggs said. |
| The plan to turn around Marks & Spencer Group (MKS) clothing and home business is 18 months behind schedule, its chief executive said yesterday. Steve Rowe said more needs to be done to put the long-suffering divisions back on track and that he was disappointed with progress so far. The assessment, at the firm’s capital markets day, pointed to slow changes in supply chains, which in the past have led to stock shortages. It has made progress in new and improved styles, helping to grow the number of customers by 425,000 in the past year, with the autumn collection modelled by Line Of Duty star Vicky McClure. ‘There is still too much slow-moving stock in our system and we’re hampered by an expensive, inefficient supply chain,’ investors were told. |
  | JD Sports Fashion (JD.) merger with Footasylum (FOOT) is under threat after the competition watchdog launched an in-depth investigation into the proposed tie-up. In a move that will delight competitor Mike Ashley and his Sports Direct group, the Competition and Markets Authority said as it launched a phase-two probe after JD Sports failed to offer remedies to its concerns. The CMA had said the £90million merger could result in a ‘substantial lessening of competition’, having previously warned the deal could lead to ‘higher prices’ and ‘worse choice’ for customers. JD rejected the CMA’s claims and said there were no ‘appropriate remedies’ that it could offer to avoid being referred for an in-depth investigation. ‘JD firmly believes that there is clear evidence that the acquisition would not result in a substantial lessening of competition in the relevant clothing and footwear retail markets where the two businesses operate,’ JD’s executive chairman Peter Cowgill, said. |
| Infrastrata (INFA) has agreed to pay £6million for Harland And Wolff, which went into administration in August following the collapse of its Norwegian parent group. It had 35,000 workers during the Second World War, and between 1909 and 1914 built the Titanic, the Olympic and Britannic. The shipyard, whose two yellow cranes, Samson and Goliath, are part of the Belfast skyline, has also built oil platforms and wind turbines. Infrastrata will use it to build the metal fabrication for its huge underground gas storage facility in Northern Ireland, in Islandmagee. |
 | SCS Group (SCS) has blamed a mix of Brexit uncertainty and hot weather during the August bank holiday weekend for a reversal of fortunes at the start of its new financial year. The firm said it had a ‘challenging start’ to 2020, with like-for-like sales falling between the end of July and the end of September. Commenting on the past couple of months of trading, ScS chief executive David Knight said: ‘This period was impacted by the record temperatures experienced by the UK across the August bank holiday weekend and the increasing political and economic uncertainty we are currently facing in the UK.’ |
 | Crimson Tide (TIDE) has signed a three-year deal with an unnamed retailer to use its mobile software. Its tech has been used by Interserve to log cleaning activities and Nestle has used it to record deliveries. The contracted revenue from the ‘significant’ new deal will be at least £1.4million over the three years and Crimson Tide’s platform will be used in almost 4,000 retail sites in the UK and Ireland. |
 | Ferguson (FERG) surged to the top of the Footsie leaderboard after it surpassed City forecasts. Disciplined cost-cutting helped the group see a rise in revenue to £18billion and a better-than-expected profit before tax of £1.1billion in the year to July 31. Share Centre analyst Ian Forrest praised a ‘quick response’ to a slowdown in the US, where it makes around 90% of its turnover, by cutting around 600 jobs. Last month it revealed plans to spin off the UK arm so it could focus on its North American side, which it said is ‘progressing well’. |
 | Sirius Minerals (SXX) tracked lower, down 0.2p, to 3.75p, after Berenberg brokers cut their target price on the fertiliser miner from 17p to 4p. Analysts cited ‘uncertainty’ about its financing for the cut, saying a strategic investor now ‘appears the only lifeline’. |
| Greggs (GRG) is stockpiling pork to avoid running out of sausage rolls if the UK crashes out of the EU without a deal. Chief executive Roger Whiteside said he was stashing away key ingredients ahead of the October 31 deadline, including pork, even though a lot of it already comes from the UK. “We’d like to have a bit more of it,” he added. The bakery chain now sources the majority of its cheese and sugar at home as a precaution. Greggs, which has been luring people to its stores with its vegan sausage roll, posted a slowdown in sales as the demand for the meat-free snack was not as high as when it was first unveiled in January. |
 | Ryanair Holdings (RYA) boss Michael O’Leary has enraged the travel industry by claiming the package holiday is “screwed” following the failure of Thomas Cook. And in a blistering attack on the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), Mr O’Leary also said the UK airlines regulator was partly to blame for the spectacular collapse of the 178-year-old travel company. He said that airlines facing financial difficulty should be forced to set aside cash that could be used to fund any repatriation effort further down the line. “How can you [the CAA] license Thomas Cook in April as fit to fly for another 12 months and then it goes bust in September?” Mr O’Leary said. The package holiday is “screwed, it’s over”, he said. |
 | Hargreaves Lansdown (HL.) shares took a beating during London trading on Tuesday, after negative commentary from two sets of analysts. Shares fell after negative commentary from Credit Suisse and Panmure Gordon. Hargreaves’ high prices drew negative commentary, as did its operating margins, with Credit Suisse initiating coverage of its shares with a “sell” rating, writing: “We find HL’s premium valuation difficult to support in the face of near-term revenue and earnings growth headwinds.” They said that further damage from the continued fallout around fallen star trader Neil Woodford could hurt Hargreaves’. |
| ASOS (ASC) is poised to reveal a boardroom shake-up tomorrow as it battles to rebuild confidence with investors. The online fashion house, which has issued a string of profit warnings in the past year, is set to appoint Ocado executive Luke Jensen as a non-executive director, according to Sky News. Adam Crozier, who took over as company chairman in April, has drafted in a raft of new board members to revive what has been a tough period of trading. In July, the company blamed operational issues arising from its overhaul of warehouses in the US and Europe for its third profit warning in eight months. |
| The boss of JD Sports Fashion (JD.) has slammed competition regulators for holding up his firm’s £90m takeover of smaller rival Footasylum (FOOT). Peter Cowgill hit out after the competition watchdog announced an in-depth probe of the deal, which has previously been criticised due to family ties between the two firms. The investigation could take months and might mean the tie-up is blocked altogether. Mr Cowgill, executive chairman of JD Sports, said: “I strongly disagree with this. This transaction will not result in any price increases or a reduction in product ranges or service quality.” |
  | Top contender for the chief executive job at Sainsbury (J) (SBRY) has quit to join advertising giant WPP (WPP). John Rogers, who had long been tipped as Mike Coupe’s successor to run the grocer, will leave at the end of the month. Mr Rogers has been running Sainsbury’s-owned Argos since the supermarket chain gobbled it up for £1.4bn three years ago, having joined as a finance director at the grocer in 2005. Some industry observers have said that Mr Rogers’ sudden departure could suggest Mr Coupe is staying put for a while despite the knock from the botched £7.3bn takeover of smaller rival Asda earlier this year. |
  | Questor: our original ‘tip of the year SafeCharge International Group Limited (DI) (SCH)’ made 90% in six months. Here is its replacement, Randall & Quilter Investment Holdings (DI) (RQIH). Questor share tip: the fund manager who prompted us to tip SafeCharge has equally high hopes for this niche insurance firm |
| Disappointing factory data from across the world sent stock markets down yesterday. Figures showed that American manufacturing was at its weakest in a decade amid the trade war with China. Activity in factories in the United States contracted for a second consecutive month in September. In Britain the sector recorded its fifth consecutive month of falling output, the longest run since 2009. Activity in the eurozone contracted further, to its weakest since October 2012, and in Asia there also were declines. | |
| The boss of Ryanair Holdings (RYA) believes that the package holiday market and the model of the traditional tour operators are finished after the collapse of Thomas Cook. Michael O’Leary, chief executive of Europe’s largest short-haul airline, said at a conference in London: “The package market I think is screwed. It’s over.” He likened the decline of tour operators to “whoever was making shoes for horses” before the motor car replaced horse-drawn carriages. “There were some good, well-managed horseshoe companies, but ultimately they went the same way. That will happen with tour operators here in Europe,” he said. |
| The chief executive of J Sainsbury’s Argos business, who had been tipped as a frontrunner to become the supermarket group’s next boss, has been recruited by WPP (WPP). John Rogers, 51, will join the world’s largest advertising group as chief financial officer early next year, replacing Paul Richardson, 61, who is retiring from the company. Mr Rogers had been seen by some analysts as a likely successor to Mike Coupe, 59, chief executive of Sainsbury’s. He has held several senior roles at the group, including that of chief financial officer between 2010 and 2016. At Argos, he has overseen the transformation of more stores to a digital format, allowing customers to order via tablets instead of catalogues. |
| A slowdown in growth at Greggs (GRG) triggered a sell-off in its shares yesterday, despite the bakery chain performing well thanks to longer trading hours and new delivery services. Greggs said that like-for-like sales in company-managed shops had increased by 7.4% year-on-year in the 13 weeks to September 28, down from 10.5% during the first half of the year. It reiterated the outlook given at its half-year results in July, when it said that tougher comparatives in the second half of the year would moderate its growth. |
| The British division of Ferguson (FERG) is being readied for flotation in London with a 6% jump in trading profits. Wolseley UK is being split from its United States-focused parent, which has been under pressure to acquire a better rating with investors that believe valuations have been depressed by the performance of the struggling British business. Operating profits in Wolseley UK were nearer £9 million after one-off items connected with its continuing restructuring and the £9 million cost of bringing the company’s domicile back from Switzerland to London. |
| The £90 million takeover of Footasylum (FOOT) will not be bad for consumers, JD Sports Fashion (JD.) has insisted in response to a review of the deal by the Competition and Markets Authority. The watchdog said that Britain’s biggest sportswear retailer had failed to address its concerns that the takeover, announced in March, could be bad for shoppers. Peter Cowgill, 66, chairman of JD Sports, said that it “will not result in any price increases or a reduction in product ranges or service quality”. |
| Hargreaves Lansdown (HL.) reputation could still be damaged by the implosion of Neil Woodford’s Equity Income Fund, according to analysts at Credit Suisse. At the end of last year, its stake in the fund amounted to 31% of its total value and Hargreaves removed Woodford from its best-buy list only after the fund’s suspension. Analysts at the Swiss bank gave the stock an “underperform” rating yesterday, and added: “We find Hargreaves’ premium valuation difficult to support in the face of near-term revenue and earnings growth headwinds.” Panmure Gordon, the broker, said: “You could be forgiven for believing that there was no future. But the pressures are not new, nor necessarily accelerating.” |
 | Reckitt Benckiser Group (RB.) dropped amid bearish analyst previews of its third-quarter results due later in the month. On Monday, there were also downbeat notes from Morgan Stanley and JP Morgan Chase. Jefferies said that all eyes would be on Laxman Narasimhan, 52, the new chief executive, to offer solutions, but added that it expected no announcements of substance before the fourth quarter. The company’s Durex condoms brand is under particular pressure in China from competition from Okamoto, a Japanese rival. Analysts at Deutsche Bank cut their price target from £77.50 to £75, predicting another “uninspiring quarter”. |
 | Burford Capital (BUR) rose to 838p. Analysts at Peel Hunt recommended that investors buy the shares, noting that “even if Burford does obtain an official investigation that finds evidence of wrongdoing, the bigger issue is why the share price has not recovered. Muddy Waters had some fair points to make, but not such as to affect materially Burford’s fundamental value.” |
 | Boohoo.com (BOO) has a lot to gain from the announcement of Forever 21, its American fast-fashion retail rival, that it will be closing 350 shops, analysts at Jefferies said. If Boohoo can steal even 5% of global market share, it will gain $40 million, they claimed. |
| Brexit uncertainty and record temperatures over the August bank holiday weekend have hit sales at SCS Group (SCS). Shares fell yesterday after it reported more challenging trading conditions in the past two months. The chain has suffered as the housing market has slowed, knocking spending on big-ticket items such as furniture. Analysts at Peel Hunt said: “August started well, but the bank holiday was a horror. More recently, things have picked up a bit, but in general industry-wide nerves are winning the day.” SCS said that it was on the hunt for acquisitions after its bid to buy Sofa.com failed and Sports Direct swooped in. |
 | Tempus – Beazley (BEZ): Avoid. Diversified and efficient insurer, but operating in markets that at present are unattractive and risky |
 | Tempus – Keywords Studios (KWS): Avoid. High-growth company whose valuation is a put-off |
 | Woodford investment trust considering stockpicker’s position. Woodford Patient Capital Trust (WPCT) steps up talks with rival investment managers |
| Burford Capital (BUR) seeks to force LSE to reveal alleged stock manipulators. High Court filing comes as litigation funder steps up defence after Muddy Waters attack |
 | Prudential (PRU) fined £24m over annuity sales. UK insurer rebuked over using large bonuses and spa breaks as staff incentives |
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