 | Burford Capital (BUR) claims its share price has been illegally manipulated by traders. The legal funding company has demanded through a High Court petition that the London Stock Exchange reveal the identity of those traders. Burford’s threats are the latest salvo in an ongoing battle between the firm and US hedge fund Muddy Waters. Burford’s lawyers claim there is ‘good reason’ to believe traders allegedly manipulating its shares ‘were acting in concert with each other and/or Muddy Waters’. |
 | Neil Woodford is facing the axe from the Patient Capital trust that bears his name, as it emerged the value of its assets have tumbled by more than a quarter in the past six months. In Woodford Patient Capital Trust (WPCT) half-year update, the 59-year old, who has been seriously testing investors’ patience, told shareholders he was ‘very sorry’ about the ‘extremely disappointing’ period. The fund manager, whose flagship Equity Income Fund is currently frozen insisted on that his long-term investing approach would eventually pay off. However, the board of the Patient Capital trust reiterated that they are ‘talking to other potential managers’ to replace Woodford. |
 | Motif Bio (MTFB) plunged after it outlined restructuring plans that would include selling its main asset, a trial-stage antibiotic called iclaprim. It has been in talks with the US medicine regulator to find out what it would need to do to get iclaprim off the ground. This would be a years-long, in-depth clinical trial costing tens of millions of dollars. Motif said the best step forward would be for a different company to take this on. |
 | Morgan Stanley and JP Morgan both took aim at Reckitt Benckiser Group (RB.), Both brokerages were sceptical about its upcoming third-quarter results – scheduled for release on October 22 – which JP Morgan expects to be ‘weak’. And they also expect its annual sales growth to be towards the lower end of the 2%-3% range that Reckitt set over the summer. Reckitt recently poached Laxman Narasimhan, a former Pepsico executive, as its new boss, and the firm could change its strategy under his direction. |
 | Barclays brokers downgraded Premier Inn-owner Whitbread (WTB) from ‘overweight’ to ‘equalweight’ and trimmed its price target on the stock from 4700p to 4350p. The bank is glass-half-empty ahead of Whitbread’s first-half results, which will be published nine days before the Brexit deadline of October 31. They point to caution around the falling profits per room that hotels are making and Premier Inn’s ‘increased underperformance’. Analysts say they would like to ask management whether this is due to losing share to budget rival Travelodge. But on the upside, they say there is the possibility that Whitbread could be a take-over target – a move which would make it the latest in a line of firms that have been snapped up by overseas buyers this year. |
 | Ukrainian iron ore miner, Ferrexpo (FXPO), was in the red after it used a stock market update to shoot down claims made by a local prosecutor on social media against its chief executive and largest shareholder Kostyantin Zhevago. Ferrexpo denied allegations that Zhevago is being investigated in relation to a business he owned in Ukraine until 2015. |
| Neil Woodford’s troubled Woodford Patient Capital Trust (WPCT) is scrambling to extend a lifeline from its lender after plunging to a £232m loss. Patient Capital is locked in talks with US bank Northern Trust over extending a loan agreement which it has used to borrow £111.1m for investing in stocks, and is considering axing Mr Woodford as manager. The lending deal must be renewed in January, and if the money is withdrawn it could spark further chaos. Sources said board members are meeting with Northern Trust as a priority to ensure the cash remains available. It comes as the trust reels from a crisis engulfing its sister investment scheme, Mr Woodford’s shuttered Equity Income Fund. |
 | A charity bankrolled by Thomas Cook Group (TCG) is set to close unless its trustees can pull off an unlikely rescue plan. The Thomas Cook Children’s Charity has been pushed to the brink by the collapse of the 178-year-old travel company, sources said. Although existing funds are not affected by the firm’s failure, the organisation raised money primarily through Thomas Cook – and insiders say it is hard to see a future without that support. The charity is a separate entity from the Thomas Cook commercial group and is not part of the liquidation process. It raised £1.1m in 2017, according to the most recently filed accounts. |
 | Imagination Technologies Group (IMG), the British microchip company that was bought by a Beijing-backed private equity group two years ago, has said it would choose to float in China or New York rather than relisting its shares in London. The Hertfordshire-based company, best known for designing the iPhone’s graphics units until it was dropped by Apple in 2017, was one of the UK’s most prominent listed tech companies until it was bought by Canyon Bridge Partners for £550m. Imagination is seeking to engineer a turnaround under the new owners, who are funded partly by the Chinese government, with a view to selling or floating the company once it has reversed losses and improved revenues. |
| Burford Capital (BUR) claimed on Monday that it had been the victim of market manipulation and revealed it had asked the High Court to order the London Stock Exchange to disclose traders’ identities. The firm also published a report it commissioned from Prof Joshua Mitts at Columbia University, who claimed to have found “strong evidence” of manipulation of Burford’s share price both before and on the day that US hedge fund Muddy Waters revealed it had bet against Burford’s share price. Muddy Waters’ devastating attack on Burford’s governance and accounting practices in August wiped more than £1.5bn off the Aim-listed company’s market value. |
 | Five-a-side football firm backed by Mike Ashley has been kicked off the stock exchange after warning it may owe far more money to the taxman than first thought. Goals Soccer Centres (GOAL) missed a Monday deadline for filing its annual financial results, and has now been forced to delist under rules set by London’s junior AIM market. The firm had estimated that it owed HMRC £12m following an investigation into accounting errors which revealed it had miscalculated VAT payments for several years – but has now warned that liabilities could be much higher than this. Shares were suspended in March when the probe was announced. |
 | Bosses at English sparkling wine producer Chapel Down Group plc (CDGP) almost trebled as it ploughed cash into expanding its vineyards and building a new brewery. The company, which is based in Tenterden, Kent, posted losses of £1.7m during the first six months of 2018, compared with £581,861 a year earlier. It came despite soaring sales of its wine, spirits, beer and cider, which jumped 21% to £6.7m during the period. In addition to producing still and sparkling wine, Chapel Down also owns Curious, a range of beer and cider, and makes gin, vodka and brandy. In January, the firm opened its distillery, cocktail bar and restaurant, Gin Works, which already accounts for a tenth of sales. |
 | Questor: Pearson (PSON) has some searching questions to answer and could be a value trap. Avoid. Questor share tip: another profits warning shows its response to earlier ones was inadequate, so we were right to steer clear |
| Woodford Patient Capital Trust (WPCT), which is managed by Mr Woodford’s firm but is overseen by an independent board, disclosed in its half-year results yesterday that it had made preparations should the “ongoing economic viability” of his business be at risk. The admission that the trust is braced for the possible collapse of Woodford Investment Management underscores the seriousness of the crisis facing the man once lauded as Britain’s most successful fund manager. |
 | Prudential (PRU) is under pressure to compensate thousands of customers quickly after the City regulator fined it almost £24 million for serious breaches in annuities sales. Prudential was found to have failed to consistently advise customers, including potentially vulnerable people, that they might get a better deal by shopping around. It also was found have operated a risky sales incentives scheme, including spa breaks and weekend holidays. The Financial Conduct Authority said that the breaches covered July 2008 to September 2017 and that Prudential has offered about £110 million in redress to 17,240 customers. The compensation is expected to rise to £250 million for about 35,000 people as part of a review of 183,000 sales. Prudential has set aside a total of £400 million, which also includes the costs of the review. |
| Burford Capital (BUR) has launched action in the High Court seeking to obtain the identities of traders allegedly behind the manipulation of its shares during a recent short attack. Burford Capital was rocked by a report by Muddy Waters in August, alleging that, among other things, Burford was “egregiously misrepresenting” its return on investments. The company has accused Muddy Waters of “factual inaccuracies, simple analytical errors . . . and fallacious insinuations”. It wants the stock exchange to identify the traders that it alleges manipulated the share price. In a statement submitted by Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, the legal firm, Burford claims that an analysis of publicly available trading data over August 6 and 7 shows that a large part of the share price decline was the consequence of unlawful trading activity known as “spoofing” and “layering”. |
| Ferrexpo (FXPO) has denied that authorities in Ukraine suspect its chief executive of embezzling funds from a bank that he used to own. The troubled ore producer insisted that Kostyantin Zhevago, 45, its majority shareholder, had not “received a notice of suspicion in accordance with Ukrainian law” and that he “strongly denies any allegations of wrongdoing”. Shares in Ferrexpo fell on Friday after it was reported that Olha Varchenko, first deputy chief of Ukraine’s State Bureau of Investigations, had said on Facebook that a notice of suspicion had been handed to Mr Zhevago’s lawyer after he had failed to appear for questioning in Kiev. |
| Goals Soccer Centres (GOAL) warned yesterday that it could owe the taxman more than it thought as the five-a-side football operator cancelled its shares from trading. The company, which had believed that it owed up to £12 million to HM Revenue & Customs for unpaid value added tax, said that it was working with advisers to establish the final sum. “The actual liability may be materially higher than that previously announced, dependent on the approach and working assumptions that could be adopted by HMRC in assessing the misdeclaration,” it said. |
 | H&T Group (HAT) has stepped in to resolve the crisis caused by the abrupt closure of 113 stores run by Speedloan Finance under the Albemarle & Bond brand. H&T Group said that it had signed a deal to acquire all 113 of Albemarle & Bond’s pledge books, effectively acquiring its competitor’s customers and their loans. After completion of the £8 million purchase, on which the Financial Conduct Authority has been consulted, H&T will move the precious items to the owner’s nearest Albemarle & Bond shop, where they will be able to redeem or extend their existing pledges. The deal appears to address the fears of Albemarle & Bond customers, who since the closure of its shops had become increasingly concerned over the future of their valuables. |
 | Centrica (CNA) signed a deal to buy gas from Louisiana in 2013, the deal was hailed by the British Gas owner as a “landmark agreement” that would help to “ensure the UK’s future energy security”. Yesterday the company said that the first cargo of liquefied natural gas it had purchased from the site in America’s Deep South had finally set sail — a year later than planned and destined for France. The shipment is the first under a 20-year contract with Cheniere to buy gas from its Sabine Pass liquefaction plant, one of several new developments exporting abundant fracked gas from the United States. The company reiterated yesterday that the gas it had agreed to buy was “equivalent to the annual gas demand of over two million UK homes”, but it also confirmed that it expected much of the gas to go to Asian markets, where prices are higher, as well as elsewhere in Europe. |
 | Marks & Spencer Group (MKS) shares may have more than halved in value over the past two years, analysts at Berenberg warned yesterday that no relief was in sight. The company is in the middle of yet another transformation as it looks to address long-running issues, particularly in its multibillion-pound clothing division. Berenberg’s team expect the decline to continue, given that the clothing division’s problems are “far from fixed”, which they believe will weigh on the group’s overall performance in future. The problem, apparently, is not merely the number of M&S stores but their size, which forces the retailer to stock lines just to take up space. “Closing the top or basement floors in some of its stores could reduce the amount of inventory in the business, cut headcount (and therefore employee costs), potentially lower its rates bill and, ultimately, improve sales densities on its open space. “Without reducing store size, we believe M&S must continue to buy tail products to have sufficient range to fill its space at the expense of backing its bestsellers.” |
 | BT Group (BT.A) edged higher on the back of weekend reports that Boris Johnson is set reveal a £5 billion subsidy to help to fund fibre broadband provision in rural areas. Analysts said that would be a boon for BT and would reduce the risk of a dividend cut. |
 | Travis Perkins (TPK) fell after Jefferies warned that growth was likely to have slowed when the builders’ merchant publishes its third-quarter update this month, from 8% in the first half to about 4.4% over the past quarter. Jefferies said that trading in the retail division was likely to have been “difficult” over the summer, pointing to weak construction data as the UK edges towards the October 31 Brexit deadline. |
 | Metro Bank (MTRO) enjoyed a minor resurgence amid reports that an activist investor was looking to take a stake in the challenger bank. The Sunday Times reported that Elliott Advisors was among a clutch of investors looking at Metro, which had to postpone a £250 million bond sale last week. |
 | Advanced Oncotherapy (AVO) marched higher after it bumped up the size of its recent open offer as investors bought into the proton therapy hype. The amount raised rose to £2.9 million from £2.5 million and comes after the £18.4 million raised in July to fund the development of the company’s new Light cancer treatment system. In the past proton therapy facilities have been pricey and large, requiring a space the size of a football pitch. Light, however, is being built in the basement of a townhouse in Harley Street, central London. |
 | Tempus – Target Healthcare Reit Ltd (THRL): Buy. Tied in to structural growth in private healthcare and reliable increases in rental income |
 | Tempus – Computacenter (CCC): Hold. Solid long-term performer but parts of the group have been weak |
| UK bank challengers are fading in fight with big four. Fintech invaders from Santander to Metro Bank (MTRO) and Monzo are struggling with regulations |
 | Sunshine and showers for On The Beach Group (OTB) after Thomas Cook’s demise. Online holiday company faces costs and opportunities in wake of rival’s collapse |
| Neil Woodford will today be forced to defend his struggling investment empire. In his half-yearly performance update for Woodford Patient Capital Trust (WPCT), the 59-year old is expected to insist he is committed to his long-term investing approach. Shares in Patient Capital have halved in value since January and the trust trades at a 35% discount to the underlying value of the assets it holds. Woodford’s performance is overseen by an independent board which is now under pressure to axe the fund manager. Woodford has been criticised for collecting £7.8million in fees since savers were frozen out from his flagship Equity Income fund on June 3. |
 | Newly appointed Royal Bank of Scotland Group (RBS) boss Alison Rose faces seeing the bank dragged into court over allegations that staff illegally altered a date on a wealthy customer’s £10million loan and then accused him of fraud. The case, scheduled for the New Year, is believed to be the first involving allegations of a bank falsifying loan documents and will dash hopes that Rose’s appointment next month will draw a line under the bank’s past misconduct issues. Accountant Gary Wyatt is locked in battle with RBS over the length of a £10.5million loan that his property company Grove Park Properties (GPP) agreed with the bank in 2007. Wyatt claims the loan was for ten years, but RBS insists it was for five years. |
 | It’s exactly five years since Tesco chief executive Dave Lewis alerted the City to a black hole in the supermarket’s accounts. This year, Tesco (TSCO) made thousands redundant to pave the way for potentially leaner times and bolster its balance sheet in the face of stiff competition from Aldi and Lidl. But Lewis must also take credit for one of the biggest turnaround jobs the retail sector has ever seen. Analysts expect that improvements to the bottom line will continue even if the top line at its core UK supermarket chain remains sluggish. Barclays said in a report ahead of the publication of interim results on Wednesday that Tesco has ‘a good story to tell’ on improving volume growth. ‘We expect these results to paint an encouraging picture on profit growth and cash generation,’ said the bank’s seasoned analyst, James Anstead, who has an ‘overweight’ rating on the stock. |
| This week brings Marks & Spencer Group (MKS) ‘capital markets day’ with analysts, when we can expect the company to unveil more details about its ambitious food plans under grocery boss Stuart Machin. Change at the food division is coming thick and fast – and Shore Capital’s Clive Black, a house broker, said the day is an opportunity to illustrate how talk of lower prices and improving ranges is being put into practice. That may help support the share price, which this month hit lows not seen since 2000. |
 | Investors will have been thinking whether Thomas Cook Group (TCG) woes breed opportunity. Mark Benbow, manager of Kames Capital’s Short-Dated Yield Bond Fund, sees TUI AG Reg Shs (DI) (TUI) as a beneficiary as it is ‘the sole remaining’ travel firm ‘with any sort of significant retail store base’. He says that Tui should see a significant portion of Thomas Cook’s market share in both Britain and Germany head to them. Benbow adds: ‘The public may be worried about a repeat of the collapse of Thomas Cook at Tui but both companies have materially different balance sheets. ‘What ultimately caused Thomas Cook’s decline was not Brexit, nor margin pressures, nor a hot British summer. It was ultimately the banks pulling their funding lines. ‘They only do this when worried about a firm’s liquidity position. With Tui having almost £1.5billion of cash on hand, it is an entirely different story to Thomas Cook.’ |
 | Energean Oil and Gas (ENOG) is sizing up bidders for a $200million portfolio of assets as it focuses on becoming the biggest gas producer in the eastern Mediterranean. The firm’s chief executive Mathios Rigas has received about a dozen unsolicited expressions of interest for 19 oil and gas assets in the UK North Sea and offshore Norway – including a 25% stake in the Chinese-owned Glengorm gas field near Aberdeen. Energy analyst Kevin Swann, of Wood Mackenzie, says private equity-backed firms which could be in the running include Omani-supported Petrogas Neo, North European player Chrysaor, and Neptune Energy, founded by former Centrica chief Sam Laidlaw. |
 | An audacious swoop on the London Stock Exchange Group (LSE) by its Hong Kong rival faces a setback after a shortfall of nearly £2billion emerged in the funding for the offer. It said a firm offer, with an October 9 deadline, would include £7.3billion in cash and new shares in HKEC worth £22.3billion.Analysts said that would require 884million new shares being issued. But a slide in the share price since then has shaved £1.7billion off the value of the bid. |
 | The chief executive of BP (BP.) is planning to retire after almost ten years steering the oil giant back from the brink after the Gulf of Mexico disaster. Bob Dudley, an American who turned 64 this month, has reportedly held detailed talks about his retirement with BP chairman, Helge Lund. Dudley could announce his exit by the end of the year, Sky News reported. He took over as chief executive in 2010 after Tony Hayward left amid public anger over the Deepwater Horizon explosion and oil spill, which killed 11 people and cost BP around $65billion (£53billion) in fines and compensation. |
 | MIDAS SHARE TIPS: Profit from Begbies Traynor Group (BEG), the firm that booms while others are going bust. MIDAS VERDICT: After 30 years at the helm, Traynor is as committed to Begbies Traynor as ever. He is determined to take revenues to £100million over the next three years and increase profits substantially along the way, through organic growth and acquisition. Tough economic and political conditions are likely to help him achieve his ambitions. At 74p, Begbies shares are a buy. |
 | Ted Baker (TED) investors are on alert for a cash call as the struggling retailer’s bosses hit the road to court fund managers. Chief executive Lindsay Page, outgoing finance boss Charles Anderson and Phil Clark, the commercial director, will start a week-long roadshow in London and Edinburgh after the company’s half-year results on Thursday, which analysts expect to include a dividend cut. One top-20 shareholder said the fashion brand could be looking to tap the City for cash. Ted Baker declined to comment on the suggestion. The series of meetings has been planned amid speculation that Ray Kelvin, the retailer’s founder and former chief executive, is plotting to take the business private. |
| Metro Bank (MTRO) founder Vernon Hill is hunting new backers for the struggling lender amid mounting concern over its finances following a failed appeal to the debt market. Mr Hill, Metro’s billionaire chairman, has in recent days started making calls to equity investors trying to convince them to invest, including those who previously turned him down. His latest charm offensive comes after Metro was forced to cancel a bond sale due to a lack of investor interest, causing its shares to plummet. The well-connected American is understood to have promised potential backers he will “sort” Metro’s problems. |
 | South West Water owner Pennon Group (PNN) could be set for a break-up after the waste management and water company announced a review of its business. Experts believe Pennon’s recycling arm, Viridor, could be spun off as a separate business to create better value for shareholders. Viridor has enjoyed soaring success as concerns over waste has helped fuel a boom in cycling. The division has more than 32,000 customers and works for about 150 councils and businesses in the UK. Earlier this year it unveiled plans for a new £65m recycling plant in Avonmouth, near Bristol, which will have the capacity to recycle 8% of all plastic waste. |
 | Questor: we said just hold Essentra (ESNT) last year. Now it’s more expensive but in better shape. Time to buy. Questor share tip: the newish chief executive is getting a grip on margins at the firm’s biggest division |
| Boris Johnson will pledge as much as £5 billion this week to his plan to cover the country with fibre broadband lines within six years. The prime minister is set to make the commitment at this week’s Conservative party conference in Manchester, according to industry sources. It will be one of several unfunded promises that Mr Johnson is expected to make as he gears up for a general election. The extra cash, first reported by The Sunday Telegraph, will be directed at rural areas, many of which are represented by Tory MPs. The £5 billion of extra funding would provide incentives for broadband companies such as BT Group (BT.A) to extend their fibreoptic networks into sparsely populated regions. |
 | Car showrooms and their sales staff could be replaced by an online marketplace, an industry report has suggested. Falling sales and the increased cost of imports because of the weak pound are putting huge pressure on motor retailers. A report by Auto Trader Group (AUTO) believes that the sector is on the cusp of change. In The Future of Car Retailing, it says: “Today a lot is spent on the physical forecourt and the offline retail experience. This creates a mismatch between where car buyers are spending their time — online — and where retailers are spending their money — offline. As the whole industry evolves and takes a more digitally led role, there’s a huge opportunity to streamline costs.” |
 | Sainsbury (J) (SBRY) has warned suppliers that they will be made to foot the bill for the hefty import tariffs that may arise from a no-deal Brexit. Commercial director Paul Mills-Hicks wrote to suppliers last week asking for confirmation that they would continue to serve Sainsbury’s with delivery duty paid (DDP) regardless of whether the UK leaves the EU with a deal. Delivering goods with DDP means the supplier bears the transport costs, including import tariffs. A no-deal Brexit would result in tariffs as high as 46% on cheese and 40% on beef from the EU. |
| Bob Dudley is preparing to step down from BP (BP.) after running the oil giant for a decade, The American is drawing up plans to retire in a year and has discussed them with new chairman Helge Lund, Sky News reported yesterday. Dudley, 64, has been paid more than $110m (£89m) since he became chief executive. About 59% of shareholders voted against his $19.6m pay package in 2015, and he took a cut. |
| Activist investors are circling Metro Bank (MTRO) with a view to taking a stake or picking off parts of the business after the troubled bank pulled a bond issue last week. The American raider Elliott Advisors is among a clutch of investors looking at the challenger bank after it was forced to postpone a £250m bond sale, despite offering a hefty yield of 7.5%. Activist investors are understood to be interested in taking an equity stake or purchasing new debt at a higher coupon in a private placement. One analyst said the coupon would have to be “bloody high” for a private sale. Other firms are looking at the possibility of acquiring Metro’s deposit book as a source of cheap funding. |
 | Royal Mail (RMG) is recruiting a director to run its British operations as it heads for a showdown with postal workers and battles against slumping volumes in letters. The former state-owned monopoly abolished the job a year ago when it ousted Sue Whalley, the chief executive of UK post and parcels, after a spell of dire trading. Finance director Stuart Simpson was handed the additional role of chief operating officer. The board’s decision to appoint headhunters to fill the role again reflects consternation over its failure to get a grip on deteriorating performance in its UK business, which turns over £7.5bn and has 143,000 staff. |
 | AstraZeneca (AZN) has moved to cement its position in oncology by revealing that its top cancer drug Lynparza is capable of extending the life of women with ovarian cancer by almost two years as it moves to cement its position in oncology. The Anglo-Swedish giant presented the data yesterday at the European Society for Medical Oncology in Barcelona, where it said that its drug, when taken in addition to an existing product, bevacizumab, reduced the risk of disease progression or death by 41%. Almost half of women in the trial showed no disease progression at two years, compared with 28% of women on bevacizumab alone. |
 | HSBC Holdings (HSBA) has appointed Egon Zehnder to search for a new chief executive after the shock ousting of John Flint. Europe’s biggest bank is understood to have appointed the headhunter after holding a beauty parade including rivals Spencer Stuart and Russell Reynolds. HSBC declined to comment. The shortlist of external candidates includes Citigroup’s head of global consumer banking, Stephen Bird, and Stephen Hester, chief executive of the insurer RSA, who previously led Royal Bank of Scotland. Bird, a potential successor to Citi chief executive Michael Corbat, served as chief executive of Citi Asia Pacific from 2012 to 2015. |
 | Domino’s Pizza Group (DOM) has hired headhunters to find a new chairman as it seeks to move on from a bruising dispute with powerful franchisees. The company is understood to have appointed Heidrick & Struggles to find a successor to Stephen Hemsley, who has been with Domino’s for more than 20 years. The process was kicked off on Friday by Ian Bull, who joined the board in April and became senior independent director this month. Bull, previously finance director at Greene King and Ladbrokes, is understood to be briefing shareholders that he intends the appointment to be the beginning of an overhaul of the Domino’s board. |
 | Purplebricks Group (PURP) is braced for an investor revolt over bonuses. The shareholder advisory service ISS has urged investors to vote against Purplebricks’ financial statements at its annual meeting on Thursday, saying bosses’ incentive awards are not “subject to any performance hurdles” and vest in less than three years. A Purplebricks source said it needed to “attract and retain the appropriate calibre of individual” and that its executives were “not especially well-paid”. Former chief executive Michael Bruce received £273,000 last year. |
 | Retail investors might like Marston’s (MARS). It could be for the 20% discount on food and lodging. More likely, it’s for the chunky dividend. Marston’s paid out £47.5m last year — a yield of 5.7%. It makes the company an attractive stock — as long as it remains committed to the shareholder payout. That is where it could become tricky: Marston’s has a lot of debt. Last year’s annual report said it was committed to paying down £200m of its £1.4bn net debt by 2023. Marston’s is understood to have appointed advisers from Christie & Co to sell off 150 tail-end pubs for about £45m, in a process dubbed Project Harvest — part of its mission to pay down the debt. Initial bids were due on Friday, but the deadline has been pushed back until the end of this week. This year has been tough for small pub deals, as Marston’s knows all too well. It called off the sale of its Pitcher & Piano business in the past few weeks. Marston’s is a good dividend stock, for now. Yet its shares are still trading on the Greene King premium, and tackling the debt pile is going to be some feat. Avoid. |
 | Royal Dutch Shell ‘B’ (RDSB) searches for a purpose beyond oil. Anglo-Dutch company faces dilemma as world shuns fossil fuels |
| Under-siege Burford Capital (BUR) faces lawsuit from co-founder. Selvyn Seidel plans legal claim in which he could seek $120m in fees |
| Cost of Thomas Cook Group (TCG) collapse becomes clearer. Bill for refunded bookings, repatriations and compensating hotels likely to be more than £500m |
 | Lombard – International Consolidated Airlines Group SA (CDI) (IAG): BA owner is cutting off its nose to spite its face. Airline is taking a €137m hit from strikes that union says could be resolved for €5m |
 | UK broker Shore Capital Group Ltd. (SGR) to quit London stock market. Lack of trading volume in its shares has left company undervalued |
 | Debenhams (DEB) finance chief quits to join Ted Baker (TED). Rachel Osborne credited with helping steer retailer through complex restructuring |
| Pearson (PSON) warns on weak US university sales. Educational publisher in the midst of restructuring process sees shares plunge almost 20% |
 | Imperial Brands (IMB) warns of hit from US vaping clampdown. Shares plunge 10% as group lowers revenue guidance amid backlash |
| British Airways parent International Consolidated Airlines Group SA (CDI) (IAG) warns of hit to profit. Airline experienced major disruption during first pilots’ strike in its history |
| Marks & Spencer Group (MKS) chairman Archie Norman bought nearly £100,000 worth of the company’s shares as they crashed to their lowest level for nearly two decades. Norman has said the latest five-year plan is on track but stressed his changes will not bear fruit for years. The first opportunity for positive signs to appear is in November when interim results are published. Investors will be hoping for good news after years of disappointment and turmoil in the boardroom. |
| Debenhams (DEB) finance chief Rachel Osborne is heading for the exit after just a year with the embattled department store chain. She is leaving to take up the same post at Ted Baker (TED) and will be replaced by the retailer’s finance director Mike Hazell, who has worked for Debenhams since 2010. Osborne will succeed Charles Anderson, who is leaving Ted Baker after 17 years to join Mulberry. She said: ‘Ted Baker is an outstanding global brand and I am hugely looking forward to the opportunity to contribute to the next phase of its development.’ Osborne is joining Ted Baker at a challenging time. |
| Shares in Pearson (PSON) have slumped nearly 20% after it warned profits will be lower than expected this year. ‘Weaker than expected’ sales in Pearson’s US higher education courseware division mean the group’s annual adjusted operating profit will come in at around £590million, down from an initial target of £640million. Pearson’s courseware business makes up a quarter of its revenue, but trading slipped 10% in the first nine months of its financial year. Pearson said students were moving away from print products in favour of online educational resources faster than anticipated. As a result, Pearson now expects sales across its US higher education division to fall by between eight and 12%, against a previous forecast of between 0 and 5%. |
| Neil Woodford’s investment trust has been forced to write down the value of three more of its holdings, as the crisis surrounding the fund manager rolls on. Link Fund Solutions, the company responsible for independently valuing the portfolio, has cut the valuation of three unnamed Woodford Patient Capital Trust (WPCT). WPCT is listed on the stock market and is separate to the fund manager’s suspended flagship fund Woodford Equity Income. |
| International Consolidated Airlines Group SA (CDI) (IAG) issued a profit warning after taking a hit from the 48-hour strike action by its pilots earlier this month. The strike cost the group around £121million and further passenger disruption triggered by threatened strikes by staff at Heathrow Airport has cost the firm £299.2million to date, meaning IAG’s annual profits will come in lower than expected. IAG’s boss has confirmed it is looking to snap up the stricken holiday group’s plane slots at Gatwick airport. Willie Walsh said: ‘If there’s slots available we’ll be looking at slots, but through the normal way, through the slot pool. ‘But if there is an opportunity to acquire some slots through the administration … We clearly see Gatwick as an opportunity for us and that is something we will be looking at.’ |
 | DFS Furniture (DFS) has warned that sales are suffering as the Brexit impasse drags on, and shoppers put off making big purchases or moving house. The furniture firm said sales momentum slowed towards the back end of its financial year amid ‘the increasingly uncertain political and economic backdrop’. It added that this trend carried on into the new fiscal year, with order intake easing back and fewer visits being made to its stores. ‘Recent trading conditions have reflected the increasingly uncertain political and economic backdrop, and we have seen reduced levels of footfall across all our brands, which we attribute to lower levels of consumer confidence and housing transactions, the two key drivers of the upholstery market,’ said DFS boss Tim Stacey. He added that order levels ‘have been subdued’ in the past three months and said the outlook would depend on the Brexit outcome, which is ‘difficult to predict’. |
 | Verditek (VDTK) shares rose after the solar panel maker secured another order with a Nigerian distributor. Verditek said further orders are in the pipeline. The company is also looking to raise £650,000 through a share placing of 14.4m shares, which it will put towards its growth plans. |
| Shore Capital Group Ltd. (SGR) is quitting the stock market in London after deciding its listing on AIM is a distraction to management, too expensive and – because the shares aren’t trading very much – has ultimately undervalued the company. Shore will need the support of 75% of votes at a one-off meeting of shareholders next month in order to cancel its shares from November 1. With senior current and former directors owning around 67% of shares, this is likely achievable. Shore Capital will keep its listing on the Bermuda Stock Exchange, and current shareholders will have their holdings transferred to the sunny island’s bourse. |
 | Mitchells & Butlers (MAB) reported a 3.3% rise in comparable sales in the eight weeks to September 21. Drinks sales were up 4%, though food sales rose 2.1%, suggesting punters were keener on drinks than pub grub over the summer. |
| Aston Martin Holdings (AML) advanced 31.4p, to 582.2p, shrugging off ratings agency Moody’s changing its outlook on the luxury car maker from ‘stable’ to ‘negative’, citing the group’s high cash burn. | |
 | Xaar (XAR) tanked after its delayed first-half results revealed a barrage of bad news. The Cambridge-based firm said exiting its Thin Film business will cost it £39million, which subsequently pushed its loss from £1.1million in 2018 to £52.3million between January and June. It also announced a management exodus, with the chief executive, chairman, finance boss and a non-executive director all due to leave between now and next March. |
 | Foxtons Group (FOXT) chairman since 2013, Garry Watts, will retire at, or before, the firm’s annual meeting next spring. He will be succeeded by Ian Barlow, who is a senior independent director at the group. |
| Analysts at Peel Hunt slapped troubled lawsuit funder Burford Capital (BUR) with a ‘buy’ rating as they initiated coverage, saying they believe governance and disclosure issues ‘have been exaggerated and are being addressed’. |
| Top City lawyers advising Thomas Cook Group (TCG) on its failed rescue plan are said to have demanded weekly payments from the travel company to ensure they received their fees in the run-up to its collapse into insolvency. The move spared insolvency experts at elite “Magic Circle” law firm Slaughter and May and US firm Latham & Watkins from joining a long queue of creditors when the company went down – including the company’s 21,000 staff, who face a long wait for their final pay cheque. Thomas Cook’s bondholders will be almost completely wiped out, it emerged on Thursday, as MPs launched an inquiry into executive pay, stewardship, and accounting practices at the company. |
 | Panicked traders have wiped almost £7bn off Britain’s tobacco firms since Donald Trump launched a crackdown on vaping. Imperial Brands (IMB) slumped more than 9% on Thursday as it warned that action by the White House and individual US states has triggered a marked slowdown in electronic cigarette growth over the past three months. It means that since President Trump announced plans earlier this month to ban flavoured vaping products, Imperial has lost £3.4bn ofr its market value – with fellow London-listed producer British American Tobacco (BATS) down £3.3bn. Tobacco companies have embraced vaping as a way to boost their profits as Westerners turn away from smoking. |
 | Barclays (BARC) chairman Nigel Higgins has shaken up the bank’s board by hiring two well-known financiers following pressure from investors to bring in fresh faces. The bank has hired Dawn Fitzpatrick, the investment chief for billionaire George Soros’ fund management firm who oversees assets worth about $25bn, and Mohamed El-Erian, the chief economic adviser at Allianz and former boss of Pimco, as non-executive directors. The pair are both veterans in the finance industry, and are particularly well-known in fund management circles. |
| The owner of British Airways warned profits will be £190m lower than last year following a two-day pilot strike that affected thousands of passengers. International Consolidated Airlines Group SA (CDI) (IAG) cancelled 2,325 flights earlier this month after BA pilots walked out following a row over pay and conditions. The airline group said it had taken a £121m hit from the action and a further £29m from threatened strikes by workers at Heathrow airport. IAG also blamed poor demand for bookings on its budget airlines, particularly Level and Spanish carrier Vueling, which will knock almost £40m off profits. |
| Investment manager Shore Capital Group Ltd. (SGR) is planning to delist from London’s junior stock market. The cancellation, which would will take effect on Nov 1, requires the consent of at least 75% of shareholders at the annual meeting next month. The London stockbroker – which advises small companies that think there is a benefit to being listed – said its Aim listing undervalued the business and comes at “considerable” expense. It also costs management time to maintain the company’s public admission, outweighing the benefits of retaining it. The company added that it now “has sufficient and significant capital to meet its growth ambitions”. |
| A slide in textbook sales in the United States that was twice as high as forecast has prompted Pearson (PSON) to warn on profits once more. The educational publisher said on Thursday that the 20% decline in demand from American university students would also put a return to sales growth next year in doubt. The former owner of the Financial Times has repeatedly warned on profits in recent years and cut 16,000 jobs as it attempts to ready itself for the digital age. |
| Neil Woodford suffered a triple-whammy humiliation on Thursday after the investment trust he runs was forced to cut the value of three more of its holdings. The board of Woodford Patient Capital Trust (WPCT) said that it has been told by supervisor Link to slash the valuations of three investments because of challenges they face raising funds on the markets. This will knock around £25m off Patient Capital’s value, equal to 3.1p of value per share. Link Fund Solutions also acts as supervisor to Mr Woodford’s shuttered equity income fund, which slammed the door on investors in June after running out of ready cash to repay departing customers. |
| Ted Baker (TED) has poached Debenhams (DEB) finance chief Rachel Osborne as the company seeks to move on from the sexual harassment claims against Ray Kelvin, the retailer’s founder and ex-chief executive. Ms Osborne, 54, will join the company in a few months from Debenhams, where she worked for a year. At Debenhams, she had to do battle with Mike Ashley’s Sports Direct as the sportswear tycoon tried to take over the struggling department store chain and derail its rescue plan, although it ultimately failed. |
| Mitchells & Butlers (MAB) toasted higher sales as punters flocked to its watering holes over the summer. Comparable sales rose 3.3% in the eight weeks to September 21, the firm said in a trading update, with drinks performing particularly well. The rise in sales for the 51 weeks to the same date was even higher at 3.6%. Sales of beer, wine, spirits and other drinks were up 4% in the period, while food sales were 2.1% higher compared to the same period a year ago. M&B owns about 1,700 restaurants and pubs across the UK under brands including Harvester, O’Neill’s, Toby Carvery, Browns and All Bar One. |
 | Questor: ignore the high street gloom – look at what Next (NXT) is doing and hold on to the shares. Questor Income Portfolio: far from being forced into decline by its store chain, the group has built a multi‑faceted base for a profitable future |
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