The boss of Smurfit Kappa Group (SKG) hit out against the crisis-hit regime of Venezuela’s Nicolas Maduro after its exile from the country sent it plunging into the red for the full year. The cardboard box maker wrote off its Venezuelan operations after 65 years in September after they were seized by the Government following months of harassment. Tony Smurfit, grandson of the company’s founder Jefferson Smurfit, said: “I’m old enough to remember when Venezuela was by far the best country in Latin America and it shows you that that kind of socialism is absolutely terrible and we’ve got to make sure that doesn’t happen here.”
InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) has bolstered its luxury portfolio with the $300m (£230m) acquisition of a Thai-based high-end resort chain. Six Senses, an operator of 16 spa hotels and resorts across 12 countries, will join the Holiday Inn and Crowne Plaza owner’s stable from US private equity fund Pegasus Capital Advisors. IHG said it will make its money back within four years and was in line for a $75m tax windfall from the deal. With its primary stock market listing in London, IHG operates or owns more than 5,500 hotels with more than 825,000 rooms across almost 100 countries. Its history can be traced back to the mid-18th century and Britain’s Bass Brewery.
Royal Dutch Shell ‘B’ (RDSB) will join forces with renewable energy developers to build an €18m (£15.7m) floating wind project off the coast of Norway by next year. The Anglo-Dutch fossil fuel giant will take a majority stake in the development company that hopes to prove that the cost of floating wind projects could fall significantly using innovating approaches. Shell has increased its share of the project from an initial one third stake to almost two thirds, alongside German renewables company Innogy and Denmark’s Stiesdal Offshore Technologies. The project company plans to test the new wind power technology six miles off the Norwegian coast by 2020.
Construction contractor Galliford Try (GFRD) profits dipped as it took another hit on the troubled bypass it was building with collapsed competitor Carillion. The company has now booked £71m of costs in relation to the so-called Aberdeen Western Peripheral Route, which has been plagued by delays and cost over-runs and is still yet to fully open. Peter Truscott, chief executive, said: “It’s effectively finished – the civil servants and lawyers and still dotting the i’s and crossing t’s to get the thing open to the public, but it is physically complete.”
Surging online sales have boosted Dunelm Group (DNLM), which said its troubled integration of online homeware business Worldstores was now in the past. Revenues at the soft furnishings retailer rose 1.2% to £551.8m in the 26 weeks to Dec 30, helped by online sales that soared more than a third to £62.5m. Underlying pre-tax profits jumped 17% to £70m. The retailer also defied high street gloom as like-for-like sales in its stores that have been open for more than a year jumped 6.9%, while footfall was up by 4.3%. Nick Wilkinson, chief executive, said the company had “traded well” over the winter period, but remained cautious due to “the continuing political uncertainty in the UK”.
Utilitywise founder in talks over eleventh hour rescue bid. The founder of Utilitywise plc (UTW) is in talks to bail out the troubled energy broker just months after offloading his remaining stake in the business. Tyneside business man Geoffrey Thompson has put forward an eleventh hour deal which could save the company, feared to be only weeks away from collapse. Utilitywise is scrambling to secure a sale or raise at least £10m in fresh funds to avoid its lenders wresting control of the business through its unpaid debts at the end of next month. The last-ditch plan to bring the broker back from the brink has emerged just months after the founder and former chairman dumped his remaining 6% stake in the business.
Second shareholder comes out against Interserve rescue deal. Interserve (IRV) bosses face an uphill struggle to win approval for its proposed £480m rescue deal after a second major shareholder came out against it. Dutch hedge fund Farringdon Capital Management, which holds a 6.2% stake in the ailing Government contractor, has written to its board telling them it will oppose the planned debt-for-equity swap. It joins New York’s Coltrane Asset Management, which controls 27% of shareholder votes, in indicating it will vote against the deal, which will all-but wipe out Interserve’s current shareholders if it goes ahead. The news leaves Interserve bosses with a dwindling pool of shareholders to win over if they are to secure the majority they need.
EU crackdown sends Plus500 shares plunging. Online trading platform Plus500 Ltd (DI) (PLUS) has fallen victim to an EU regulatory crackdown with shares tumbling more than a third on Tuesday. The Israeli company said profits would be “materially lower” than City expectations as European regulations are implemented to curb the use of highly speculative financial bets. The stock market selloff will be welcomed by a clutch of hedge funds, which have built large short positions against Plus500. Trading income for 2018 rose by two-thirds to $720m (£560m) and pre-tax profit almost doubled to $503m. However, with much of this good news priced into the company’s stock market valuation, shares sank to a 12-month low. They have almost halved since August.
AA says turnaround is on the right road following contract wins. AA (AA.) insisted its turnaround was on track despite a membership slump as it trumpeted a series of key wins to supply breakdown cover to business clients. The company, which is struggling under billions of pounds of debt left by its previous private equity backers, said it was on course to make more than £340m in pre-tax profits this year – £2m above what City analysts had pencilled in. Personal memberships continued to fall, slipping 2% to 3.2m during the year to January, but the AA does the majority of its work for corporate clients.
Debenhams wins breathing space with £40m lifeline from lenders. Debenhams (DEB) has been handed a £40m lifeline from its lenders as the embattled department store chain grapples with a much more radical survival plan. The new overdraft facility from its banks and bondholders will help pay its onerous quarterly rent bill at the end of March and give it some much needed breathing space until it can secure a “broader refinancing and recapitalisation”. The company still needs to refinance about £300m of debt before putting a brutal plan to landlords to close about half of its stores as it tries to extricate itself from its dwindling store portfolio.
Sick note for health sector knocks Spire. A city health check for Spire Healthcare Group (SPI) sent its shares tumbling as Credit Suisse handed the UK hospital market a grim prognosis. The hospital operator’s shares have been in a tailspin since top stakeholder Mediclinic pulled its takeover swoop and NHS cutbacks triggered a string of profit warnings. Analyst Hans Bostrom warned that the UK hospital market will worsen further in 2019 and offset Spire’s “nascent progress” in private paying patients. The NHS is referring fewer patients to private operators, such as Spire, in a bid to save money.
Patisserie Valerie bidders fear fresh approach from Mike Ashley as deadline looms. Fears are mounting that retail tycoon Mike Ashley will gatecrash the sale of Patisserie Holdings (CAKE) with a fresh swoop at the eleventh hour. Administrator KPMG has given bidders until lunchtime on Wednesday to make best and final offers for the stricken coffee and cake chain. With February’s payroll looming, the accountancy firm wants to wrap up “Project Pippen” – the codename for Patisserie Valerie’s sale – in short order. Suitors have been told they must be in a position to complete the acquisition by Thursday. KPMG has already shut 70 outlets and made more than 900 people redundant.
Opec tightens its taps as global oil demand stalls. The world’s largest oil producers slashed their crude production last month as global economic jitters drag on oil demand forecasts. The Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) said it tightened its crude taps to cut almost 800,000 barrels a day from its oil exports in January after vowing to drain excess oil from the oversupplied market. The cartel made the pledge last year alongside major oil producing countries outside the cartel, including Russia, to safeguard oil prices against a global economic slowdown.
TUI blames hot summer and weak pound for higher losses. TUI AG Reg Shs (DI) (TUI) has blamed a hot summer and the weak pound for spiralling losses in the final three months of 2018. Pre-tax losses were €135m (£119m), widened from €84m during the same period in 2017. While turnover rose 4.4pc to €3.7bn, profit margins were squeezed by a succession of “headwinds”. Bemoaning a “challenging” market, chief executive Fritz Joussen said: “Customers are buying, but they are buying at lower prices. That’s the reason why you see the margin degradation.” Shares, listed in London and Frankfurt, slipped more than 7%.
Questor: this business grew 600-fold in 30 years. Can it pull off the same trick in future? RPS Group (RPS), the environmental consultancy, has an impressive record. Now it is restructuring in an attempt to maintain it
