Patisserie Valerie saved by Irish private equity firm. Patisserie Holdings (CAKE) has been rescued by Irish private equity firm Causeway Capital Partners. As first revealed by The Telegraph, about 2,000 jobs are to be saved, with 96 of the remaining 121 stores to be bought from administrator KPMG, it was confirmed. Causeway Capital Partners will back the current Patisserie Valerie management team, led by chief executive Steve Francis. The deal to save the stricken bakery chain was struck at 3am this morning. Causeway Capital was founded by a group of entrepreneurs in 2015 and specialises in small and medium-sized investments.
BP (BP.) warns war on plastic will help cut global oil demand. The war on single-use plastics could cut demand for oil faster than previously expected over the next two decades, BP has warned. The oil major predicted a peak in global oil demand for the first time last year, and in its latest outlook report warned that a crackdown on plastic waste, which is made from fossil fuels, could play a role in slowing oil demand. BP expects demand for oil to rise 0.3% a year before plateauing in the 2030s. The “much slower” growth forecast is well below what BP predicted even two years ago. Last year, its central forecast scenario predicted the world’s appetite for crude would grow by 0.5% a year through the next decades before peaking in the late 2030s.
Moneysupermarket bets on pushing remortgaging online. Moneysupermarket.com Group (MONY) is betting on digital mortgages to unlock new growth as it gears up to push the house-buying process online. The FTSE 250 company, which already allows users to compare UK prices for mortgages, wants to bring the full application process to the web. Its new focus comes as the company prepares to replace its chairman Bruce Carnegie-Brown with Robin Freestone, a former finance director of media group Pearson, in May. “We think mortgages will get digitised – we’re really excited to be disrupting this market,” said chief executive Mark Lewis.
AstraZeneca returns to growth with soaring sales of new cancer drugs. AstraZeneca (AZN) has set its sights on another year of growth as the FTSE 100 drugmaker’s strategy to reboot its business with new innovative cancer medicines starts to pay off. Shares jumped as much as 5% after the pharmaceuticals business said it had extended its sales rebound in the final quarter of the year, driven by its beefed-up cancer medicines division and a resurgence in China. In November AstraZeneca posted its first increase in sales for almost a decade after struggling to recover from patents expiring on a large number of drugs, which wiped out more than half its sales.
Restaurant Group urged to appoint Wagamama boss after chief executive quits. Restaurant Group (RTN) is facing calls to quickly find a successor for chief executive Andy McCue, the architect of the company’s controversial takeover of Wagamama, who has stepped down due to “extenuating personal circumstances”. The FTSE 250 company’s shares, having rebounded from multi-year lows in autumn, plummeted more than 10% in the wake of Thursday’s announcement. The former Paddy Power boss angered shareholders by ploughing ahead with the £559m acquisition of the successful noodle chain. Some 40% of investors in the Frankie & Benny’s owner voted against the “transformational” deal that required shareholders to stump up £315m through a painful rights issue.
Utilitywise collapses after last-ditch rescue deal fails. Britain’s largest energy broker has collapsed into administration after an eleventh hour lifeline from the company’s founder failed to save its 1,000 strong workforce. Utilitywise plc (UTW) slumped into administration after rescue talks with potential investors, including its former chairman, fell apart just weeks after it put itself up for sale. It is the largest energy market failure of recent years including the ten energy suppliers which have crashed out of the market in the last year alone. It also adds further gloom to a run of poor bets by one of Britain’s best-known investors, Neil Woodford, who owns a 29% stake in the company through Woodford Investment Management.
EasyJet teams up with Delta on potential bid for Alitalia. easyJet (EZJ) has announced that it is in talks with Italian state-controlled railways Ferrovie and Delta Air Lines to form a consortium in an attempt to rescue Italy’s troubled carrier Alitalia. The companies would form a partnership that would run Alitalia, which has been under special administration since 2017, after workers rejected a rescue plan and prevented it from raising fresh financing from shareholders. Alitalia currently has a €900m (£789m) state loan and is seeking international partners in order to stay afloat. The airline industry has had a turbulent ride of late amid fare pressures and rising fuel costs.
Former BT Group (BT.A) bosses named as suspects in Italian fraud scandal. Three former senior BT executives have been named by Italian prosecutors as suspects in a complex fraud that cost the company hundreds of millions of pounds in a development that brings the scandal inside its headquarters for the first time. Luis Alvarez, the former chief executive of the international outsourcing arm Global Services; Richard Cameron, its chief financial officer; and Corrado Sciolla, who oversaw its operations on the continent, all knew about falsely inflated sales figures at BT Italia, according documents issued by authorities in Milan.
US giant homes in on Savills as target. US real estate services giant JLL talking up its deal making ambitions spurred City chatter that UK competitor Savills (SVS) could be in its crosshairs. Rumours were stoked by JLL boss Christian Ulbrich telling analysts in an earnings call that he has “never seen a market which has so many availabilities with regards to M&A”. He warned that JLL was “analysing the different opportunities”, claiming that there were many companies “currently interested in finding a new home”. Traders speculated that Savills, which has stepped up its international expansion in recent years, could be its target following an 18% share price slide since hitting a record high last year.
Shell plans floating wind project off the Norwegian coast. 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.
Galliford Try still dogged by troubled Carillion bypass. 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.”
