Intu pockets £186m from Derby shopping centre sale. Intu Properties (INTU) has sold off a 50% stake in its Derby shopping centre to a Kuwaiti investment firm for £186m in a bid to get to grips with its debt-laden balance sheet. Cale Street Investments, which is backed by Kuwait’s sovereign wealth fund, has agreed a joint venture with Intu for the 1.2m sq ft centre. While the price tag tallies with the property’s book value, the deal is structured in such a way that Cale Street will be entitled to a guaranteed proportion of dividends paid out up to a certain level. Matthew Roberts, who was named as Intu’s new chief executive earlier this month, said the deal would knock about 1pc off the company’s loan-to-asset value ratio.
Price rises boost Unilever (ULVR) as boss hints at headquarters rethink. Unilever’s new chief executive has kept the door open for re-examining the location of its headquarters, saying he was not “wedded to one geography”. Last year the Marmite and Dove maker was forced into a humiliating retreat on its plans to move its legal base from London to Rotterdam after a massive rebellion from UK shareholders. Alan Jope, who took over from Paul Polman last year, said the City “shouldn’t infer any commitment to be legally domiciled in one place or another”. He had spent his first 100 days in “listening mode … gathering views, suggestions and grievances” and insisted his top priority remained was “accelerating growth in the business”.
Customers switching energy accounts boost Moneysupermarket. Moneysupermarket.com Group (MONY) has enjoyed a boost in revenue after consumers flurried to switch energy suppliers in the wake of recent price cap increases. Britain’s biggest price comparison website said that the increase to the energy price cap announced in February led to a surge of consumers switching suppliers before prices increased. It helped sales in its home services division to shoot up 70% to £19.6m in the three months to March 31. Total revenue rose 19pc to £104.9m. Chief executive Mark Lewis, the former retail boss of John Lewis, said that the FTSE 250 company had helped “a record number of customers beat the rising energy price cap”.
Drax investors rebel over political spending splurge. Drax Group (DRX) shareholders have rebelled against the energy giant’s splurge on political lobbying last year after it sharply increased spending on networking with politicians. At the company’s annual meeting in London on Wednesday, more than four in ten shareholders voted against the proposal to increase “political spending” by £100,000 to £300,000 a year. Meanwhile almost a fifth of shareholders rebelled against Drax’s executive pay policy, which handed chief executive Will Gardiner £1.9m for last year. His first pay packet as boss was more than 50% higher than that given to his predecessor Dorothy Thompson, who stepped down last year after a decade with the company.
Asos founder Nick Robertson raises £15m selling more shares. ASOS (ASC) founder Nick Robertson has banked just over £15m from selling more shares in the online clothing retailer. Mr Robertson, who remains a non-executive director after stepping back from running the business in 2015, sold 410,000 shares at £37.23 each. The share sale comes after Asos stock recoverd by 16% since the start of the month, although the shares remain far from their peak of more than £75 last June. Mr Robertson still owns 4.6m shares, equivalent to a 5.5% stake in Asos worth £178m.
ITV ahead as it readies BritBox service. Signs that Netflix’s streaming empire is under siege from the emergence of new entrants boosted ITV (ITV) to a three-month high. The US media giant warned that its subscriber growth would be put under pressure by price rises to fund its own content as media giants, such as Disney, launch rival platforms. Liberum analyst Ian Whittaker warned that the threat to traditional broadcasters from the likes of Netflix may have been “overdone” and questioned “how many subscription services a consumer will take”. ITV has paired up with the BBC to launch its own online video service called BritBox, with their UK platform launching later this year in a bid to fend off the existential threat of the streaming giants.
‘Solid, boring’ Bunzl gives investors a jolt as growth slows. Bunzl (BNZL) blamed macroeconomic and market conditions for a slowdown in growth in the first quarter of this year as the historically “solid, boring” performer promised to deliver further expansion through acquisitions. Revenues at the FTSE 100 distribution and services giant rose 4% compared to the same period last year, when it delivered growth of 7%. Shares in the company, which distributes packaging, cleaning and office supplies to businesses, were down 10% on Wednesday afternoon, making it the FTSE 100’s biggest faller. “At its core, Bunzl remains a very solid compounder,” said Rory McKenzie, analyst at UBS. “I don’t think today changes that.
