Aston Martin Holdings (AML) shares tumbled to a record low after it posted a £68m loss in its maiden annual results with profits wiped out by the “eye-watering” costs of its stock market flotation. The luxury car maker fell almost a fifth to £11 on Thursday as investors abandoned the company whose cars are driven by spy James Bond following a warning that underlying profits will fall this year. Aston floated in October at £19 but the shares soon fell to about £12, suggesting the market thought the car maker was overvalued. Cost related to the flotation drove Aston into the red, with the £136m of one-off charges from going public more than wiping out what would otherwise have been a £68m pretax profit for 2018.
The owner of British Airways has revealed plans to replace the airline’s ageing fleet of Jumbos with Boeing 777 planes as it posted better than expected annual profits on Thursday. International Consolidated Airlines Group SA (CDI) (IAG) said pre-tax profits surged 40% to €3.5bn (£3bn) on revenues 6.6% higher at €24.4bn. The figures beat analysts’ estimates but it warned that profits this year would be flat, as long as fuel prices stayed steady. Chief executive Willie Walsh said the bottom line would have been higher had fuel costs, European air traffic control disruptions and currency headwinds not held them back.
Profits at soared by almost a half to their highest level on record as it bounced back from a faulty homes scandal that had left its reputation in tatters. The housebuilder revealed it had regained a four-star rating in the respected Home Builders Federation satisfaction survey, up from two stars just one year ago, and has been averaging the maximum of five stars in the first few months of this year. Having been dented by the cost of repairing faulty homes last year, profits rose from £114m to £168m on revenues of £1.1bn.
Estate agent Foxtons Group (FOXT) warned it was battling a “prolonged” downturn in the London housing market as it unveiled its first ever loss as a listed company. The number of homes sold in the capital have fallen off a cliff in the past two years because of an increase in stamp duty and uncertainty over Brexit, leaving Foxtons nursing a 15% slump in 2018 sales revenue to £36m. Its lettings business held up more robustly, generating a 1% rise in revenues to £67m. But that was not enough to stave off a pre-tax loss of £17.2m, compared with profits of £6.5m the year before and a high of £42m in 2014.
Rolls-Royce Holdings (RR.) has pulled out of a competition to build engines for Boeing’s new mid-size airliner after racking up huge costs from problems with its Trent 1000 turbines. Chief executive Warren East used the FTSE 100 engineer’s annual results to say he had taken the “brave decision” to not develop a new engine for Boeing’s “middle of the market aircraft” (MMA), the only significant new airliner programme at the moment. Rolls is facing a total of £1.5bn of costs spread over five years for dealing with reliability problems with its Trent 1000 engines used on Boeing 787 aircraft.
M&S banking on Ocado Group (OCDO) tie-up to deliver. ‘I think customers will be looking forward to getting their Percy Pigs at home,” said Ocado boss Tim Steiner just hours after announcing the online grocer’s joint venture with Marks & Spencer Group (MKS). The lack of an online food business has been a major bugbear for M&S and its customers, particularly as rival store launched slicker websites and more people have been turning to takeaway options, such as Deliveroo, for their last-minute meals at home. Steve Rowe, M&S chief executive, dusted off comments he had made back in 2008 as proof of his conviction that M&S food would one day be available online: “‘I just don’t know how and I don’t know when’ I said.”
BBC and ITV (ITV) team up to take on Netflix with BritBox service. When I got here BritBox was not alive at all,” says Dame Carolyn McCall. “It had gone away. One of the first phone calls I made was to the BBC to see what we could do.” More than a year into her reign as chief executive of ITV, McCall says she has revived a subscription streaming project that had withered. Neither she nor BBC director general Tony Hall, her partner in the joint venture, have yet signed on the dotted line, but they are apparently close enough to an agreement to declare their plans to the world. BritBox, says McCall, is not competition for Netflix, with its giant $12bn (£9bn) programming budget and global reach.
Sweetened Interserve rescue deal fails to quell shareholder fury. Interserve (IRV) attempt to sweeten the terms of a planned emergency rescue deal with lenders has failed to win over its largest shareholder, which is now considering legal action. The Government contractor’s current investors will now hold on to 5% of Interserve’s shares if the planned £400m debt-for-equity deal goes ahead, twice what they were offered under a preliminary deal unveiled earlier this month. Lenders have also offered to take a 10% haircut on what they are owed and to put up £110m of new liquidity until 2022.
Rio Tinto faces delays at giant new copper mine. Rio Tinto (RIO) has insisted the future is rosy despite warning of further delays at its huge new copper mine in Mongolia. The FTSE 100 giant admitted that first underground production from the Oyu Tolgoi project may be pushed back once again after encountering problems sinking a new shaft that may require “potentially significant changes” to its design. It had warned last year that underground production from the mine would be delayed until late 2021. Jean-Sébastien ‘J-S’ Jacques, chief executive, said there would be “some impact in terms of cost, schedule and ramp up. Some of them could be positive, some of them could be negative.”
Wealth manager St James’s Place eyes a slice of baby boomer cash. St James’s Place (STJ) hopes to cash in on £1 trillion-worth of inheritances that are set to be passed on from the baby boomer generation to their children. Chief executive Andrew Croft said the number of qualified financial advisers in the UK was “insufficient” and warned there was an advice gap at a time when around £1 trillion is about to be inherited by the next generation. Chief operating officer Ian Gascoigne said that the figure was calculated after care homes and inheritance tax had been paid for.
‘Turmoil’ in sector knocks Unilever. Dove and Marmite maker Unilever (ULVR) tumbled for a fourth straight day after German rival Beiersdorf became the latest consumer goods giant to suffer in the sector’s slump. Beiersdorf boss, Stefan De Loecker, admitted that the industry “is in turmoil”, telling analysts he needed to “act now” as the Nivea maker outlined higher investment to revive sales growth. Mr De Loecker said that the sector’s stalwarts were being hit by “small disruptive brands” and the “personalisation of products”. RBC Capital Markets told clients that London-listed Unilever and Reckitt Benckiser could be next to spook investors from the sector.
Metro Bank shares hit record low on investigation and £350m fundraising. Shares in Metro Bank (MTRO) sunk to a record low on Wednesday after revealing plans to raise £350m from investors and an investigation by regulators. The bank said after the London market closed on Tuesday that it had to raise money after it emerged that hundreds of millions of pounds of risky loans had been miscalculated last month. Metro later admitted it was the Bank of England that found the £900m error, having previously insisted the issue was flagged in an internal review.
Ineos to spend £1bn in UK as billionaire owners save £4bn in tax. The chemicals giant owned by Britain’s wealthiest man has promised to invest £1bn in the UK while its owners plan to save an estimated £4bn in tax by leaving the country. Ineos founder Jim Ratcliffe set out plans to spend £500m to modernise a major North Sea pipeline system, another £350m to upgrade its Grangemouth refinery, and £150m to build a new chemicals plant in Hull. The billionaire industrialist said the investment “underlines its confidence” in the UK, just months after the Telegraph revealed that he would leave the UK to live in Monaco.
Ted Baker warns on profits after unexpected hits from unsold stock. Ted Baker (TED) warned that annual profits would be £10m below analysts expectations following a series of charges. The fashion retailer now expects pre-tax profits to be about £63m for the year to January 31, compared with analysts’ forecasts of £74m. It blamed the miss on currency movements in the final week of its financial year that cost £2.5m, a systems upgrade costing another £2.5m and unexpected writedowns worth £5m on the value of unsold stock. Lindsay Page, acting chief executive, said: “We had the opportunity to validate all our stock as we have moved everything from old warehouses to new warehouses. That has given us the view that perhaps we need a few more provisions in some areas.”
