Aviva’s international boss Maurice Tulloch becomes CEO. Aviva (AV.) has selected the head of its international business as its new chief executive following a search that has taken almost five months. The choice of Maurice Tulloch, 49, is likely to surprise the market as he was picked over the internal favourite, Andy Briggs, who runs its UK business, the largest division. Having been turned down for the role, Mr Briggs may now decide to leave the company. Aviva’s board, led by Sir Adrian Montague, have been searching for a new chief executive after ousting Mark Wilson, 52, in October over frustrations that his plan for the insurer had ground to a halt and after several contentious issues led to clashes with shareholders.
Shares in Synthomer (SYNT) fell almost 9% this morning after investors were spooked by its report of softening markets in Europe and North America at the end of last year. Synthomer’s overall results for 2018 were broadly in line with expectations and the board said that its outlook for the year ahead remained unchanged. However, it cited currency transactional headwinds and blamed a fall in raw material prices that affected customer buying behaviour for a softer trading environment in the final quarter of the year.
Rightmove (RMV), the online property portal, climbed 26½p to 498½p after JP Morgan Cazenove and Barclays both outlined the positives for the business following its results last week.
Victrex plc (VCT), the specialist plastics maker, lost 98p to £22.94 after Citigroup cut its rating to “sell” from “neutral”, citing rising competition.
Ted Baker (TED) advanced 79p to £19.71 after the high street fashion chain said that its chief executive, Ray Kelvin, had resigned with immediate effect.
Abcam (ABC) fell 140p, or 10.4%, to £12.01, after it revealed a cautious short-term outlook. The antibody maker reported revenue and profit growth and a higher interim dividend. However, it said that in the “short term” it expected constant-currency revenue growth for the full year to be “broadly in line” with the first six months. It said that this was owing to “continued softness” in Japan and anticipated phasing of revenue for its custom products and licensing business.
Daily Mail and General Trust A (Non.V) (DMGT) added 33½p to 680½p after the publisher of the Daily Mail announced plans to return all its shares in Euromoney Institutional Investor (ERM) and £200 million in cash to eligible shareholders.
Keep to terms of £120m cash award, Metro Bank is warned. Metro Bank (MTRO) may have breached the terms of a competition for millions of pounds of extra cash to expand business banking by using it for previously stated business plans. The high street lender won a grant worth £120 million to improve services for small business, part of £280 million of awards allocated for the purpose last month. It said that the money would help it to open 30 branches in the North, among other improvements. The grants are being funded by Royal Bank of Scotland as its final penalty for its £45.5 billion state bailout during the financial crisis. Other winners were the digital banking specialists Starling, which was awarded £100 million, and Clearbank, working with Tide, which was handed £60 million.
Rothermeres sweeten DMGT’s Euromoney deal. Daily Mail and General Trust A (Non.V) (DMGT) is offloading its 49% stake in Euromoney Institutional Investor (ERM), the financial publisher, via a shareholder distribution that will leave the controlling Rothermere family with an even greater economic interest in the media group. The deal is believed to have been taken after the trust failed to find a buyer. Last year, it raised £642 million by selling its interest in Zoopla, the property website, and in 2016 it made £317 million by selling 18% of Euromoney. The trust is one of Britain’s oldest and biggest news groups, publishing the Daily Mail and The Mail on Sunday newspapers and the Mail Online website. It has been controlled by the Rothermere family since 1922.
Drax fails emissions test at US pellets plant. The owner of Britain’s biggest power station has admitted breaching environmental rules in the United States after one its wood pellet plants significantly exceeded air pollution limits. Drax Group (DRX) has converted two thirds of its eponymous North Yorkshire power plant to burn “biomass” wood pellets instead of coal, in order to qualify for British renewable energy subsidies. It imports about seven million tonnes of pellets each year, including from three plants it owns in America. Drax has admitted that its Morehouse Bioenergy plant in Louisiana, which was opened in 2015 and produces about 500,000 tonnes of pellets each year, produces particulate emissions about four times higher than permitted. Will Gardiner, chief executive, said: “The emissions are higher than the permit would allow. We are working on how to solve that problem.”
Direct Line boss Paul Geddes tapped for top job at John Lewis. Paul Geddes battles retailer Kate Swann for chairmanship. The departing boss of insurer Direct Line Insurance Group (DLG) and the outgoing chief executive of travel retailer SSP Group (SSPG) are in the running to succeed Sir Charlie Mayfield as chairman of the John Lewis Partnership.Paul Geddes and Kate Swann are among external candidates for one of retail’s most high-profile roles, The Sunday Times can reveal. The internal favourite is finance chief Patrick Lewis, whose great-grandfather founded the company in 1864 — though sources close to the process expect an outsider to be appointed for the first time in John Lewis’s history, given the scale of its challenges. The news comes as John Lewis and Waitrose’s 83,000 staff brace for a cut to their annual bonus when its results are announced this week. The retail analyst Nick Bubb said that even if profits were to fall by 40%, the partnership could still afford to pay a bonus of 3%, worth £500 a head. He added, however, that “clearly they have softened the partners up for nothing, given Brexit uncertainty”.
Glencore bought jet from Kazakh dictator’s sidekick Bulat Utemuratov. Glencore (GLEN) acquired a private jet from a powerful Kazakh businessman who is a close ally of the country’s dictator. Ivan Glasenberg’s £42bn FTSE 100 mining and trading empire bought the Gulfstream G550 from Bulat Utemuratov in 2015, The Sunday Times has found. The previously undisclosed deal sheds new light on Glencore’s dealings in the former Soviet state at a time when the company is under growing scrutiny for its international activities. Utemuratov, 61, a former chief-of-staff to President Nursultan Nazarbayev, has been Glencore’s key business partner in Kazakhstan.
Rolls-Royce to offload civil nuclear unit. FTSE 100 engineer abandons industry with £200m sale. Rolls-Royce Holdings (RR.) is selling the vast bulk of its civil nuclear business, dealing a new blow to efforts to rebuild Britain’s atomic power industry. The FTSE 100 engineer has hired consultants from KPMG to find a buyer for the nuclear division, which could fetch up to £200m. The move marks the end of an era for the country’s premier engineering company, which has more than 50 years’ expertise in nuclear power but is being slimmed down by chief executive Warren East to focus on jet engines, power generators and defence. The nuclear business makes instruments and controls to monitor radiation and temperature and prevent reactors overheating. Its equipment is installed in more than 200 reactors around the world, and it has a big presence in France, where it works with the state-backed engineering firm Orano.
Melrose prepares GKN Wheels sale. Melrose Industries (MRO) is trying to sell a division of GKN that makes tractor wheels, the latest attempt to offload assets following its takeover last year of the aerospace and car parts maker. The FTSE 100 private equity firm is understood to value GKN Wheels, a legacy of GKN’s past as a supplier of parts for farming and construction vehicles, at less than £100m. Melrose has made several unsuccessful attempts to sell businesses since winning the bitter takeover battle. It scrapped a sale of GKN’s powder metallurgy division when bids fell well short of its £1.5bn target, and a sale of its Nortek air-conditioning arm has been halted. Melrose has pledged to pump £1bn into GKN’s pension schemes.
Racing cancellations hits bookie Paddy Power Betfair. Profits at are likely to have fallen following a series of horse racing cancellations. The bookie’s pre-tax profits are expected to have dropped 7% to £360m for the year to December after 400 race meetings were cancelled between January and March last year because of bad weather. However, sales are expected to have risen 6% to £1.8bn when it reports on Wednesday.
Ashtead builds on booming America. The plant hire giant was on a roll last year until it was caught up in the autumn market sell-off fuelled by fears the American economy was headed for recession. Ashtead Group (AHT) is highly sensitive to any hint that building projects in the US could dry up — roughly 85% of its sales come from its American business Sunbelt. Yet much of the gloom hanging over the world’s largest economy has now lifted, helped by the Federal Reserve’s decision to slow the pace of interest-rate rises. For Ashtead, which said in a strong set of half-year results in December that it had seen no sign of weakness on the ground, that means little has changed besides a big discount in its share price. Investors will be looking for confirmation in this week’s third-quarter update that the company expects its revenue and profit growth to continue. The broker Bank of America Merrill Lynch has pencilled in a 23% increase in pre-tax profits to £1.1bn this financial year, rising to £1.3bn next year. If Donald Trump’s grand promises to unleash an infrastructure splurge ever get off the ground, things could get much better for Ashtead. Even without that, all the company really needs is for the American economy to avoid a serious downturn in the immediate future. The shares have raced back in the new year and closed at £20.47 on Friday, valuing the business at £9.7bn, but they are still some way short of last year’s peak. Unless you think a US recession is around the corner, they look like a buy.
