The chairman and founder of Berkeley Group Holdings (The) (BKG) has banked almost £80 million in the past three months after selling shares in the housebuilder. Tony Pidgley, 72, sold a million shares in the company for £42 million this week, on top of the million shares he sold for £37.2 million in July. The latest sale reduced his stake in the business by a quarter. He now holds a 2.1% stake that was worth more than £120 million at last night’s share price close of £44.54. Mr Pidgley’s share sale comes amid increased scrutiny of executive pay in the housebuilding sector. At Berkeley’s annual meeting last month, 43% of voting investors opposed the directors’ pay policy.
Shares in ASOS (ASC) rose by more than a quarter yesterday after investors bet that the online retailer had turned a corner, despite profits falling by 68% on the back of problems at its international warehouses. Marcus Morris-Eyton, a portfolio manager at Allianz, which is Asos’s fifth largest shareholder, said that it was “probably too early to call a complete turnaround” but that there was now “ample room” for the retailer to grow profit margins after resolving the issues with its warehouses and strengthening the management team. Nick Beighton, the chief executive, admitted that Asos had “taken its eye off the ball” because its internal operations had not kept up with its international growth. Overhauling two overseas warehouses simultaneously had thrown up too many challenges. “We were not adequately prepared for the additional complexities of planning and trading across our expanded warehouse footprint,” Mr Beighton said.
Barratt Developments (BDEV) reported a resilient sales rate for the first 15 weeks of the new financial year, but the value of the homes it sells has dipped. The company said that it had a forward order book of 12,963 homes, slightly up on the 12,903 it had on its books this time last year. The average price agreed for the homes it is due to build has fallen to £236,800 from about £243,900 last October. Lower average selling prices have been driven in part by Barratt’s decision to move out of the central London market. The housebuilder’s weekly average private sales per site for the 15 weeks to October 13 was flat year-on-year at 0.72. It reiterated that it expected sales volumes to grow towards the lower end of its medium-term annual target range of 3% to 5%.
National Express Group (NEX) has signed a €1 billion bus contract in Casablanca that will give it more buses in Morocco than in Britain. Alsa, the transport operator’s Spanish and Moroccan division, said that it would provide about 700 buses and a new payment system and scheduling in the country’s largest city and economic capital. The company started operations in Morocco in 1999 with a contract to manage the urban transport system in Marrakesh. The Alsa contract will last for ten years, with the potential to extend to 15, and nearly doubles National Express’s presence in Morocco. The group will run 400 buses in Casablanca next month, with an additional 300 next year, carrying 100 million passengers annually.
Claims of sexual harassment by a star fund manager at M&G Investments and suggestions that the company tolerates a culture of drink-fuelled abuse against female staff have threatened to overshadow its £8 billion flotation next week. One of the investment group’s top money managers is alleged to have harassed younger women over several years, according to Bloomberg. The allegations surfaced just days before Prudential (PRU) is due to spin off M&G as a separately listed company with almost certain membership of the FTSE 100. M&G manages £334 billion of funds for retail investors and institutions as well as operating Prudential’s UK insurance operations.
The competition watchdog will begin a formal investigation into whether Amazon’s estimated $500 million investment in Deliveroo would hurt the takeaway delivery market. The Competition and Markets Authority, which had served an initial enforcement order on the alliance in July, said that it had decided to launch a phase-one investigation and had set a deadline of December 11 for determining whether to refer it to an in-depth phase-two inquiry. When it served the initial enforcement notice, the regulator said that its intervention was due to concern that the American ecommerce company would use its investment to wield significant influence over the British online takeaway company.
Lloyds Banking Group (LLOY), Royal Bank of Scotland Group (RBS) and Barclays (BARC) all found themselves on the up as Morgan Stanley brightened its outlook on UK banks. Its analysts said the industry “remains challenging” given the intense competition and a tough macroeconomic backdrop, but they reckon most of the negative news is already in the share prices. “Q2 results season already lowered expectations on revenues, and we believe operating trends would improve in a negotiated Brexit scenario,” Alvaro Serrano and his team said in a note to clients. Such an outcome is now more likely, they argue, which bodes well for a sector whose exposure to the UK economy has seen it bear the brunt of Brexit headwinds. According to Morgan Stanley’s economists, there is now a 10% chance of no-deal, compared with their previous estimate of 40%. Lloyds remains the top pick of the number crunchers, who reckon the current valuation is “compelling” and provides “the best risk-reward skew” in the UK domestic sector.
Augean (AUG) told the market that profits this year would be “materially ahead” of estimates as the amount of rubbish it takes to landfills had jumped by 20%, while the prices it can charge to take that rubbish away had also picked up.
Hipgnosis Songs Fund (SONG) has bought a music catalogue from Timbaland, the Grammy award-winning hip-hop songwriter and producer. Timbaland — real name Timothy Mosley — has produced albums for Justin Timberlake, Missy Elliott and Nelly Furtado, which sold tens of millions of copies. In return for an upfront fee, Hipgnosis will receive Timbaland’s cut of the royalties from 108 albums and songs he has been involved in. “Ask any of today’s greatest creators who their biggest influences are and the one name on everybody’s list is Timbaland,” Merck Mercuriadis, founder of Hipgnosis, said.
Tempus – British American Tobacco (BATS), Imperial Brands (IMB): Buy. They could easily absorb the demise of vaping for decades to come and the shares are extremely cheap
