– Ashley’s dispute with warehouse operator puts 600 jobs at risk. Only ten days after House of Fraser collapsed into administration, XPO Logistics has begun a redundancy consultation with all 627 employees at warehouses in Wellingborough and Milton Keynes that supply the retailer’s outlets and fulfil online orders.
Sainsbury (J) (SBRY), Asda – Suppliers are braced to feel the squeeze. Supersized store chain will throw its weight around to fulfil pledge to lower shopping bills
Countrywide (CWD) scraps £20m pay deal for chiefs. The embattled estate agency group had outlined proposals this month to award performance shares potentially worth about £20 million to top bosses — plans announced alongside an emergency £140 million fundraising, launched to cut the group’s debts and turn the business around.
KPMG fined £2.1m for misconduct over work for Ted Baker (TED)
NMC Health (NMC) books into British hospitals with £10m acquisition of Aspen Healthcare
SSE (SSE) and Eon work with Carbon Trust and Fistuca to build quieter offshore wind farms
Golden spell for producer of titanium. Kenmare Resources (KMR) has reported a doubling in operating profits to $31.5 million in the first half of the year on the back of higher prices and record sales.
Downbeat broker knocks the stuffing out of Sage Group (SGE). Deutsche Bank downgraded the software technology business from “hold” to “sell and reduced its target price from 630p to 540p.
Housebuilders held back both indices after figures from Rightmove (RMV) showed that asking prices for houses had fallen by an average of 2.3% in the past month. Berkeley Group Holdings (The) (BKG) closed down 41p at £36.96, Persimmon (PSN) dropped 18p to £24.44 and Taylor Wimpey (TW.) dipped 1¼p to 169½p.
Hikma Pharmaceuticals (HIK) rose to the top of the mid-cap index, closing up 85p at £19.03, after Citigroup reaffirmed its “buy” rating and raised its target price from £16.75 to £21.
TBC Bank Group (TBCG) rose 42p to £16.44 after it reported a 25% rise in underlying pre-tax profit.
Keywords Studios (KWS) rose 42p to £18.12 after it announced the £26 million acquisition of Gobo, a British-based company that provides game development services.
Kromek Group (KMK) rose after the announcement that it had secured two contracts worth a total of $1 million, one with a medical devices manufacturer and one with a bone mineral density test company.
Redt Energy (RED) – Anglian Water, which supplies water to about six million households in the east of England and in Hartlepool, has placed an initial order for Red T batteries that can store 300 kilowatt-hours of energy. The batteries will be installed alongside solar panels to help the company to use spare solar power later in the day, reducing the amount of electricity that it has to buy from the grid to run its water treatment plants.
