Morning Financial Press Review 04/12/19
Below are the key morning press headlines, featuring the The Times, The Telegraph, The Daily Mail & more - see the full Press section here.
has rebuffed a £1.5 billion takeover proposal from a larger Canadian rival.Centamin, which owns the Sukari mine in Egypt, said that the possible all-share offer from Endeavour Mining Corporation did not reflect the contribution it would make to the merged company and that it was “better positioned to deliver shareholder returns than the combined entity”. Endeavour, which is backed by one of Egypt’s richest men, said that it had gone public with the proposal to try to encourage engagement with Centamin after private approaches seeking talks had been rejected.
has blamed the delay in releasing blockbusters including Wonder Woman 1984 for a slowdown in takings. The news prompted big swings in the company’s stock — the most-shorted in the FTSE 250 index, with 18% of Cineworld’s share capital out on loan. Yesterday’s statement that full-year trading would be only “slightly below management’s expectations” initially sent its shares up 13¾p to 219¾p. Yet the shares closed down 8p at 198p. They have fallen by 24% over the past 12 months amid scepticism over the company’s investment in the American market.
has landed back in the FTSE 100, following a quarterly reshuffle of the leading City share index. The budget airline has regained its membership of the club six months after its relegation. The carrier had been expected to return to the benchmark index despite a turbulent year in which it struggled with rising fuel prices and economic uncertainty around Brexit. But the airline’s share price was boosted in recent months by rising passenger numbers, the addition of more aircraft and tougher action on costs. EasyJet’s closing price on Tuesday was £13.07, up 18% on the year, which was enough to confirm its return to the UK’s biggest stockmarket index. The carrier has also benefited from problems at its competitors, from the collapse of Thomas Cook Airlines to strikes at Ryanair and British Airways. EasyJet has been promoted at the expense of insurer , which was demoted to the FTSE 250 after its share price fell by 17% this year. The Bermuda-based specialist insurer has been hit by an increase in claims for damage from large storms and typhoons in the US, the Caribbean and Japan. Its share price slid after the release of a trading update last month, when the firm announced it was setting aside extra money to cover claims from extreme weather events.
A British songwriter who crafted hits with Adele and Stormzy has sold part of his back catalogue to a music investment firm. said it had snapped up worldwide income rights held by Fraser T Smith to 298 songs, including several UK and US number one hits. Smith was entitled to royalties from 2011’s Set Fire To The Rain by Adele, as well as Sam Smith’s 2014 album In The Lonely Hour. Hipgnosis did not disclose how much it had paid for the income rights. The company has raised more than £625million from the markets since it listed in London in July last year.
The £4.7billlion takeover of by a private equity-led consortium was rubber stamped by London’s High Court after a group of rebel shareholders dropped their opposition the deal. In a bid to extract more cash from the buyers, hedge funds Oaktree Capital, Kite Lake and Rubric Capital had been due to urge a judge to withhold final approval of the deal today. But the group of shareholders said they had dropped their opposition after the buyers – a private equity consortium, involving Apax Partners, Warburg Pincus and Canadian pension funds – confirmed they would not increase or extend their offer. It comes after the buyout won approval from regulators and a majority of shareholders.
Lens maker rose 17.5p, to 1270p, despite the US-China trade war sending profits down 20% to £15million. Annual revenue at the Somerset engineer, which makes parts for medical devices, aerospace and surveillance, rose 3.4% to £129million. It said in June that profits would be hit by a drop in Chinese demand for products used in industrial lasers to make silicon chips. This cancelled out record demand for fibre optics products, used in undersea cables.
Retailers enjoyed a reprieve from the high street gloom after Black Friday delivered record sales for a string of companies including John Lewis and Boohoo. The number of visitors to shopping destinations across the UK rose by 3.1% in the four days of sales from Black Friday to Cyber Monday, according to retail data company Springboard. It was the first time that footfall – a measure of shop visits – for Black Friday has increased since 2016. The bargain extravaganza helped John Lewis rack up a record week of sales as shoppers flocked to its stores to take advantage of its “Never Knowingly Undersold” price pledge where the firm matches discounts offered by any high street rival.
Goldman Sachs is advising clients to stop buying shares, a year after it helped to float the luxury carmaker on the London Stock Exchange. Goldman was one of a group of advisers that shared £12.9 million fees for their work during the initial public offering last October. Aston has endured a miserable year as a listed company, during which its shares have lost almost three-quarters of their value. The stock fell 22½p to 505p, as Goldman cut its recommendation to “neutral” from “buy”. It also cut its price target to 520p from 620p. Aston Martin is based in Warwickshire and is the London Stock Exchange’s only quoted carmaker.
The value of foreign investment into the UK outstripped British investment abroad for only the second time on record last year, as the Americans piled in to the country and the Europeans withdrew. Figures on the UK’s net investment position revealed a £112 billion deficit, the largest recorded in history, the Office for National Statistics said. The data suggests that the UK remains an attractive destination for foreign companies and that the weak pound has made foreign investment increasingly expensive for domestic firms.
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