London’s FTSE 100 falls to a seventh-month low of 6,983 on Tuesday, with markets flashing red across Europe and Asia amid geopolitical tensions focused on Saudi Arabia, a falling oil price, Italy’s budget issues and ongoing Brexit concerns among many other issues.
Leisure leviathan Whitbread (WTB) weakens 75p or 1.7% to £43.89 after booking a flat first half profit with sales growth constrained by muted summer demand at its Premier Inn hotel chain. Management are also cautious on the outlook, warning near-term profit growth may be lower than previous years as it invests more in Premier Inn amid a tough consumer environment. Encouragingly, Whitbread also reiterates that it intends to return a ‘significant majority’ of the £3.9bn proceeds of the sale of the Costa coffee chain to Coca-Cola.
Builders’ merchant Travis Perkins (TPK) ticks 3.5% higher to £10.15 on relief third quarter trading proved solid enough to leaves the company on course to deliver against full year expectations. Like-for-like sales rose 4.1% in the quarter to September with the trade-focused business delivering good sales growth. However, CEO John Carter says the UK DIY market remains ‘very challenging’ for Wickes, although pricing pressure has begun to moderate.
Plus500 (PLUS) perks up 40p to £12.88 on the news trading for 2018 is now expected to be ahead of expectations, despite a muted third quarter. The online broker has begun the fourth quarter with positive momentum, benefiting from recent market volatility, prompting Liberum Capital to upgrade its 2018 forecasts. Cash rich Plus500 also announces a buyback of up to $10m.
Elsewhere, global business supplies distributor Bunzl (BNZL) sheds 7p to trade at £21.78, investors perhaps hoping for more than the 4% organic growth served up for the third quarter. Bunzl also announces the acquisition of Brazilian gloves distributor Volk do Brasil, a deal CEO Frank van Zanten insists ‘will complement and strengthen our product offering in the safety sector.’
Content management and language translation software specialist SDL (SDL) skips 16p higher to 476p as investors applaud the launch of SDL MultiTrans 2019, a secure Translation Management System (TMS) targeted at the life sciences, financial services and legal sectors.
Bloomsbury Publishing (BMY) improves 2.5% to 205p as CEO Nigel Newton unveils strong first half results from the Harry Potter publisher. Newton sounds confident about the all-important second half too, new titles to come including Fresh Start by Tom Kerridge, Kingdom of Ash by Sarah J. Maas, the illustrated version of The Tales of Beedle the Bard by J.K Rowling and two new books from Peter Frankopan, The Illustrated Silk Roads and The New Silk Roads.
IntegraFin (IHP), the owner of the Transact IFA technology platform, slides 6.1% lower to 293p despite reporting growth in fourth quarter Funds Under Direction (FUD), as boss Ian Taylor flags an ‘increasingly challenging market environment’.
Software sector minnow Corero Network Security (CNS:AIM) catches a bid, marked up 4.1% to 11.4p after securing customer orders worth $1m for its SmartWall technology.
