CMA finds against Fox takeover of Sky, N Brown revenue gets the plus-size treatment
London open
The FTSE 100 is expected to open 31 points higher on Tuesday, having closed down 0.2% at 7,715.44 on Monday.
Stocks to watch
The competition regulator dealt a blow to 21st Century Fox and its planned takeover of Sky on Tuesday, as the Competition and Markets Authority said it has provisionally found that Fox taking full control of Sky “is not in the public interest” due to media plurality concerns. Its investigation did provisionally conclude, however, that overall Fox had a “genuine commitment” to broadcasting standards in the UK. “The media plurality concerns identified mean that, overall, the CMA provisionally concludes that the proposed transaction is not in the public interest,” the authority said in its statement.
N Brown, the clothes retailer for plus-size and plus-age shoppers, increased revenue 3.2% in the third quarter of its financial year, with growth across the business. Product revenue was up 2.7%, with sales from its 'power brands' Simply Be, JD Williams and Jacamo up 7.3%, while online revenue rose 9% and sales from the new market of the US surging 22%.
Easyjet reported a 14.4% increase in revenue for the first quarter of its financial year and said it had cut costs by 1.6%. The £1.14bn of sales in the quarter ended 31 December came from an 8% increase in passengers to 18.8m as capacity grew 5.5% to 20.4m seats and load factor by 2.1 percentage points to 92.1%.
Computacenter said it plans to return up to £100m to shareholders through a tender offer. The offer, which is up to 6.97% of the company, will be based on the middle market closing price on 22 January. Shareholders can tender their shares for sale within a range of 1170p-1260p, or a premium of 7.69%.
Newspaper round-up
Big bookmakers are weighing up the possibility of legal action against the government after suggestions that ministers have decided to cut the maximum stakes on betting machines from £100 to £2. The reports spooked investors, who had been forecasting a cut in the maximum stake to £20. - The Times
The head of the UK’s National Cyber Security Centre has warned that a major cyber-attack on the UK is a matter of “when, not if”, raising the prospect of devastating disruption to British elections and critical infrastructure. Ciaran Martin said the UK had been fortunate to avoid a so-called category one (C1) attack, broadly defined as an attack that might cripple infrastructure such as energy supplies and the financial services sector. - Guardian
Britain is one of only three housing markets in the developed world in which house prices are not likely to rise this year, one of the world’s biggest credit ratings agencies has claimed. Fitch Ratings, which produces an annual outlook on the housing market for 22 countries, said that average house prices in the UK would be flat in 2018 because of stretched affordability, low income growth and financial services jobs being relocated to the rest of Europe. - The Times
The nation is running out of brickies, chippies and sparkies just as it embarks on the biggest house building push in a generation and the construction of HS2, the Hinkley Point nuclear power and expansion at Heathrow. According to the Federation of Master Builders, the skills shortage - the failure to find the number of people qualified and needed to work in the industry - is at a record high. - The Times
The government has been accused of leaving businesses “in the dark” after it admitted that a long-expected paper on the future of financial services after Brexit may never be published. Senior figures in the City said that they had been promised a detailed position paper last autumn that would set out Britain’s priorities for the financial services sector, which accounts for more than 1.1 million jobs nationwide. - The Times
US close
Wall Street's main market gauges began the week trading on a positive note, after Congress struck a deal to end the federal government shutdown which had been in place since Friday.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average ended the day up 0.55% at 26,214.60, the S&P 500 was ahead 0.81% at 2,832.97 and the Nasdaq 100 added 1.05% to 6,906.28.
It was the US government shutdown at the top of the agenda for much of the day, as a Sunday session of the Senate failed to yield any kind of agreement between the Democrats and Republicans, after lawmakers failed to agree on a spending bill by the deadline last Friday.
In a vote during the day, Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer said his party was supporting a bill to end the shutdown on the proviso Republicans would address a programme which protects young migrants from deportation.
Analysts at Bank of America-Merrill Lynch earlier warned a week-long shutdown held the potential to slice between one and three tenths of a percentage point from the first quarter's annualised rate of growth in gross domestic product.