26th Aug 2025 12:04
(Alliance News) - Stock prices in London were mostly lower at midday on Tuesday, while blue-chip distribution firm Bunzl rose as it reported "reassuringly prosaic" half-year earnings.
The FTSE 100 index was down 46.56 points, 0.5%, at 9,274.84. The FTSE 250 was down 190.27 points, 0.9%, at 21,886.96, and the AIM All-Share was down 0.29 points at 764.74.
The Cboe UK 100 was down 0.6% at 929.67, the Cboe UK 250 was down 0.9% at 19,225.54, and the Cboe Small Companies was up 0.2% at 17,302.79.
Bunzl led the FTSE 100, up 4.6%.
The London-based distribution and services firm said it was resuming its share buyback programme after a pause in April, with the intention of completing the remaining GBP86 million of its previously announced GBP200 million plan in the second half of the year.
As for the first half, it reported that pretax profit declined 11% to GBP250.1 million while revenue increased by 0.8% to GBP5.76 billion from GBP5.71 billion, or by 4.2% at constant currency. The interim dividend increased 0.5% to 20.2p per share.
The firm reiterated its 2025 outlook. It expects moderate CER revenue growth, it said, with an operating margin moderately below 8.0%, compared to 8.3% in 2024.
AJ Bell's Russ Mould remarked that Bunzl "is supposed to be boring and reliable", and that Tuesday's results were "reassuringly prosaic...suggesting the ship has been steadied thanks to divisional leadership changes, cost savings and an increased focus on higher margin own-brand products".
On the FTSE 250, Workspace was down 1.1%.
The office space-focused real estate investment trust is moving its London head office in October, following a new five-year lease agreement with Wild Cosmetics, almost doubling the recent Unilever acquisition's footprint with Workspace to 14,000 square feet at GBP42 per square foot. Unilever was down 1.2% on the FTSE 100 on Tuesday.
"We're proud to have played a part in Wild's journey - so much so that we're moving out of our head office at Kennington Park to make way for their expansion," commented Chief Executive Lawrence Hutchings. "This enables us to relocate our headquarters to the Centro Buildings in Camden where our presence will have both a positive impact on occupancy and support the leasing of Atelier House, part of the Centro Building site."
John Wood shares were untraded as of Tuesday, having been suspended since the end of April.
The Aberdeen, Scotland-based oilfield services and engineering consulting firm's potential bidder Sidara has lowered its indicative takeover offer to 30 pence per share from 35p, following the completion of due diligence. It previously rejected a 230p offer from Sidara last year.
Still, John Wood said its board "would be minded to recommend" the reduced offer to shareholders, and gave Sidara an extension of the deadline to announce a firm intention to make an offer to the close of business on Thursday.
Commenting that Sidara "appears to have found more skeletons in the closet", Mould commented: "This had been flagged as a possibility earlier this summer...but it is testament to Wood Group's weak negotiating position and, arguably its inability to continue as an independent entity, that it is recommending this lower bid.
"It marks quite the fall from grace for the company and provides yet another illustration of the harm so-called 'transformational' acquisitions can do. Before it acquired fellow energy services name Amec Foster Wheeler in 2017 it was trading close to 900p...Wood Group has gone from being a real UK PLC success story to a cautionary tale."
On AIM, MedPal AI surged 75% on its first day of trading.
The London-based firm, whose app aggregates health data from smartphones and wearable devices to provide AI-generated wellness advice, raised GBP2.0 million in its IPO for an opening market capitalisation of GBP16.5 million.
MedPal said it intends to pursue business-to-business opportunities by licensing its platform to healthcare providers, businesses, and insurance firms.
In European equities on Tuesday, the DAX 40 in Frankfurt was down 0.4%.
The CAC 40 in Paris was down 1.5%.
This follows France's embattled Prime Minister Francois Bayrou announcing on Monday that his government will request a vote of confidence on September 8, seeking parliamentary backing for his battle against soaring public debt.
The move is high-risk for both Bayrou, whose minority government could be toppled, and President Emmanuel Macron, now on his sixth prime minister since taking office in 2017.
Facing the prospect of mass demonstrations and threats of censure from opponents, Bayrou told a news conference the National Assembly would be asked to "confirm the scale" of spending reductions, as the government seeks to save around 44 billion euros (USD51 billion) with measures including holiday reductions.
"Banks were hit worst [by the "political crisis"], with SocGen, BNP Paribas and Credit Agricole all down," Mould noted.
Societe Generale lost 6.8%, BNP Paribas lost 4.7% and Credit Agricole lost 5.2%.
Also on Tuesday, data from France's National Institute of Statistics & Economic Studies showed that consumer sentiment this month was worse than anticipated.
The consumer confidence synthetic index fell to 87 points in August, its lowest level since October 2023, from a downwardly revised 88 in July. The FXStreet-cited market consensus had expected an improvement to 90 points for August.
The pound was quoted at USD1.3474 at midday on Tuesday in London, lower compared to USD1.3539 at the equities close on Friday. The euro stood at USD1.1639, lower against USD1.1726. Against the yen, the dollar was trading higher at JPY147.62 compared to JPY146.61.
Stocks in New York were called lower. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was called down 0.1%, the S&P 500 index down 0.1%, and the Nasdaq Composite down 3.25 points.
The yield on the US 10-year Treasury was quoted at 4.30%, widening from 4.26%. The yield on the US 30-year Treasury was quoted at 4.93%, widening from 4.87%.
Summarising the "drama in Washington", Mould said: "A jump in US Treasury yields indicates that bond investors aren't happy about how Trump continues to meddle with the Fed and threaten its independence...He's proceeded to sack Fed governor Lisa Cook which will drive speculation that the US president will push for a replacement governor more in line with his way of thinking.
"Cook has refused to resign, and the whole incident has caused financial markets to wobble once again."
Brent oil was quoted lower at USD67.20 a barrel at midday in London on Tuesday from USD67.59 late Friday.
Gold was quoted lower at USD3,367.25 an ounce against USD3,375.22.
Still to come on Tuesday's economic calendar, from the US look out for the house price index and durable goods orders.
Comments from the Bank of England's Catherine Mann are due after the London close.
By Emma Curzon, Alliance News reporter
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