24th Aug 2020 11:26
(Alliance News) - The following is a summary of top news stories Monday.
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COMPANIES
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Bunzl lifted its interim payout - and reinstated a previously skipped dividend - as it posted a surge in profit but forecast challenging trading conditions in the second half of 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic. For the half year ended June 30, Bunzl posted pretax profit of GBP245.4 million, up 22% from GBP200.5 million. This was as revenue surged 7.0% year-on-year to GBP4.85 billion from GBP4.53 billion. The London-based company said its performance was driven by a strong demand for Covid-19 related personal protective equipment, including masks, sanitisers, gloves, disinfectants, coveralls, disposables wipes, face shields and eye protection. An interim dividend of 15.8p was declared, up 1.9% from 15.5p paid out last year. Also, as a result of the better-than-expected trading performance during the first half of the year, Bunzl said it has decided to reinstate and pay the final dividend for 2019 at the same level as originally proposed of 35.8p.
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Telecommunications firm BT Group is preparing to defend itself against takeover approaches, according to Sky News. BT has asked bankers at Goldman Sachs to update its bid defence strategy in recent weeks. However, Sky said the former UK state monopoly has not yet received a formal approach from any potential suitor.
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Pearson said it has hired Andy Bird as chief executive. Bird, a current non-executive director at the education publishing firm, was most recently at Walt Disney, responsible for its non-US businesses as Walt Disney International chair. He joined Disney in 2004 and led an expansion of the international unit into a digital-focused business. Before joining Disney, Bird held senior positions at AOL Time Warner. His new role as CEO is set to begin October 19. Until then, current boss John Fallon will continue on as chief. Fallon will remain as an advisor until the end of 2020.
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Rio Tinto stripped Chief Executive Jean-Sebastien Jacques of USD3.5 million after the company destroyed a 46,000-year-old Aboriginal heritage site to expand an iron ore mine in Australia. The Anglo-Australian firm blasted rock shelters in the Juukan Gorge in Western Australia's remote Pilbara region on May 24, destroying one of the earliest known sites occupied by Australia's indigenous people. The board-led review found Rio Tinto had obtained legal authority to blast the sites but doing so "fell short of the standards and internal guidance that Rio Tinto sets for itself". It found "no single root cause or error" directly led to the destruction, rather it was "the result of a series of decisions, actions and omissions over an extended period of time". Rio Tinto Chair Simon Thompson said there had been "numerous missed opportunities over almost a decade" and the company had failed to respect local communities and their heritage.
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JD Wetherspoon said it expects to make a loss in its most recent financial year, both before and after exceptional items relating to the Covid-19 pandemic and its associated lockdown. The company also fought back against what it called "irresponsible and untrue" media reports and comments by UK members of Parliament about the pub chain's operations in the aftermath of the Covid-19 lockdown. Wetherspoon hit out at a "large number of harmful media misrepresentations" in the national press and on social media. It said claims that it was "allowing overcrowding" at its pubs were "irresponsible and untrue". Chair Tim Martin said that Wetherspoon predicts it will record a loss for its financial year ended July, before and after exceptional items, and that "some of these exceptional items will be related to the Covid pandemic".
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MARKETS
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London shares were higher on hopes for an alternative treatment for Covid-19, alongside the fast-tracking of AstraZeneca's vaccine in the US. BT was the best performer in the FTSE 100, up 5.2%. US stock market futures were pointed to a higher open.
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FTSE 100: up 1.8% at 6,108.05
FTSE 250: up 0.8% at 17,710.14
AIM ALL-SHARE: up 0.5% at 961.95
GBP: up at USD1.3123 (USD1.3090)
EUR: up at USD1.1836 (USD1.1785)
GOLD: firm at USD1,947.54 per ounce (USD1,941.70)
OIL (Brent): down at USD44.69 a barrel (USD43.84)
(changes since previous London equities close)
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ECONOMICS AND GENERAL
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US authorities announced an emergency authorization for doctors to use blood plasma from recovered Covid-19 patients as a treatment against the disease that has killed over 176,000 in the US. The move by the US Food & Drug Administration comes as President Donald Trump faces intense pressure to curb the contagion that has hobbled the world's largest economy and hurt his prospects for re-election in November. The plasma is believed to contain powerful antibodies that can help fight off the disease faster and help protect people from being seriously hurt by it. "This product may be effective in treating Covid-19 and...the known and potential benefits of the product outweigh the known and potential risks of the product," FDA said in a statement. While the treatment has already been used on patients in the US and other nations, the extent of its effectiveness is still debated by experts and some have warned that it could carry side effects.
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Trump is considering bypassing normal US regulatory standards to fast-track an experimental coronavirus vaccine from the UK, the Financial Times reported. The Trump administration is considering options which include allowing the US Food & Drug Administration to award an emergency use authorisation in October to a vaccine being developed by pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca and Oxford university, should results from a study being carried out prove successful. The Oxford vaccine is among a handful globally to have reached the Phase 3 stage.
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Republicans are ready to formally nominate Trump for re-election at a scaled-down convention kick-off in Charlotte that begins a week-long effort to convince the American people that the president deserves a second term. Despite the ongoing pandemic, delegates will hold an in-person roll-call vote in a ballroom at the Charlotte Convention Centre in North Carolina before attention turns to prime-time programming. It is a sharp contrast to the approach of Democrats, who created a roll call via video montage from states across the country to avoid a large-scale gathering last week at their well-received virtual convention.
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Trump has again said he is willing to largely end trade with China, known as decoupling. "If they don't treat us right, I would certainly do, I would certainly do that," Trump said when asked about decoupling during an interview with Fox News that aired on Sunday. "We get nothing from China," Trump added. The president has been increasingly bellicose with China, saying that he no longer values the US interim trade deal with Beijing, and referring to the novel coronavirus as the "China Virus." The president in June previously said he would consider ending the US's economic relationship with China. Relations between Washington and Beijing have been tense since Trump took office, initially largely over trade and intellectual property disputes, and spiralling downwards as the coronavirus pandemic worsened.
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