Below are the key morning press headlines, featuring the The Times, The Telegraph, The Daily Mail & more - see the full Press section here.
Online shareholder chat forums are a “disgrace” and should be shut down, the boss of Sirius Minerals (SXX) has claimed. Chris Fraser said that the Financial Conduct Authority should investigate the bulletin boards where retail shareholders in Sirius and other companies discuss their investments. Sirius has some 85,000 retail shareholders, some of whom have said that they have invested life savings in the mine developer. “No investment adviser with a licence would tell you to do that,” Mr Fraser, Sirius’s chief executive, said, suggesting that some had been poorly advised after turning to the online forums. “They have these people sitting in their basements in their sweatpants, giving them investment advice — unregulated, unlicensed — and people follow them.” Sirius Minerals still sees a light at end of the tunnel. Despite running low on cash the miner continues to work underground on its ambitious project.
Hong Kong raider targeting the London Stock Exchange Group (LSE) may be forced to rack up massive debts as it scrambles to sweeten its £32bn bid in the face of sceptical investors. Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing has only won the backing of one shareholder among the top 10 since making its audacious offer for the London market (LSE) last month, sources said. City rules state that it must make a firm offer on Wednesday or abandon plans for a tie-up – but it is widely thought the current proposal of £83 per share will not be enough to win over investors.
London will bear the brunt of 10,000 job cuts at HSBC Holdings (HSBA) as the firm battles to slash costs in the face of a slowdown gripping Europe, analysts have warned. Analysts said the axe could “fall the heaviest” in the UK, where the lender employs 40,000 people. Deutsche Bank is cutting 18,000 roles worldwide, while its German rival Commerzbank is slashing 4,300 and 1,600 positions are being scrapped at French lender Société Générale. It is the latest in a wave of cutbacks across the continent as banks grapple with years of ultra-low interest rates which cripple their ability to turn a healthy profit.
Ramsdens Holdings (RFX) has taken advantage of the recent surge in precious metal prices and scrapped some of the gold jewellery that it had been struggling to sell. The company said that the decision would provide a one-off boost of about £600,000 to its first-half profit. Gold is seen as having “safe haven” status for its ability to retain its value even when the economic outlook is gloomy. It has been in high demand recently because of trade wars, slowdowns in leading economies and continued Brexit uncertainty.
A turnaround expert with a background in the industrial sector has been appointed chief executive of De La Rue (DLAR) . The struggling banknote printer said yesterday that Clive Vacher would oversee a recovery effort intended to end more than year of turmoil at the company. Mr Vacher was previously at Dynex Power, a maker of industrial equipment, and has held senior positions at Pratt & Whitney and Rolls-Royce, the engine makers, in the past. He replaces Martin Sutherland, 50, whose planned departure from De La Rue was announced alongside a profit warning in May.
The crisis in the construction industry was laid bare by SIG (SHI) yesterday, with the roofing and insulation group warning of rapidly deteriorating activity in the sector. That sent its shares plunging towards eight-year lows in early trading. Yesterday SIG said: “The group has been reporting during the year a deterioration in the level of construction activity in key markets and highlighting a number of key indicators pointing to further weakening of the macro-economic backdrop, notably in the UK and in Germany. This deterioration in trading conditions has accelerated over recent weeks and political and macroeconomic uncertainty has continued to increase. “The recent further weakening of the trading backdrop as the group has entered its traditionally strongest trading months of the year means that the board is now anticipating, in both the specialist distribution and roofing merchanting businesses, significantly lower underlying profitability for the full year than its previous expectations.”
Marks & Spencer Group (MKS) is relaunching its largest womenswear label Per Una as it desperately tries to refresh its ailing fashion department. It has kicked off a major campaign to try to shift the perceptions that its clothes are dowdy and ‘too frilly’, the company said. It will also make a foray into ‘influencer marketing’ – paying social media celebrities to feature M&S clothes – to go alongside traditional print and billboard advertising. The move is part of the retailer’s plans to broaden its appeal to a younger, ‘family age’ customer, and the updated collection will be ‘the first thing you see when you walk into an M&S store’, the company said
Bezant Resources (BZT) has struck a conditional deal to sell an 80% stake in its Mankayan copper and gold project in the Philippines to a private Singaporean firm. Mining And Minerals Industries Holdings (MMIH) will put up to £5million towards project funding. And due to a separate agreement MMIH had already made with a firm that is listed in Singapore, Bezant could also get £5.9million of shares in the public company