Below are the key morning press headlines, featuring the The Times, The Telegraph, The Daily Mail & more - see the full Press section here.
Shares in Future (FUTR) plunged yesterday after bosses sold stock worth £44million. It involved the sale of just over 3.1m shares, regulatory filings revealed. But it spooked investors, with Future shares sinking by as much as 12% at one stage yesterday. Among the bosses to cash in were the chief executive Zillah Byng-Thorne and Penny Ladkin-Brand, the finance chief. Byng-Thorne, 45, sold 1,045,344 shares for about £14.6million. It came after she was thought to have been awarded 1.24m performance-linked shares after a surge in the company’s stock and profits in recent years.
Primark faces the prospect of a shareholder revolt next week over a bonus scheme which could hand boss George Weston up to £7m. Associated British Foods (ABF) is under fire from shareholder advice group Pirc over a new long-term bonus scheme. Mr Weston would get a maximum of £7m in pay and perks if he hit all targets. Pirc warned that changes to long-term bonuses mean they could now exceed its recommended maximum, and called on investors to oppose the tweaks in a binding vote at ABF’s annual meeting next month.
The new digital bank set up by Royal Bank of Scotland Group (RBS) to compete with rival financial technology groups has become a target for fraudsters. It is understood that about 30% of applications received by Bó since the app-based venture went live two weeks ago were fraudulent. The figure underscores the scale of the challenge facing British banks in the digital age as they seek to counter money laundering and cybercrime. RBS is one of Britain’s biggest lenders and is led by Alison Rose, 49, who took charge of the bank at the start of this month. It has about 18.9 million customers and is behind the Natwest and Ulster Bank brands.
A backlash against vaping in the US has hit sales at British American Tobacco (BATS) . It says full-year revenue growth at its ‘new category’ division, which sells e-cigarettes, will be at the lower end of a 30%-50% forecast amid health fears over the products. Roughly 3.6m people vape in the UK. However, there is growing concern about the effect on users’ lungs. The issue has attracted the attention of Donald Trump, and US health officials have reported more than 2,000 cases of vaping-related lung illness and 47 deaths linked to its use, which has led to a drop in demand.
Marston’s (MARS) sunk to an annual loss after slashing the value of poorly performing pubs by £43m. The company took the hit on properties which are struggling to turn a profit, sending it tumbling to pre-tax losses of £20m for the year to September. Marston’s warned last month that annual profits would be lower than expected, as increased spending on drinks was offset by a poor performance on food. Overall, revenues rose 2.9% to £1.17bn. Chief executive Ralph Findlay said the firm remains focused on cutting net debt by £200m by 2023 through a sale of assets.
Blackbird Plc (BIRD) soared after it inked a deal with Bloomberg Media that will bring in ‘significant’ annual revenue. Blackbird provides a platform that lets companies edit and publish videos online. Its service allows people to work on videos at the same time without needing to be in the same place, which makes the process fast and saves money on hardware.
Aston Martin Holdings (AML) surged 56.6p, to close at 586.8p, and its shares have risen by a third since it launched its first family SUV a week ago. Aston has pinned hopes of a revival on the £158,000 DBX. It has had a small but steady news stream this week, teaming up with British Airways on ten limited edition, Concorde-inspired cars, and a partnership with distiller Bowmore to make whiskies and other products. And on December 6 it will officially open the Welsh factory that will build the DBX. But the real driving force behind the rally is the warm reception the vehicle has received. Under a loan deal, Aston will need to tell the stock market when it has had orders for 1,400 DBXs, which could take a while.
Pre-election jitters have been blamed for a slump in orders at SCS Group (SCS) , with consumers reluctant to splash out so-called big-ticket items such as the retailer’s sofas and flooring. SCS said yesterday that orders had slipped by 7.1% over the 17 weeks to November 23, dragging its two-year like-for-like order intake down by 4%. SCS, which stands for Sofa Carpet Specialist, was founded in Sunderland in 1894 as a family-owned home furnishing business. It now employs 2,000 people in Britain and has 101 stores. It was bought out of administration in 2008 by Sun Capital Partners, a private equity firm specialising in company turnarounds, and returned to the stock market in 2015 with a £70 million valuation.
On The Beach Group (OTB) has taken a £7.7 million hit to its profits from the collapse of Thomas Cook. On the Beach Group said that lost revenue, refunds and the cost of getting its customers home had totalled £25.6 million, of which it had been able to reclaim £18.5 million through a “chargeback” insurance scheme. It also had to foot a bill of about £600,000 in additional costs from dealing with the fallout from the collapse, plus the loss of money held by Thomas Cook agents. About 15% of On the Beach customers had booked Thomas Cook flights.
A French law to protect farmers and smaller distributors from the impact of promotions by large retailers has put a big dent in the profit of one of Britain’s biggest soft drinks groups. Britvic (BVIC) said that it had been a challenging year in the country, due in part to a “major impact” from the introduction of the so-called EGalim law. The law was brought in primarily to rebalance commercial relationships between smaller suppliers and retailers by specifying minimum limits on retailer margins and a maximum on supplier volumes sold on promotion.