Below is a selection of the morning's key market news, earning reports & trending stories - see more here.
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Big news this morning as Whitbread (WTB) announced it has sold Costa Coffee to Coca-Cola for £3.9bn.
The company hinted it was planning to spin-off the coffee chain earlier this year, but today said that a direct sale was more profitable.
The sale of Costa is at an enterprise value of £3.9bn, representing a multiple of 16.4x Costa’s FY18 EBITDA.
In an RNS, Whitbread said the transaction was unanimously agreed by the Whitbread Board to be in the best interests of shareholders
Alison Brittain, Whitbread Chief Executive, said: "I am delighted that we have agreed the sale of Costa to Coca-Cola for £3.9 billion.
“This transaction is great news for shareholders as it recognises the strategic value we have developed in the Costa brand and its international growth potential and accelerates the realisation of value for shareholders in cash.”
Read more here -
Sales and profits took a hit at the Restaurant Group (RTN) due to the impact of extreme weather and the World Cup.
Like-for-like sales were down 3.7% in the first half of the year, adjusted pretax profit fell from £25.5m to £20.1m and EBITDA dropped to £38.1m from £44.3m.
CEO Andy McCue said: "Over the last six months we have delivered against our strategy, creating a more competitive and balanced business, more closely aligned to the growth segments of our market.
"The turnaround of our Leisure division continues to plan and shows further progress. This was despite the headwinds facing the sector as a whole and the adverse effects of extreme weather and the World Cup."
Read more here -
European markets opened lower this morning due to concerns over trading after Trump threatened to pull out of the World Trade Organisation.
In an interview with Bloomberg, Trump said “"If they don't shape up, I would withdraw from the WTO.”
The news organisation also reported that Trump and his administration was ready to impose tariffs on $200bn worth of goods from China as early as next week.
In reply, Trump said the report was “not totally wrong”.
The US President also dismissed a new EU proposal to stop auto tariffs on cars as “not good enough”, after EU trade commission Cecilia Malmstroem said the bloc was "willing to bring down our car tariffs to zero”.
