Compass Q1 organic revenues up, AstraZeneca FY earnings in line

London pre-open

The FTSE 100 was being called to open 20.7 points higher ahead of the bell on Thursday after wrapping up the previous session 0.26% firmer at 7,885.17.

Stocks to watch

Foodservice company Compass Group said on Thursday that organic revenues had grown 24% in the first quarter and stated it was "excited" about the "significant growth potential" across its markets.

Compass said it continued to benefit from "strong outsourcing trends", with net new business growth of 5.5%, significantly above its historical rate of around 3%. All regions were said to have "performed strongly" in the quarter - with organic growth of 23% in North America, 26% in Europe and 27% in its rest of world segment.

Pharma giant AstraZeneca reported full-year earnings in line with expectations and said it expected 2023 core profits to increase by high-single to low-double digits.

AZN said on Thursday that core earnings per share had come to $6.66 as revenue rose 19% to $44.0bn. However, total Revenue in the fourth quarter was impacted by a decline in its Covid-19 treatment.

Newspaper round-up

Twitter users were unable to post instantly on the website for almost an hour, in the latest outage to hit the social media platform since billionaire Elon Musk's $44.0bn takeover. From around 2200 GMT on Wednesday, users attempting to tweet were informed by the platform they had hit their daily limit – despite many of them reporting having not tweeted at all that day. – Guardian

Strikes by firefighters have been postponed following an increased pay offer during lengthy talks with employers, it was announced on Thursday. The Fire Brigades Union said it had been offered a 7% pay rise backdated to July 2022, and then 5% from July this year. The union had warned of strikes if a previous 5% pay offer was not increased following a huge vote in favour of industrial action. – Guardian

Disney has announced plans to cut 7,000 jobs and $5.5bn in costs after reporting its first ever drop in subscriber numbers. The job cuts represent just over 3% of Disney's global workforce of around 220,000. The US media giant lost 2.4m Disney+ subscribers in the final three months of 2022, taking the total to 161.8m. – Telegraph

Europe's market-leading lorry manufacturer must pay Royal Mail and BT about £20.0m as part of a landmark cartel damages ruling that could pave the way for further compensation orders. Competition experts predicted that DAF, a company based in Eindhoven in the Netherlands, will pay Royal Mail alone more than £17.0m after the competition appeal tribunal in London ruled that both British companies should be awarded damages. – The Times

Siemens has been fined £1.4m after pleading guilty to a health and safety offence following the death of Ian Parker, 58, a technician, at one of the company's facilities in west London. The German multinational, which employs 11,000 staff in the UK, has been sanctioned by the rail safety watchdog after Parker was crushed by a traction motor while conducting maintenance work on Heathrow Express trains at the Old Oak Common depot. – The Times

US close

Wall Street stocks were in the red at the end of trading on Wednesday as market participants digested comments from central bankers and thumbed over more corporate earnings.

At the close, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 0.61% at 33,949.01, while the S&P 500 slipped 1.11% to 4,117.86 and the Nasdaq Composite saw out the session 1.68% weaker at 11,910.52.

Reporting by Iain Gilbert at Sharecast.com