Elliott backs away from Currys offer, Shaftesbury buys Covent Garden freehold

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The FTSE 100 is expected to open 37 points lower on Monday, having closed down 0.43% on Friday at 7,659.74.

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US private equity firm Elliott Advisors has pulled from the race to take over Currys after “multiple attempts” to engage with UK electrical retail chain’s board, all of which were rejected. Currys shares surged last month when it was revealed that Elliott had made an initial potential offer worth £700m – later reportedly upped to £800m. Meanwhile Chinese e-commerce giant JD.com also entered the fray.

Shaftesbury Capital has acquired the freehold interests in 25-31 James Street, Covent Garden for £75.1m, it announced on Monday, expanding its portfolio with properties generating a contracted rent of £3.9m. With 21,000 square feet of lettable space, including retail and residential or office areas, the acquisition complemented existing holdings in the prime retail district. It said the move followed recent disposals, totaling £145m.

Real estate group British Land is appointing the current chair of Intermediate Capital and Marston's as its new chair designate. William Rucker is to succeed incumbent chair Tim Score on 9 July, when Score will stand down after five years as chair and ten years on the board

Newspaper round-up

Thames Water has risked a fresh backlash over its commitment to tackling sewage dumping after it declined to commit funds to a £180m industry-wide initiative to fast-track efforts to reduce pollution in England’s waterways. The government said on Monday that the sum would be spent by six companies over the next 12 months to prevent more than 8,000 sewage spills, as water companies attempt to address their woeful record on tackling spills. – Guardian

A cryptocurrency firm transferred digital assets worth more than $4.2m to a crypto wallet belonging to a member of an alleged Russian arms-dealing network who was later hit with US sanctions, it can be revealed. Details of the transactions involving Copper Technologies raise questions about whether UK laws governing crypto have adapted quickly enough to keep pace with a rapidly evolving sector that has come under increasing scrutiny over the level of anonymity it can provide. – Guardian

The Bahraini owners of McLaren have hired bankers to find a buyer for their stake in the British car maker after investors were forced to pump it with £1.5bn in funding to prop it up in the wake of the pandemic. Mumtalakat, Bahrain’s sovereign wealth fund with a 50pc holding in McLaren Group, is said to have drafted in advisers at JP Morgan following an order from King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa to stem losses. – Telegraph

British battery metal refiners and electric car gigafactories are being handed cheap power deals by the Government as part of a battle to cut the West’s dependence on China. Companies will get the energy relief from next month with the aim being to boost domestic production of key minerals needed for wind turbines, electric cars and defence technologies, officials and executives say. – Telegraph

The boss of Sainsbury’s has warned that new government policies designed to make farming more sustainable could harm Britain’s food production and lead to more imported food. Simon Roberts, chief executive of Britain’s second-largest supermarket chain, said the UK food system “is at a crossroads” because environmental challenges like climate change and ­biodiversity loss are creating a perfect storm “with well-intentioned but inconsistent government policy”. – The Times

US close

US stocks declined on Friday, with the S&P 500 pulling back from record highs, after mixed jobs data that showed a big gain in non-farm payrolls, but downward revisions to previous figures, a slowdown in wage growth and a jump in the jobless rate.

The S&P 500 declined 0.65% from Thursday's fresh closing peak of 5,157.36, while the Dow fell 0.18% and the Nasdaq tumbled 1.16% – with the latter having risen particularly strongly the previous session.

February's non-farm payrolls report showed a 275,000-person gain, well ahead of the consensus forecast of 195,000, albeit with large downwards revisions to previous months' data.

Readings for December and January were revised down by a combined -167,000 to 290,000 and 229,000, respectively.

The unemployment rate, meanwhile, which was derived from a different survey than the one that generates the payrolls figures, increased by two-tenths of a percentage point to 3.7%.