Whitbread to raise £1bn, easyJet to restart flying on 15 June

London open

The FTSE 100 is expected to open 42 points lower on Thursday, having closed up 1.08% at 6,067.16 on Wednesday.

Stocks to watch

Pub and hotel operator Whitbread said it was raising £1bn in a rights issue to bolster its balance sheet against the impact of the coronavirus pandemic as it warned of a potential loss in 2021. Adjusted profit before tax fell 8.2% to £358m as a result of weaker UK travel market conditions, particularly in the regions, high industry-wide inflation, the start-up nature of German operations, the Premier Inn owner said on Thursday.

EasyJet said it would begin to restart flying on 15 June with extra measures to reduce the risk of infection from Covid-19. The budget airline said a small number of flights would restart on routes where there was enough demand to be profitable. The routes will mainly cover domestic flights in the UK and France.

AstraZeneca said on Thursday that it is collaborating with a number of countries and organisations to make the University of Oxford's Covid-19 vaccine “widely accessible”, having concluded the first agreements for at least 400 million doses, and secured total manufacturing capacity for one billion doses so far, with first deliveries set to start in September. The FTSE 100 pharmaceuticals giant said it was working on further agreements supported by several parallel supply chains, which would expand capacity in coming months to ensure the delivery of a globally accessible vaccine. It also said it had received support of more than $1bn (£0.82bn) from the US Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority for the development, production and delivery of the vaccine, starting in the autumn.

Newspaper round-up

The highest paid 1% of British earners received nearly 17% of all the country’s income ahead of the Covid-19 crisis, according to a study making allowance for the concentration of taxable capital gains among the better off. Analysis by Warwick University, the London School of Economics and the Resolution Foundation of previously confidential HMRC data showed that the top 1% had a growing and much bigger slice of income than previously thought. - Guardian

Holidays within the UK could return as early as the beginning of July, the culture secretary has announced, saying that the government had ambitious plans to revive the tourism sector. Speaking at the daily Downing Street briefing, Oliver Dowden said any return of domestic holidays would have to be done cautiously, as reopening the industry only to close it again would be more damaging. – Guardian

Up to 1,000 care homes are predicted to close as financial pressures heaped on the sector by coronavirus could soon make business unsustainable, experts have said. At least two homes have already shut their doors temporarily. The closures are expected to trigger a domino effect across the long-term care sector, which employs more people than the NHS and is estimated to be worth about £31bn. - Telegraph

The biggest shake-up of insolvency laws for two decades has been launched to prevent a slew of coronavirus bankruptcies. Landlords will be temporarily banned from making legal claims for rent owed by businesses hit by Covid-19 under legislation introduced in the House of Commons on Wednesday. – Telegraph

PWC is being sued by the founder of Matalan over “negligent” advice on how to avoid paying taxes when he moved to Monaco. John Hargreaves, 76, who set up the retailer in 1985, moved to the tax haven in 2000. He alleges that the accountancy firm was negligent when it advised him on his move, which he timed so that he could avoid paying capital gains and income taxes when he sold £237m of shares in Matalan. – The Times

US close

US stocks closed higher on Wednesday, with major indices clawing back most of the losses recorded in the previous session despite some heightened rhetoric from the President aimed at China.

At the close, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 1.52% at 24,575.90, while the S&P 500 was 1.67% firmer at 2,971.61 and the Nasdaq Composite saw out the session 2.08% stronger at 9,375.78.

The Dow Jones closed 369.04 points higher on Wednesday, all but reversing its 390 point drop in the previous session that came after a report raised concerns about trial results for Moderna's potential Covid-19 vaccine

As far as Wednesday was concerned, strong results from home improvement retailer Lowe's despite ongoing coronavirus lockdowns helped buoy sentiment throughout the session after the group's first-quarter same-store sales increased 11.2% year-on-year.

Discount department store giant Target also pointed to a 10.8% increase in same-store sales on the back of some improved digital sales.