TI Fluid Systems to pay first quarter dividend, Brexit impacts TP Icap operations
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The FTSE 100 is expected to open 29 points higher on Monday, having closed down 0.3% on Friday at 6,695.07.
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TI Fluid Systems said it was paying a first quarter interim dividend of 6.74 euro cents a share, but not a final payout for 2020 as it forecast adjusted EBIT margin to be “slightly better than expected”. The group on Monday said it expected to report revenue of approximately €2.8bn for the year to December 31. On a constant currency basis, it guided for 2020 revenue performance to be in line with the decline in global light vehicle production.
TP Icap said Covid-19 prevented the company from staffing European offices to comply with post-Brexit rules and that its UK operations no longer had permission to service all clients in the EU. The interdealer broker said it was serving EU clients where possible under temporary and existing rules and it did not expect any material impact on its broking business or financial results as a result of the holdup.
AstraZeneca said on Monday that positive high-level results from the ‘ELEVATE-RR’ phase 3 trial showed ‘Calquence’, or acalabrutinib, met its primary endpoint, demonstrating non-inferior progression-free survival for adults with previously treated, high-risk chronic lymphocytic leukaemia (CLL) compared to ibrutinib. The FTSE 100 drugmaker said the trial also met a key secondary endpoint for safety, showing patients treated with Calquence had statistically significantly lower incidence of atrial fibrillation compared to patients treated with ibrutinib. At the same time, it also confirmed that Calquence had been approved in Japan for the treatment of adult patients with relapsed or refractory chronic lymphocytic leukaemia, including small lymphocytic lymphoma.
Newspaper round-up
The economic impact of Covid will leave Boris Johnson’s government with a costly “double challenge” to level-up the north and Midlands while protecting the affluent towns and cities in southern England suffering most job losses, according to a report. Warning that the prime minister’s election promise to rebalance Britain’s lopsided economy had been made four times harder by the pandemic, the Centre for Cities said a dual approach to the post-Covid recovery was required. - Guardian
British businesses that export to the continent are being encouraged by government trade advisers to set up separate companies inside the EU in order to get around extra charges, paperwork and taxes resulting from Brexit, the Observer can reveal. In an extraordinary twist to the Brexit saga, UK small businesses are being told by advisers working for the Department for International Trade (DIT) that the best way to circumvent border issues and VAT problems that have been piling up since 1 January is to register new firms within the EU single market, from where they can distribute their goods far more freely. - Guardian
Ministers are under mounting pressure to further extend the Government’s £2bn scheme to tackle youth unemployment despite throwing it open to more employers today. The Kickstart scheme, which offers paid six-month placements to 16 to 24-year-olds claiming universal credit, was launched in November after being unveiled by the Chancellor, Rishi Sunak, last July. - Telegraph
The potential collapse of Eurostar risks costing taxpayers £80m under a complex legal agreement that leaves Britain exposed to the operator’s financial plight. Costs to run on a 67-mile stretch of railway between London St Pancras and the Channel Tunnel can be transferred from Eurostar to a domestic operator whose costs are funded by the Government, the Daily Telegraph has learnt. The current legal arrangement allows for a shortfall of up to £10m to be transferred to operator Southeastern every six months between now and 2025. This means the Exchequer could be on the hook for £80m of costs if a rescue deal cannot be agreed. - Telegraph
The Bank of England is under pressure to rethink its financial backing of oil and gas companies after being warned by an influential group of MPs that it risks creating a “moral hazard”. The Commons’ environmental audit committee has written to Andrew Bailey, governor of the Bank, warning that the institution threatens to undermine Britain’s efforts to tackle climate change by buying bonds issued by oil and gas companies. - The Times
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Stocks closed in a mixed state on Wall Street on Friday, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average down 0.57% at 30,996.98.
The S&P 500 lost 0.3% to 3,841.47, while the Nasdaq Composite eked out gains of 0.09% to 13,543.06.