Frasers Group launches share buyback, AstraZeneca upbeat on Farxiga approval

London open

The FTSE 100 is expected to open flat on Tuesday, having closed up 0.12% on Friday at 6,969.81, before the long weekend.

Stocks to watch

Mike Ashley’s Frasers Group said it was starting a share buyback of up to £60m to reduce its share capital. The group, which includes Sports Direct, Jack Wills, and House of Fraser, said it would buy up to 10m shares from Tuesday up to the last day before it enters its closed period ahead of full year results.

AstraZeneca said that Farxiga has been approved in the US for the treatment of chronic kidney disease in patients at risk of progression with and without type-2 diabetes. AstraZeneca said the approval by the US Food and Drug Administration is “the most significant advancement in the treatment of chronic kidney disease in more than 20 years”.

Centamin has awarded the engineering, procurement and construction contracts for the 36MW solar farm and 7.5 MW battery-energy storage system at the Sukari Gold Mine, it announced on Tuesday. The FTSE 250 company said Juwi has been contracted to design, supply and integrate the Sukari solar and battery plant into the current diesel power plant, while Giza Systems was contracted to install the Sukari solar plant. It said the plant would be the largest hybrid solar project at an off-grid mining operation globally, and was expected to reduce diesel fuel consumption at Sukari by an estimated 22 million litres per annum.

Newspaper round-up

Fresh questions have been raised over Amazon’s tax planning after its latest corporate filings in Luxembourg revealed that the company collected record sales income of €44bn (£38bn) in Europe last year but did not have to pay any corporation tax to the Grand Duchy. Accounts for Amazon EU Sarl, through which it sells products to hundreds of millions of households in the UK and across Europe, show that despite collecting record income, the Luxembourg unit made a €1.2bn loss and therefore paid no tax. - Guardian

The electric vehicle maker Arrival aims to start producing cars by 2023 with design help from Uber, in the latest step by the UK-headquartered startup’s ambitious plans to take on the automotive industry. The car, developed specifically for use by ride-hailing drivers, will be Arrival’s first, adding to buses that are due to be on UK roads this year, as well as urban delivery vans. - Guardian

Surrounded by pine trees in a remote patch of the RAF Spadeadam base in Cumbria, three purpose-built houses are being used to test out a vision of the future that could soon be rolled out to homes across the UK. The homes in “Hy Street” are being heated with 100pc hydrogen, the clean-burning gas that is being explored as a possible replacement for fossil fuels in the rush to decarbonise. - Telegraph

The Financial Conduct Authority is close to negotiating a settlement over the £230 million Park First investment scandal that has left 4,600 investors facing significant losses. The regulator is in detailed talks with Toby Whittaker, the Lancashire-based owner of Park First and associated companies that sold individual car parking spaces at Gatwick and Glasgow airports for up to £25,000 each. - The Times

A Wall Street private equity firm has bought Yahoo, AOL and other digital media assets from Verizon for $5 billion. Apollo Global Management will pay the telecoms group $4.25 billion in cash as part of the deal, with Verizon also retaining a 10 per cent stake in the new business. - The Times

US close

Stocks closed in a mixed state on Wall Street on Monday, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average rising 0.7% to 34,113.23.

The S&P 500 managed gains of 0.27% to 4,192.66, while the Nasdaq Composite lost 0.48% to 13,895.12.