Weekly review

The FTSE 100 ended the week down 55.7 points at 5,786.96.

Equity view

Whitbread said the Bank of England had agreed to buy its commercial paper if necessary to support the hotel group's liquidity during the Covid-19 crisis.

Future’s £140m acquisition of TI Media has been cleared by the Competition and Markets Authority.

Associated British Foods said it had been accepted for inclusion in the Bank of England's programme to buy commercial paper during the Covid-19 crisis.

Paddy Power Betfair owner Flutter Entertainment said revenue had been more resilient than expected despite the cancellation of many sports due to the coronavirus pandemic, bolstered by a continuation of US and Australian horse racing.

Flexible office space provider Workspace said on Friday that it has offered a 50% rent reduction to customers affected by government-imposed coronavirus restrictions.

Pest control company Rentokil Initial posted a rise in first-quarter revenue on Thursday as it said the impact of the coronavirus crisis in the second quarter is set to be greater in the last two weeks of March as more countries were locked down.

Aveva said it was considering whether to pay a final dividend as the software company said it did not intend to lay off staff or make use of government relief programmes during the Covid-19 crisis.

Homeware retailer Dunelm said on Thursday that its online business is now fully operational following the introduction of a number of health and safety measures, with recent online order levels "significantly higher" than before the coronavirus pandemic.

Imperial Leather maker PZ Cussons said on Thursday that its guidance on profit remains within consensus but at the lower end, as its personal care business is boosted by the Covid-19 pandemic but the beauty segment takes a hit.

Exhibitions, events and business information firm Informa updated the market on its reaction to the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic on Thursday, telling shareholders that the pathway back to normality for its events business was looking longer than previously expected.

Corrugated packaging company Smurfit Kappa hailed a "strong" first quarter on Wednesday but said it was cancelling its final dividend "in light of the increased macro uncertainty due to the Covid-19 pandemic".

Ferguson withdrew its interim dividend and suspended its $500m (£397m) share buyback to conserve cash during the Covid-19 crisis.

UDG Healthcare said on Wednesday that trading in the first half was "strong" but that the second half was set to be hit by the Covid-19 outbreak, as it cancelled its dividend and withdrew guidance.

Insurance group Hastings said it still planned to pay a reduced final dividend of 5.5p despite the coronavirus pandemic and a warning from regulators over payouts during the crisis.

Hipgnosis Songs Fund has entered into an agreement with a syndicated group of lenders led by JPMorgan Chase Bank, it announced on Wednesday, to increase its revolving credit facility from to £150m £100m.

Pub and restaurant chain Mitchells & Butlers said it had secured a waiver from lenders to avoid a breach of its financing terms due to the coronavirus lockdown.

Landscape products company Marshalls said on Tuesday that it is set to secure £90m in additional funds from its banking partners and that its board will take a 20% pay cut as it looks to weather the coronavirus outbreak.

Exhibitions and conference company Hyve confirmed on Tuesday that it is considering a potential equity fundraise as an option to secure its financial position.

Centrica has appointed chief financial officer Chris O'Shea as its permanent chief executive less than a month after he took the job on an interim basis.

Paragon Banking pulled its interim dividend due to the Covid-19 pandemic but said it had a strong capital base and “significant liquidity”.

Economic news

Payday lenders and car financing firms were warned by Britain's financial regulator to ease off customers struggling to make payments amid the Covid-19 pandemic.

Britain’s 100 biggest companies handed out around £400bn in dividends and share buybacks from the year 2011 to 2018, undermining their resilience to a time of crisis, a think tank said on Friday.

A British health professor told lawmakers on Friday that the UK government had been too slow to act to protect Britons from the Covid-19 outbreak and predicted that the death toll from the pandemic could reach 40,000.

Hundreds of thousands of jobs are at risk after the Covid-19 shutdown caused retail sales to plunge at the fastest pace on record, according to an industry survey.

UK GDP will shrink by 7.6% as a result of the coronavirus pandemic and ensuing containment efforts, Citi said on Thursday.

Banks and other lenders have provided more than £1.1bn of emergency loans to small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) under the government's business interruption loan scheme, industry figures showed.

The controversial HS2 high-speed rail project has been given the official go-ahead by Westminster, even amid the national Covid-19 coronavirus lockdown.

Almost one-third of FTSE 100 companies have cut or scrapped their dividends during the coronavirus crisis, leaving investors relying on 10 companies for two-thirds of the index's likely payouts in 2020, research shows.

Heathrow airport predicted that passenger traffic would plunge by 90% in April due to the travel restrictions in place across the globe.

Payments have been suspended on more than 1.2m UK mortgages for borrowers whose finances are under strain in the Covid-19 crisis, industry figures showed.

International events

China's economy shrank in the first quarter for the first time in more than 40 years after the Covid-19 pandemic shut down economic activity in the world's second-biggest economy.

A key regional manufacturing sector gauge plummeted in April as factories were shuttered in response to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Weekly US jobless claims continued to surge, in effect wiping out the gains in employment since the last financial crisis.

California has launched a $125m disaster relief fund for undocumented immigrants, governor Gavin Newsom said late on Wednesday.

US homebuilders were walloped by the Covid-19 pandemic last month with a key gauge of activity in the sector retreating by over a fifth.

President Donald Trump suspended US funding to the World Health Organisation as he sought to deflect increasing criticism of his administration's response to the coronavirus pandemic.

Global demand for oil will plunge by as much as 29m barrels a day in April to a 25-year low, the International Energy Agency said as it warned no output cut could fully offset the short-term drop in demand.

Manufacturing in the state of New York and some of the surrounding areas was battered as the region was hit by the Covid-19 coronavirus, a closely-followed survey revealed.

US industrial output plummeted in March in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic which resulted in broad based weakness across all sectors, but above all in the automotive space.

The International Monetary Fund has approved debt relief for 25 poor countries that asked for help dealing with the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.