Thomas Cook finally collapses, M&S finance chief departs
London open
The FTSE 100 is expected to open 12 points higher on Monday, having closed down 0.16% at 7,344.92 on Friday.
Stocks to watch
High Street retailer Marks and Spencer on Monday said chief financial officer Humphrey Singer had decided to leave the company. No departure date had been set and Singer would work with chief executive Steve Rowe ”to ensure an orderly transition”, the company said in a statement.
Travel operator Thomas Cook finally collapsed on Monday as last-minute talks to save the industry giant failed, leaving thousands of holidaymakers stranded around the world and putting 22,000 global jobs at risk. The UK's Civil Aviation Authority said the company had "ceased trading with immediate effect". More than 150,000 Britons will be repatriated by the UK government in the biggest operation of its kind since World War 2.
Sports Direct confirmed it made an offer to acquire Goals Soccer Centres, in which it currently holds an almost 19% stake, for 5 pence per share on 5 September. The troubled football pitch operator's shares were valued at 27.20p before being suspended from trading on the AIM market in March, with the business facing cancellation from the index on 30 September after it uncovered improper accounting practices.
AstraZeneca announced on Monday that ‘Qtrilmet’ - metformin hydrochloride, saxagliptin and dapagliflozin - modified-release tablets have been recommended for marketing authorisation in the European Union for the treatment of adults with type-2 diabetes. The FTSE 100 pharmaceuticals giant said the Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use of the European Medicines Agency based its positive opinion on data from five phase 3 trials, which evaluated combinations of ‘Forxiga’ - dapagliflozin - and ‘Onglyza’ - saxagliptin - on a background of metformin in patients with inadequately-controlled type-2 diabetes. It said the primary endpoint in those trials was mean change from baseline in average blood glucose levels at week 24 or 52.
Newspaper round-up
A health check of Britain’s manufacturers has shown that some of the most economically and socially deprived areas in the UK are highly exposed to the impact of a no-deal Brexit. Exporters are already suffering losses, especially in Wales, north-east England, Yorkshire and Humberside, which have a significant exposure to trade with the EU, according to a report by manufacturing trade body Make UK and business advisory firm BDO. – Guardian
The billionaire founder of the UK’s largest retail investment platform has attacked the beleaguered fund manager Neil Woodford for appearing not to be “truthful” about the performance of his frozen investment fund. Peter Hargreaves – who with Stephen Lansdown founded the Hargreaves Lansdown share-dealing service for private investors in 1981 – added that the firm’s clients had been “stuffed into this horrible Woodford fund”. – Guardian
A late-cycle surge in ‘leveraged loans’ has echoes of financial engineering before the Lehman crisis and could lead to a cascade of fire sales if conditions suddenly tighten, the world’s top financial watchdog has warned. The Bank for International Settlements said the high-risk loans have climbed to $1.4 trillion and are increasingly being sliced and diced much like subprime mortgage debt before 2007. – Telegraph
Standard Chartered is locked in “very difficult” conversations with its leading shareholders over its chief executive’s pay after an investor revolt over his pension. The emerging markets-focused bank was hit by a backlash over Bill Winters’ pay at its annual investor meeting in May, when more than 36 per cent of the votes cast were against its new executive pay policy. – The Times
The Bank for International Settlements has warned of the “troubling” rise of negative-yielding bonds to more than $17 trillion and sounded a further alarm over the growth in securitisation similar to that which caused the financial crisis. Claudio Borio, head of the monetary and economic research department at the Swiss-based BIS, said yesterday that the phenomenon of so many negative-yielding bonds would have been “unthinkable” even during the depths of the financial meltdown. – The Times
US close
Wall Street stocks finished in the red on Friday, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average ending the session down 0.59% at 26,935.07.
The S&P 500 finished 0.49% lower at 2,992.07, and the Nasdaq 100 was 0.99% weaker at 7,823.55.