GVC upgrades full-year profit forecasts, Unite Group inks new deal with University of Leeds
London open
The FTSE 100 is expected to open two points lower on Wednesday, having closed down 0.76% at 7,143.15 on Tuesday.
Stocks to watch
Gambling firm GVC Holdings upgraded full year profit forecasts after a strong third quarter driven by online revenues. The company on Wednesday said it now expected earnings before interest, tax depreciation and amortisation to be in the range of £670m to £680m, up from £650m to £670m. GVC added that like-for-like net gaming revenue in the UK fell 18% after the government cut the maximum stake on fixed odds betting terminals to £2 from £100.
Home improvement retailer Kingfisher announced the appointment of Bernard Bot as its new chief financial officer on Wednesday, taking up the role and being appointed to the board on 21 October. The FTSE 100 company said Bot would also become a member of the group executive team. It also announced that John Wartig, who joined Kingfisher as interim CFO on 8 April, had been appointed to the newly-created role of chief transformation and development officer. It said he would remain on the executive team, with direct responsibility for transformation, IT, business development and property, and would report to chief executive Thierry Garnier.
Unite Group has signed a nominations agreement with the University of Leeds that covers 559 of the 976 beds in its new White Rose View student accommodation, which will open in time for the 2020-2021 academic year. The private student halls provider, which targets one or two new university partnership deals per year, said the deal underpinned a development yield in line with its targets.
Newspaper round-up
Customers who were mis-sold loans by the collapsed payday lender Wonga are expected to receive less than 10% of what they are owed in compensation after administrators revealed that only £41m will be put aside for claimants. Administrators for Wonga, which collapsed last year, also revealed that they had scrapped plans to sell its loan book, saying there were doubts that bidders met the criteria, including properly approaching customers for debt payments on outstanding loans. – Guardian
GlaxoSmithKline is recalling the popular heartburn medicine Zantac in all markets, days after the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) found “unacceptable” levels of probable cancer-causing impurity in the drug. Zantac, also sold generically as ranitidine, is the latest drug in which cancer-causing impurities have been found. Regulators have been recalling some blood pressure and heart failure medicines since last year. - Guardian
The European Commission has issued a stark warning to EU finance ministers, calling for concerted fiscal stimulus to head off a recession and avert a protracted downturn before it is too late. A briefing document for tomorrow's Eurogroup meeting said the twin shocks of a no-deal Brexit and US car tariffs of 25pc days later risks compounding the current global trade slump and could test the limits of eurozone policy. – Telegraph
Britain has slipped down the rankings of the most competitive economies, but has clung on to a place in the top ten. The World Economic Forum’s annual global competitiveness report pushed the UK down from eighth to ninth, leaving it fifth in Europe behind the Netherlands, Switzerland, Germany and Sweden. In 2016, the year of the referendum vote, the UK ranked seventh overall. – The Times
Three former Barclays executives lied to the market by hiding £322 million in extra fees that the bank paid to Qatar in return for vital funding during the global credit crisis, a court was told. The case, one of the most high-profile brought by the Serious Fraud Office, centres on alleged undisclosed payments to Qatar as Barclays raised £11.2 billion from investors in June and October 2008 to avoid having to be bailed out by the state. – The Times
US close
Wall Street stocks closed firmly lower yet again on Tuesday after the US expanded its trade blacklist to include China's top artificial intelligence firms.
At the close, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 1.19% at 26,164.04, while the S&P 500 was 1.56% weaker at 2,893.06 and the Nasdaq Composite saw out the session 1.67% lower at 7,823.78.
The Dow closed 313.98 points lower on Tuesday after also closing out Monday's session weaker as market participants looked to a meeting between United States and Chinese trade officials later in the week with a degree of scepticism.
High-level negotiators from the US and China were scheduled to kick-off the 13th round of talks between the pair in Washington DC on Thursday.
However, ahead of the talks, the White House expanded its trade blacklist to include Chinese artificial intelligence firms as part of an effort to punish Beijing for its recent treatment of Muslim ethnic minorities.
Shortly afterwards, Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang told reporters to "stay tuned" in regards to retaliatory measures.