IHG & HSBC FY revenues more than double, Smith & Nephew CEO to stand down
London pre-open
The FTSE 100 was being called to open 111.8 points lower ahead of the bell on Tuesday after having closed out the previous session 0.39% lower at 7,484.33.
Stocks to watch
Medical equipment manufacturer Smith & Nephew said on Tuesday that full-year operating profits had doubled in 2021, partly driven by a solid performance in its sports medicine and ENT and advanced wound management units.
S&N posted full-year revenues of $5.21bn, up 14.3% year-on-year on a reported basis and 10.3% on an underlying basis, while operating profits surged 101% to $593.0m and trading profits shot up from $683.0m to $936.0m as a result of a 300 basis point margin uplift due to improved trading impacts and discretionary cost control measures offsetting higher logistics costs.
InterContinental Hotels Group annual profits more than doubled on the back of a strong final quarter in the US and China as economies recovered from the Covid pandemic.
Operating profit for the 12 months to December 31 more than doubled to $534.0m as revenue per available room, a key metric, reached 70% of pre-pandemic 2019 levels. A dividend of 85.9 cents a share was declared after it was pulled the year before.
HSBC's annual profit more than doubled as reduced bad debts more than made up for lower revenues at Britain's biggest bank. Pre-tax profit for the year ended 31 December rose to $18.9bn from $8.8bn a year earlier as revenue dipped 2% to $49.6bn.
The bank declared a second interim dividend of $0.18 cents a share, taking its annual payout to $0.25 - up from $0.15 a year earlier but less than the $0.30 in 2019. HSBC also said it would buy back $1.0bn of shares when its current $2.0bn buyback ends.
Newspaper round-up
Sanjeev Gupta's GFG Alliance metals empire has launched an action in London's high court in a last-ditch attempt to reclaim a prized aluminium smelter in northern France from a US private equity fund. Two GFG Alliance companies have filed a legal claim against a fund controlled by American Industrial Partners, which has run the smelter in Dunkerque since October after gaining approval from the French government. - Guardian
Hundreds of thousands of tonnes of surplus food that could be going to hungry families is going to waste as supermarkets restrict who their suppliers can give it to, according to food distribution charities. Several independent charities, which are grouped together under the Xcess network, say they struggle to source unwanted edible food from manufacturers and processors because of supermarkets' rules about the handling of their own-label products. - Guardian
Tens of billions of pounds in investment is to be unleashed by City insurers after ministers pledged to axe controversial EU-era red tape in a major post-Brexit shakeup. Two years after the UK officially left the EU, John Glen, the City minister, said the Government will ditch swathes of the controversial Solvency 2 rulebook governing insurers. - Telegraph
An influx of hedge funds and other financial traders into European gas markets has contributed to high and volatile prices over the past year, according to Shell. Prices are becoming less determined by news about gas supply and demand because of the influence of new financial players moving money in and out of the market, the energy group warned. - The Times
A self-styled "fintech" payments business was authorised by the City regulator while its founder was subject to a money laundering investigation related to the notorious multibillion-pound OneCoin scam. Viola Money, which once advertised itself as a rival to Monzo, the challenger bank, was placed into insolvency proceedings in December after the Financial Conduct Authority expressed "serious concerns" about its operations. - The Times
US close
Wall Street trading was closed on Monday in observance of George Washington's Birthday.