SSE sells retail business, Wetherspoons profit jumps 7%
London open
The FTSE 100 was called to open 16 points higher at 7,360.
Stocks to watch
SSE said it was selling its retail business to OVO Group for £500m, comprising £400m cash and £100m in loan notes. The proceeds will be used to cut debt, SSE said in a statement.
The two companies started talks on the deal last month.In May, SSE announced plans to offload the division after more than 500,000 households switched to a new supplier in the previous financial year.
JD Wetherspoon reported 7% annual sales growth to £1.8bn as food sales and slot machine revenue climbed by 8% and 10% respectively.
Meanwhile, profits jumped by 7% and the company's owner, Tim Martin, said the business continues to perform well, with sales increasing by a further 6% in the period since the year end "despite continuing political problems".
Newspaper round-up
John Bercow has threatened Boris Johnson that he will be prepared to rip up the parliamentary rulebook to stop any illegal attempt by the prime minister to take the UK out of the EU without a deal on 31 October. In a direct warning to No 10, the Speaker of the House of Commons said he is prepared to allow “additional procedural creativity” if necessary to allow parliament to block Johnson from ignoring the law. – Guardian
Capita, the outsourcing company behind the London congestion charge and the BBC licence fee, is giving almost 6,000 UK workers a pay rise, offering staff the real living wage as a minimum from next April. The company said all of its 40,000 UK employees, from administrative staff to construction, health and call-centre workers, would be paid, at least, the independently verified real living wage. The real living wage is £10.55 an hour in London and £9 an hour across the rest of the UK. – Guardian
One of London Stock Exchange Group’s largest shareholders believes it is “now or never” for other suitors to make a rival offer to the shock £30bn bid from the Hong Kong bourse. The top ten shareholder said they would not be rushed into a decision over the surprise offer from Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing (HKEX), because they want to see whether it could spark a bidding war. – Telegraph
Investors backing Neil Woodford suffered a fresh setback last night when the investment trust he runs said it was writing down one of his unquoted investments by £36 million. Woodford Patient Capital Trust declined to identify the unlisted company that had disappointed because of “confidentiality obligations”, but said the writedown would wipe 4p from its net assets per share, which were previously 72.85p. – The Times
Tim Steiner and Jonathan Faiman went to nursery school together, but the future of Waitrose’s online business appears to have created a bitter divide between them. Mr Steiner, 49, and Mr Faiman, 50, grew up in north London and went on to work on the bond trading desk at Goldman Sachs with Jason Gissing, 48. The trio launched Ocado, the online grocery retailer, almost 20 years ago. – The Times
US close
Wall Street stocks closed slightly higher on Thursday, with investors' attention centred on global trade developments after Donald Trump agreed to hold off on additional tariff increases on Chinese goods for two weeks as a "gesture of goodwill".
At the close, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 0.17% at 27,182.45, while the S&P 500 was 0.29% higher at 3,009.57 and the Nasdaq Composite closed out the session 0.30% firmer at 8,194.47.