Weekly review
By Duncan Ferris
Date: Friday 05 Apr 2019
(Sharecast News) - London's FTSE 100 ended the week 167.68 points higher at 7446.87.
Equity view
The big four accounting firms are under scrutiny after it was revealed they failed to charge some of the UK's largest companies for the full cost of inspecting their accounts and have been overspending on hospitality with clients, a practice which is banned.
EasyJet shares fell after the budget airline said uncertainty over Brexit and the economy had dampened its outlook as consumer demand for air travel weakened.
Rolls-Royce has offloaded its commercial marine business to Norwegian technology group Kongsberg on Monday, netting somewhere in the vicinity of £350m to £400m in the process.
Food manufacturer Kellogg's revealed on Monday that it will be selling its Keebler, Famous Amos and fruit snacks businesses to Nutella-maker Ferrero for a total of $1.3bn.
The BBC has struck a £200m deal with American pay-TV giant Discovery to break up UKTV, the broadcaster behind channels such as Dave and Gold.
Royal Bank of Scotland is facing criticism for pursuing the owners of small and medium-sized companies for debts that have already been settled by the government in a taxpayer-backed loan scheme.
Asda overtook Sainsburys to become the second largest supermarket in Britain in recent weeks, while discounter Aldi overtook Morrisons in terms of shopper numbers as the sector saw its slowest rate of growth for a year.
Royal Dutch Shell will leave an oil lobby group as its position on climate change is causing severe disagreements within the body.
Superdry founder Julian Dunkerton has won his battle to be reinstated to the ailing fashion brand's board.
Vodafone said it remains confident about getting its €18.4bn deal with Liberty Global past European Union antitrust regulators.
Flybe has blamed a "combination of factors" for cancelling dozens of flights on Tuesday, including pilots being on holiday, as it confirmed plans to scale back operations.
Ofgem has fined SSE's domestic retail business £700,000 for missing its target to install gas smart meters for customers last year.
Stagecoach updated the market on its trading for the financial year ending 27 April on Wednesday, reporting that it had seen further strong trading and positive progress in the UK rail division, resulting in an increase in its expectations for adjusted earnings per share.
UniCredit is reportedly preparing a multibillion-euro bid for a slice of Commerzbank in case its talks with Deutsche Bank fail.
ITV has signed an exclusive UK and Ireland licensing agreement with global digital advertising technology company Amobee, it announced on Thursday, for end-to-end programmatic buying and selling of premium video inventory on its on-demand streaming platform, the ITV Hub.
Shares in Saga plunged on Thursday, after a disappointing set of preliminary results in which the provider of holidays and other services to the over-50s slashed its dividend, warned on profits for the coming year and flagged another change of strategy.
The growing popularity of its porcine TV star in China and the completion of a turnaround at the film division produced fatter annual profits for Entertainment One, sending its shares to a new all-time high on Thursday morning.
GVC Holdings reported slower, but still strong, growth in online gambling in the first three months of the year while its Ladbrokes bookmaking shops were flat ahead of the fixed-odds betting machine crackdown and Saturday's Grand National.
Co-op Group reported improvements in revenue, food like-for-like sales and profit before tax in its annual results on Friday, as it claimed to have returned £79m returned to Co-op members and communities.
Funding Circle confirmed that financial guidance for 2019 remains unchanged as the Funding Circle SME Income Fund (FCIF) announced it was shutting up shop.
Engineering and industrial software provider AVEVA Group has agreed to acquire the software assets of MaxGrip, it announced on Friday, subject to approval from MaxGrip's shareholders.
Economic news
MPs have called for the Big Four accountancy firms to be broken up following a spate of high-profile accountancy scandals.
Brexit stockpiling has helped push manufacturing output to a surprise 13-month high, data showed on Monday.
Theresa May has offered to "sit down" with opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn to agree on a Brexit deal based on her existing withdrawal agreement.
Bookmakers have been accused of violating new rules on fixed-odd betting terminals after an investigation found that high-stakes roulette-styled games were launched on the same day as the restrictions on the machines were implemented.
The odds of Jeremy Corbyn becoming the next Prime Minister have been cut by Ladbrokes, making the Labour leader joint favourite to succeed Theresa May alongside Boris Johnson at 5/1.
The City Corporation of London approved the plans for the new Tulip tower, which will be the second tallest building in Europe.
Brexit has cost the United Kingdom £6.6bn per quarter since the referendum, said a report from S&P Global Ratings which estimated the damage of the UK's decision to exit the European Union.
UK house prices dropped less than expected in March but prices are expected to remain subdued amid Brexit uncertainty, according to the latest figures from lender Halifax.
London's public markets saw their quietest quarter in terms of IPO activity in eight years in the three months to 31 March, according to accountancy firm Ernst & Young.
London's Ultra Low Emission Zone comes into force on Monday, with thousands of motorists set to be charged a fixed £12. 50 charge for entering the area without a compliant vehicle.
International events
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's AKP party has lost control of Ankara for the first time in 16 years after local elections on Sunday.
Germany's manufacturing industry slipped deeper into recession in the first quarter of 2018 as worries about Brexit, trade tensions and the weakening global economy hit sales.
European Union governments are struggling to reach consensus on a mandate to begin trade talks with the US, according to overnight reports.
The UK has given certain multinationals illegal tax advantages and must claw back the cash, the European Commission ruled on Tuesday.
Facebook cannot guarantee that no users of the site will interfere in the European elections due to be held in May, but its CEO Mark Zuckerberg tried to reassure an audience that it is now much better at doing so than in 2016.
German factory orders tumbled in February, suffering their worst drop in two years, according to figures released by Destatis on Thursday.
A meeting to sign a US-China trade deal could be announced on Thursday as US President Donald Trump prepares to meet Chinese Vice Premier Liu He at the White House.
The European Commission has accused BMW, Daimler and Volkswagen of breaching European antitrust rules from 2006 to 2014 by colluding to restrict competition on the development of emission cleaning tech for cars.
Donald Trump said on Thursday that the US and China could reach an agreement on a trade deal in four weeks' time.
US job growth returned to trend last month as some of the erratic factors that depressed the previous month's reading washed out of the data, but the latest wage data fell short of forecasts.
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