Weekly review
By Duncan Ferris
Date: Friday 12 Apr 2019
(Sharecast News) - London's FTSE 100 ended the week down 9.81 points at 7437.06.
Equity view
Debenhams was on course to be put into administration within 24 hours as it rejected an offer from Sports Direct boss Mike Ashley to underwrite a £150m rights issue.
Student accommodation development and management company The Unite Group reported a like-for-like improvement of 0.5% in the independent valuation of its Unite UK Student Accommodation Fund (USAV) on Monday, to £2.27bn.
StanChart will pay just over $1bn to settle two probes with US and British regulators, respectively, relating to the violation of US sanctions against Iran between 2001 and 2014 and the alleged inadequacies of its internal controls.
GlaxoSmithkline said on Tuesday that its two drug HIV treatment had been granted US market approval.
Debenhams called in the administrators just before midday on Tuesday, with the entire underlying operating company immediately sold to the departments store group's lenders.
A US jury has indicted Indivior for fraudulently flogging its Suboxone Film drug as a safer alternative to rival treatments for opiod addiction, sending the company's stock spiralling downward.
G4S surged on Wednesday as Canadian rival GardaWorld confirmed it is in the preliminary stages of considering an approach to the board of the London-listed security services firm regarding a possible cash offer.
Finablr is considering raising $200m through the sale of new shares via an initial public offering on the London Stock Exchange.
Shares of UAE-based payments group Network International stormed higher after it floated with a £2.18bn valuation on Wednesday, in what was the largest initial public offering on the London Stock Exchange so far this year.
Uber Technologies is planning to raise about $10bn via a sale of shares through an initial public offering, with the company set to file its public registration on Thursday.
Stagecoach Group said on Wednesday that it has been informed by the Department for Transport (DfT) that it has been disqualified from the current three UK rail franchise competitions.
Tesco reported a 28.8% jump in full-year pre-tax profit on Wednesday as revenue grew and the company sounded an upbeat note on the outlook.
Peppa Pig owner Entertainment One has announced the acquisition of UK-based Audio Network, a creator and publisher of original music for use in film, television and advertising, for £178m.
Barclays released a statement on Thursday highlighting its opposition to the appointment to the board of Edward Bramson, the activist investor calling for the bank to shrink its investment arm.
WH Smith posted a jump in interim revenue on Thursday thanks to a strong performance from its travel division, but profit was dented by costs related to the acquisition of US airport retailer InMotion.
DIY group Grafton's shares climbed on Thursday as it said it was buying Polvo of the Netherlands from the privately owned Pallieter Group for €131m (£112m).
First-quarter production at Fresnillo was slightly lower than forecasts but the company maintained full year guidance on expectations of higher second-half output.
Chevron on Friday agreed to buy Anadarko Petroleum in a $33bn cash and stock deal.
Major international airline Jet Airways was looking to be on the brink of collapse on Friday, with almost all flights at its primary base in Mumbai listed as cancelled, or non-operational.
Online trading platform Plus500 posted a drop in first-quarter revenue amid "extremely subdued" financial markets, with the number of active customers and average revenue per user both down amid low levels of volatility.
Games Workshop, the maker of the Warhammer tabletop game, has declared a 35p final dividend after trading since January "continued well" with sales and profits ahead of last year.
Economic news
Almost three-quarters of British people want changes to the UK political system and half believe the government needs "quite a lot" of improvement, a major new survey has found.
The UK public's inflation expectations for the coming year remain at a five-year high of 3.2%, which is likely to disappoint Bank of England policymakers.
National Grid is readying itself to phase out fossil fuels and be able to use 100% renewable energy sources for short periods of time from 2025.
Britain's top high streets lost a record 2,481 shops last year with an average of 16 closures per day.
Retail sales fell in March as Brexit uncertainty held consumers back from making big purchases, according to the latest figures from the British Retail Consortium and KPMG.
Britain's shortfall on trade with the rest of the world widened in February as import growth picked up more quickly than that of exports.
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was arrested at the Ecuadorian embassy in London on Thursday.
UK culture secretary Jeremy Wright said on Thursday that he will allow The Times and The Sunday Times to pool their journalistic resources on the condition that its owners clarify their governance structure.
Companies applying for a licence to supply energy will need to undergo stricter tests from June, it was revealed on Thursday, as Ofgem attempted to address the string of energy supplier failures in recent years.
International events
The EU's chief negotiator Michel Barnier on Monday said that, in the event of a no-deal Brexit, the EU will refuse to open trade talks with Britain until an agreement is in place regarding the Irish border, citizens' rights and a financial settlement.
Washington and Beijing are making progress in trade talks and negotiations are set to continue throughout the week, a top Trump administration official said at the weekend.
Chinese Premier Li Keqiang and European Union institution leaders met in Brussels on Tuesday at the annual EU-China summit but faced differences over trade and investment.
The world's economic watchdog took an axe to its near-term forecasts for global growth for the third time in six months, warning that the outlook for a projected recovery in growth was "precarious".
The US government is concerned about Microsoft's involvement in the development of artificial intelligence technology with a Chinese university run by the country's military that is intended for use in surveillance and censorship.
US Treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin said on Wednesday evening that China and the US have agreed to set up trade enforcement offices in both countries in order to monitor compliance with any trade deal, suggesting that an end to their trade war is close.
US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Thursday said an infrastructure bill under development by Democrats will cost in excess of $1tn.
Chinese exports surged past expectations in March but imports slumped amid the ongoing trade dispute between the US and China, according to data released on Friday.
US consumer sentiment unexpectedly deteriorated in April as the previous boost from tax cuts evaporated, according to a preliminary reading from the University of Michigan.
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