Sainsbury's to repay rates relief, Phoenix Holdings to beat cash generation targer
By Josh White
Date: Thursday 03 Dec 2020
(Sharecast News) - London open
The FTSE 100 is expected to open 13 points lower on Thursday, having closed up 1.23% on Wednesday at 6,463.39.
Stocks to watch
Sainsbury's on Thursday became the latest supermarket to bow to pressure and repay more than £400m in business rates relief received from the government to help cope with the coronavirus pandemic. Rivals Tesco and Morrisons on Wednesday said they would repay more than £850m as demands grew for the money to be returned in light of booming profits and dividend payments from supermarkets.
Phoenix Holdings said it beat its target for cash generation in 2020 as the closed life insurance company pledged to be carbon neutral by 2025 and to make its investments carbon neutral by 2050. The FTSE 100 group generated £1.71bn of cash in 2020 compared with £707m in 2019. This year's total was more than the upper end of its target of £1.5bn to £1.6bn.
Derwent London has exchanged contracts to sell its 192,700 square foot freehold interest in Johnson Building on Hatton Garden and St Cross Street in London to Eurazeo Patrimoine, it announced on Thursday, which is the real assets division of Eurazeo. The FTSE 250 firm said the headline price was £170m before rental top-ups of £2.4m for incentives and vacant space. It acquired the office and retail complex in 2000 for £29m, and in 2006 it completed a significant refurbishment which increased the lettable area by 53%.
Newspaper round-up
The UK's North Sea oil and gas industry should agree to phase out production through a series of five-year targets to help its 260,00 strong workforce migrate to clean energy sectors, according to a report. The plan would require the UK and Scottish governments to scrap a controversial policy that calls on North Sea companies to extract as much oil and gas as they can from the ageing basin. - Guardian
Debenhams claimed £40.5m of taxpayers' money through Rishi Sunak's furlough scheme after the failed retailer fell into administration, records show. The department store chain - which is now being liquidated after administrator FRP Advisory failed to find a buyer - legally claimed the sum from HMRC between 9 April and 8 October, according to a progress report. - Telegraph
Bill Ackman's Pershing Square will move into the FTSE 100 and replace Homeserve following the quarterly review of the blue-chip index. The billionaire's hedge fund will replace the home repairs firm that is demoted to the FTSE 250 after just two quarters in the top tier. Last month Pershing's $11.4bn portfolio gained 13.4pc, lifting net gains for the first 11 months of the year to 62.8pc, according to a company filing. Its stock has climbed over 100pc since listing in 2017. It was listed on Euronext in Amsterdam in 2014 and in London three years later. - Telegraph
At the height of the pandemic, Britain imported more goods from China than from any other country, for the first time on record. One pound in every £7 of goods bought by the UK came from China in the second quarter. Chinese companies sold goods worth £11 billion to Britain, with a big jump in textiles, such as medical masks for the NHS, and electrical machinery, such as home computers for remote working. - The Times
US close
Wall Street stocks closed in a mixed state on Wednesday, after some disappointing data from the ADP.
At the close, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 0.2% at 29,883.79 and the S&P 500 was 0.18% stronger at 3,669.01, while the Nasdaq Composite finished off the session 0.05% softer at 12,349.37
The Dow closed 59.87 points higher, cutting into gains recorded in the previous session after lawmakers proposed a $908.0bn stimulus plan, only to see it shot down by Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell later in the day.
In focus earlier in the day was news that the UK had approved Pfizer and BioNTech's Covid-19 vaccine candidate for emergency use, signalling yet another major step in the battle against the coronavirus.
Shares in Pfizer gained 3.53% by the close in New York.
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