Rotork reaffirms FY guidance, Severn Trent CEO to step down
By Michele Maatouk
Date: Wednesday 19 Nov 2025
(Sharecast News) - London open
The FTSE 100 was called to open around 10 points higher.
Stocks to watch
Engineering firm Rotork unveiled a new £50m buyback as it reaffirmed full-year guidance. The company said its performance in the four months to 31 October saw order intake rise 6% year-on-year with all three divisions ahead and particularly good growth in its chemical, process and industrial unit.
Water group Severn Trent announced that chief executive Liv Garfield is stepping down at the end of the year, and will be replaced by James Jesic, its capital and commercial services director and the managing director of its Welsh division. "Having made a strong start to the largest ever investment programme, Liv and the board agree that this is the right time to transition to a new CEO," Severn Trent said. The news came as the company delivered a 57% increase in pre-tax profits in the first half, as revenues rose 18%.
Newspaper round-up
The start of passenger services on the new East West Rail line will be delayed until at least 2026 with no start date confirmed, the operator has said, partly due to a row over guards on the trains. Passenger trains were supposed to come into service between Oxford and Milton Keynes this autumn, the first stage on the new railway along the Oxford-Cambridge arc where the government hopes for rapid economic growth. - Guardian
Amazon's Zoox is launching its robotaxi service in San Francisco, offering free rides through parts of the city as it accelerates its attempt to challenge Waymo's early lead in the race to transport passengers in self-driving vehicles. The expansion, announced on Tuesday, will be confined to a few major San Francisco neighborhoods and limited to people who signed up on a waiting list to ride in Zoox's gondola-shaped robotaxis, which have no steering wheel. The San Francisco launch comes less than three months after the Amazon-owned robotaxi company launched its first ride-hailing service along the Las Vegas strip. - Guardian
Ed Miliband has ordered a national review of Britain's ageing power grid after the substation fire which shut down Heathrow. The Energy Secretary has demanded the three monopolies running Britain's network - National Grid, Scottish Power Transmission and SSE Networks Transmission - carry out safety audits of all 500 to 600 substations across the UK. - Telegraph
Hewlett Packard (HP) is seeking £1.5bn from the estate of the late British tech tycoon Mike Lynch in a claim likely to wipe out his fortune. The Silicon Valley company has argued it is owed the sum after winning a long-running fraud case over its purchase of Lynch's tech company Autonomy in 2011. - Telegraph
The Liverpool Street branch of Vagabond Wines, the pour-your-own wine bar, is buzzing with twenty and thirty-something office workers exploring self-serve dispensers between sharing platters of steak and camembert, building tasting flights on their phones. It is a world away from its parent company Majestic Wine, whose traditional shops cater for older, more established wine lovers loading cases into their estate cars. For John Colley, chief executive of Majestic, which bought Vagabond out of administration two years ago, that contrast is entirely the point. - The Times
US close
Heightened fears about a bubble in the AI sector hammered US stocks again on Tuesday, while uncertainty regarding a potential interest rate cut in December continued to weigh on sentiment.
The Dow finished 1.1% lower at 46,091.74, its lowest since 16 October as it continues to retreat from last week's record closing high of 48,254.82, having now dropped 4.5% over the past four days.
Meanwhile, the S&P 500 slipped 0.8% to 6,617.32 and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 1.2% to 22,432.85, with both finishing at their lowest levels since 10 October.
Email this article to a friend
or share it with one of these popular networks:
You are here: news
10 Lower Thames St,
London EC3R 6EN