Wizz Air passenger numbers rise in November, Kier CFO to step down
By Iain Gilbert
Date: Tuesday 02 Dec 2025
(Sharecast News) - LONDON PRE-OPEN
The FTSE 100 was expected to open 10.2 points softer ahead of the bell on Tuesday after wrapping up the previous session 0.18% lower at 9,702.53.
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Property investment and development firm Segro has inked a pre-let development agreement with a major international retailer for an 86,000 square metre distribution centre in Germany's Rhine-Ruhr region. Segro said construction was expected to start on site in Spring 2026 and was due to complete in mid-2027.
Budget airline Wizz Air carried 5.25m passengers in November, an 8.6% increase year-on-year, with seat capacity rising 9.5% to 5.79m. Load factor, the number of available seats sold, remained robust at 90.7%, indicating sustained demand and efficient capacity utilisation amid network expansion. Wizz added that it took delivery of its 250th aircraft on 28 November and still holds more than 260 orders for Airbus A321neo planes.
Construction firm Kier Group revealed on Tuesday that chief financial officer Simon Kesterton will be stepping down from the board on 31 December, after six years in the role. The FTSE 250-listed firm said Tom Hinton, who currently serves as Wincanton's interim chief executive, will be appointed to succeed Kesterton as CFO on 1 January.
Polymers group Victrex has launched a "profit improvement plan" targeting £10m of savings, after underlying earnings dropped 21% over the 12 months to 30 September. Underlying pre-tax profits totalled £46.4m, down from £59.1m the year before, due to currency movements, the cost of setting up a new plant in China and an adverse sales mix, while group revenues rose just 1% to £292.7m.
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As the battle lines harden amid Germany's intensifying pressure on the European Commission to scrap the 2035 ban on production of new petrol and diesel cars, two Swedish car companies, Volvo and Polestar, are leading the campaign to persuade Brussels to stick to the date. They argue such a move is a desperate attempt to paper over the cracks in the German car industry, adding that it will not just prolong take up of electric vehicles but inadvertently hand the advantage to China. - Guardian
Zipcar is closing down in the UK after a new congestion charge from Sir Sadiq Khan threatened to push up costs for drivers. On Monday, the car rental app said it would pull out of Britain by the end of the year amid a new charge for electric vehicles driving into London's congestion zone as a well rising electricity costs. - Telegraph
BP has shelved plans to build a major hydrogen project in Teesside in a fresh blow to Ed Miliband's net zero plans. The oil giant withdrew its request to the Government on Monday to build the project after it clashed with separate plans backed by Sir Keir Starmer to construct the largest data centre in Europe. It comes after Downing Street selected a former steel site in Teesside as the home for its second AI Growth Zone, with Labour banking on the technology to help turbocharge the economy. - Telegraph
A businessman whose company was accused of selling bogus engine parts to the airline industry in a "significant and audacious fraud", leading to the temporary grounding of planes in 2023, faces up to a decade in prison after pleading guilty to fraudulent trading. Jose Alejandro Zamora Yrala, 37, admitted one charge of fraud in relation to operating AOG Technics for a fraudulent purpose by "falsifying documentation relating to the origin, provenance, status and/or condition of aircraft parts" between January 2019 and December 2023. - The Times
US CLOSE
Major indices were at the close on Monday, snapping a five-day winning streak, as tech stocks and crypto weakness weighed on sentiment.
At the close, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was 0.90% lower at 47,289.33, while the S&P 500 shed 0.53% to 6,812.63, and the Nasdaq Composite saw out the session 0.38% weaker at 23,275.92.
Reporting by Iain Gilbert at Sharecast.com
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