Weekly review
By Josh White
Date: Friday 05 Dec 2025
(Sharecast News) - The FTSE 100 ended the week down 53.54 points, or 0.55%, closing at 9,667.01 on Friday.
Equity view
Consumer goods giant Unilever announced on Friday that the demerger of its ice cream business, now named The Magnum Ice Cream Company, will complete on 6 December. Unilever said Magnum Ice Cream Company shares were expected to commence trading on Euronext Amsterdam, the London Stock Exchange, and the New York Stock Exchange on 8 December.
Safety equipment and technology group Halma has announced the £230m acquisition of E2S Group, a London-based manufacturer of industrial hazard detection devices. E2S, which has operations in the UK, US and France, makes notification, initiation and detection devices mainly used in highly hazardous environments in heavy industries and complex manufacturing. It is estimated to generate revenues of £44m in 2025.
Tech group 1Spatial has won a £4.2m contract by Ordnance Survey to support a government initiative to build a digital map of underground pipes and cables. The contract, which incorporates licence revenues of £1.5m, is for two years initially with the option to extend for a further three.
Self-service vending machines group ME Group has officially terminated its offer period, after having not received an adequate approach from a third party. The company entered an offer period in June after saying it was evaluating strategic options to enhance shareholder value.
Telecommunications giant Vodafone said on Thursday that its African subsidiary, Vodacom, has agreed to acquire an effective 20% stake in Safaricom, Kenya's leading telecoms operator. Vodacom will acquire 15% from the Government of Kenya for €1.36bn in cash, and 5% from Vodafone for €450m in cash.
AJ Bell announced a share buyback of up to £50m on Thursday as it hailed a record full-year performance, with "excellent" growth in customer numbers. In the year to the end of September, revenue rose 18% to £317.8m, with pre-tax profit 22% higher at £137.8m.
Watches of Switzerland reiterated its full-year guidance on Thursday after a "strong" first half, with revenue and profit higher thanks to "robust" growth in the US. In the 26 weeks to 26 October, group revenue rose 10% at constant currency from the same period a year earlier to £845m, with adjusted earnings before interest and tax 6% higher at £69m and statutory pre-tax profit up 50% to £61m.
Infrastructure group Balfour Beatty said on Thursday that it was on track to meet full-year expectations as it pointed to strong cash and order book growth. In an update for the period to 4 December, the company said the order book is expected to grow 20% in 2025 from the previous year's £18.4bn, driven largely by UK Construction, where the ongoing momentum in the energy market has contributed to over £3.5bn of new power generation orders in the year.
Private hospitals operator Spire Healthcare pointed to a slowdown in NHS commissioning on Wednesday as it warned full-year earnings would come in at the bottom end of guidance. Spire said revenues grew 3.6% year-on-year in the four months ended 31 October, as self-pay demand continued to improve. However, Spire cautioned that reduced NHS activity, linked to Integrated Care Board budget restrictions, would weigh on performance.
UK engineer Senior said it had won a multi-year contract by Airbus to design and make parts to transport fluids on dual and single aisle commercial aircraft. The company on Wednesday added that the deal provided significant further potential in the spares and repairs markets. Delivery will start in the first quarter of 2026.
HSBC Holdings said on Wednesday that it has named former KPMG partner Brendan Nelson as group chair following a protracted search. Nelson, 76, has served as interim chair since 1 October. He first joined the board in September 2023.
Price comparison website operator Moneysupermarket highlighted strong second‑half momentum on Wednesday, with growth in its money and energy divisions offsetting insurance headwinds. Moneysupermarket said revenues and adjusted underlying earnings continued to rise in the five months ended 30 November, underpinned by improved borrowing trends and robust credit card availability.
Budget airline Wizz Air carried 5.25 million passengers in November, an 8.6% increase year-on-year, with seat capacity rising 9.5% to 5.79 million. Load factor - the number of available seats sold - remained robust at 90.7%, indicating sustained demand and efficient capacity utilisation amid network expansion.
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. The FTSE 100-listed firm stated the warehouse will be built to "the highest of sustainability standards", offering the occupier "the most modern, energy efficient space" for their operations.
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 profit 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.
Precision engineering group Hunting's Hunting Energy Services Production Technology subsidiary has won its first sampling and testing contract in Brazil. Hunting said the deal marks a strategic breakthrough into South America for its Oil Optimisation and Recovery technology, and was the first new territory entered since buying the business in March 2025.
The chief financial officer of Melrose Industries is to step down, the blue chip aerospace firm announced on Monday. Matthew Gregory, 56, has informed the board that he plans to retire in 2026, two years after taking up the role.
JPMorgan European Discovery Trust outperformed the wider market over the six months to 30 September, as the investment trust expressed confidence about the prospects for small and mid-caps across the continent. The company, which says it is focused on "young, dynamic businesses at the heart of global innovation", reported a total return on net asset value per share of 20.7% during the period, compared with the MSCI Europe (ex UK) Small Cap Index which rose 15.4%, marking an outperformance of 5.3 percentage points.
Specialist investor Target Healthcare REIT said on Monday it had acquired three operational care homes in Central Scotland and contracted on a forward commitment to purchase a fourth, in deals worth £45m. Target Healthcare said the investment reflected a blended net initial yield of more than 6%, reinvested over half of the proceeds from its recent disposals, and would be immediately earnings accretive.
Economic news
UK house price growth stalled in November in the run-up to the Budget, according to figures released by Halifax on Friday. House prices were flat on the month, having risen 0.5% in October. On the year, meanwhile, growth slowed to 0.7% last month from 1.9% in October. This was the weakest rate of growth since March 2024.
UK retail footfall fell again in November, dented by bad weather and uncertainty ahead of the Budget, according to figures released on Friday by the British Retail Consortium. The BRC-Sensormatic footfall monitor showed that total footfall fell 0.8% following a 0.7% decline in October. High street footfall was down 1.2% in November, having risen 0.6% the month before.
The UK automotive market weakened in November as new car and van registrations declined, with the industry warning that upcoming tax changes risked undermining already fragile demand for electric vehicles. New car registrations fell 1.6% to 151,154 units, marking the sector's sixth monthly drop this year, according to the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders.
The UK construction sector suffered its worst downturn in November for five and a half years in the run-up to the Budget, according to a survey released on Thursday. The S&P Global construction purchasing managers' index slid to 39.4 from 44.1 in October. This marked the lowest level since May 2020 and was again below the 50.0 level that separates contraction from expansion.
The Financial Conduct Authority will lift its freeze on handling motor finance complaints on 31 May next year, ending a pause that began nearly two years ago while regulators assessed industry commission disclosure practices. The move brings forward the original proposed end date of 31 July 2026 and followed legal clarity from both the Supreme Court and the High Court on how lenders should process large volumes of cases.
Growth in the UK services sector slowed in November amid weakening conditions and fragile client confidence, according to a survey released on Wednesday. The S&P Global services PMI business activity index fell to 51.3 from 52.3 in October. Still, this was above the 50.0 mark that separates contraction from expansion and higher than the flash estimate of 50.5.
Economic growth is set to slow in the UK next year, an influential think tank forecast on Tuesday, weighed down by the impact of tax rises on consumption. According to the latest global economic outlook from the Paris-based Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, the UK economy will grow by 1.2% in 2026, down from its forecast 1.4% this year.
British consumer confidence softened in November, a survey showed on Tuesday, as concerns about job security and Budget jitters weighed heavily. The latest consumer confidence index from YouGov and the Centre for Economic and Business Research (Cebr) came in 108.0, a 1.2 point decline on the previous month.
The Bank of England flagged increased risks to the UK's financial system on Tuesday, including sky-high valuations of tech companies, while also trimming the amount of capital banks need to hold in reserve. Publishing its half-yearly Financial Stability Report, the central bank's Financial Policy Committee confirmed: "Risks to financial stability have increased during 2025.
The head of Britain's independent economic forecaster has quit after an emergency inquiry into the early release of last week's Budget statement, which also revealed that a similar security breach had occurred earlier this year. Richard Hughes, chair of the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), resigned on Monday afternoon. He had commissioned former National Cyber Security Centre boss Ciaran Martin to help with a swift investigation into the embarrassing incident.
International events
The European Commission said on Friday that it has fined Elon Musk's X €120m for breaching EU digital laws. The Commission opened formal proceedings in December 2023 to assess whether X - formerly Twitter - may have breached the Digital Services Act (DSA).
Cloudflare suffered a significant outage on Friday that disrupted access to a wide range of major websites and services, marking its second major incident in less than a month. Platforms including LinkedIn, Zoom, Canva, Shopify, Coinbase, and gaming services such as Fortnite were briefly rendered inaccessible.
The eurozone economy expanded slightly more than originally estimated in the third quarter of 2025, according to revised figures from Eurostat on Friday, as growth picked up from its lowest rate in one and a half years. Gross domestic product across the single-currency region rose by 0.3% in the July to September period, ahead of earlier projections of 0.2%.
The monthly increase in factory orders across Germany slowed in October, according to the Federal Statistical Office on Friday, but still came in higher than analysts had expected. Factory orders rose 1.5% in October, following a revised 2.0% increase in September, Destatis reported, marking the second month of growth after four straight declines.
Meta Platforms' Mark Zuckerberg is reportedly set to meaningfully cut resources for building the so-called metaverse, an effort that he once framed as the future of the company and the reason for changing its name from Facebook. According to Bloomberg, which cited people familiar with the talks, executives are considering potential budget cuts as high as 30% for the metaverse group next year. This includes the virtual worlds product Meta Horizon Worlds and its Quest virtual reality unit.
Amazon is considering a major overhaul of its US delivery operations that could end its longstanding partnership with the US Postal Service and shift billions of parcels into its own expanding logistics network. The move was revealed in a report from the Washington Post, which is owned by Amazon founder and executive chairman Jeff Bezos. It followed the collapse of negotiations over a new service agreement, raising the prospect of Amazon withdrawing from America's federal postal system when its current contract expires in October 2026.
Shares in Dollar General were set to rise strongly when US markets opened on Thursday after the American discount retailer raised its full-year outlook on the back of a strong third-quarter sales performance. The company, which operates from nearly 21,000 locations nationwide, said it now expects net sales for the fiscal year ending 30 January 2026 to rise by 4.7% to 4.9%, ahead of previous guidance of 4.3-4.8% growth, while the same-store sales growth forecast has been lifted to 2.5-2.7% from 2.1-2.6%.
Americans lined up for unemployment benefits at a decelerated clip in the week ended 29 November, according to the Department of Labor, marking a fourth consecutive weekly drop. Initial jobless claims dropped by by 27,000 to 191,000, well below market expectations of 220,000 and the lowest print in three years.
Shares in Dutch healthtech giant Philips dropped sharply in Amsterdam on Thursday as comments from its chief executive about the 2026 outlook underwhelmed investors. At the company's Global Healthcare Conference, which coincided with the release of its third-quarter results, Roy Jakobs said that organic sales growth likely won't double from the 2% rate estimated for 2025, missing the current 4.5% outcome expected by analysts for 2026.
The European Commission launched an antitrust investigation into Meta over concerns that new business terms governing artificial intelligence providers' access to WhatsApp could stifle competition, according to a report in the Financial Times. The probe reportedly centres on whether the US company's updated conditions prevented rival AI developers from offering their services on the messaging platform.
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