Drax enters fuel ash facility venture, LondonMetric agrees to acquire Highcroft
By Josh White
Date: Thursday 27 Mar 2025
(Sharecast News) - London open
The FTSE 100 is expected to open 46 points lower on Thursday, having closed up 0.3% on Wednesday at 8,689.59.
Stocks to watch
Drax said it has agreed a 20-year joint venture agreement with Power Minerals to build a facility to process pulverised fuel ash into material which can be sold to the construction industry and used in the production of cement with a lower carbon footprint. The project could generate incremental adjusted core earnings of £5m a year for Drax post 2027 through to 2046, the company said on Thursday.
LondonMetric Property has agreed to acquire Highcroft Investments in an all-share deal, it announced on Thursday, valuing Highcroft at £43.8m, representing a 40.4% premium to its latest share price. Highcroft shareholders would receive 4.65 new LondonMetric shares for each Highcroft share and would retain both Highcroft's recently declared 35p interim dividend and LondonMetric's upcoming quarterly dividend. The acquisition, unanimously recommended by Highcroft's board and backed by over 60% of shareholders, was expected to complete by 21 May via a court-sanctioned scheme of arrangement.
Newspaper round-up
Major investors including Axa and Scottish Widows are backing shareholder resolutions pressing retailers Next, Marks & Spencer and JD Sports to increase pay for thousands of workers. More than 100 individuals and eight institutional investors, which manage over £1tn in assets, are backing an effort to encourage companies to pay a "real living wage", which is designed to ensure workers can cover necessary household costs. - Guardian
Donald Trump announced plans to impose sweeping 25% tariffs on cars from overseas on Wednesday, days before the US president is expected to announce wide-ranging levies on other goods from around the world. "What we're going to be doing is a 25% tariff for all cars that are not made in the United States," Trump said in the Oval Office. "We start off with a 2.5% base, which is what we're at, and go to 25%." - Guardian
Britain's warehouse owners must be on standby to house weaponry for Western military, the chief executive of a major landlord has said. Andrew Coombs heads up Sirius Real Estate and served in the Territorial Army (TA) during the Cold War. He said his company is factoring military storage into all its investment decisions in the face of Russian aggression, which has triggered a surge in defence spending across the UK and EU. - Telegraph
Labour's tax rises and workers' rights bill have left the UK's bosses "pretty p----d off", the head of Britain's biggest business group has said. Rupert Soames, the chairman of the Confederation of British Industry (CBI), said bosses were becoming "irritated" with the Government, adding that dealing with the consequences of Angela Rayner's workers' rights bill would be "very difficult". - Telegraph
UK government debt and stocks rallied on Wednesday after the chancellor was warned of a near-£600 billion debt interest bill over the next five years amid hundreds of billions of pounds of new borrowing. Yields on the UK's benchmark ten-year bond edged down after the Debt Management Office (DMO), the organisation tasked with selling government debt, said it would issue fewer bonds than investors had envisioned. - The Times
US close
Stocks on Wall Street closed weaker on Wednesday, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average finishing down 0.31% at 42,454.79.
The S&P 500 lost 1.12% to 5,712.20, and the Nasdaq Composite was off 2.04% at 17,899.02.
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