Assura rejects merger with Primary Health Properties, PageGroup reports continued slowness
By Josh White
Date: Wednesday 09 Apr 2025
(Sharecast News) - London open
The FTSE 100 is expected to open 3.4% lower on Wednesday, having closed up 2.71% on Tuesday to close at 7,910.53.
Stocks to watch
Assura has rejected a £1.5bn merger proposal from Primary Health Properties, saying it "is not at a level that is sufficient to be recommended to shareholders". Under the terms of the PHP Proposal, Assura shareholders would receive 0.3848 new PHP shares and 9.08 pence in cash.
Recruiter PageGroup has said that its slower end to the fourth quarter has continued into the new financial year, with the full-year outlook now uncertain due to an "increasingly unpredictable economic environment". In a statement on Wednesday, chief executive Nicholas Kirk said: "Given the recent introduction of tariffs and the resultant market uncertainty, we are not providing forward-looking guidance on business performance."
DCC announced leadership changes on Wednesday, to support its strategic focus on the energy sector. The FTSE 100 company said chief financial officer Kevin Lucey would become chief operating officer from 10 July, with Conor Murphy succeeding him as CFO and joining the board. Additionally, Fabian Ziegler, chief executive officer of DCC Energy, would leave the company in July after contributing to the development of its energy strategy.
Newspaper round-up
Back in the early months of Covid lockdowns, all the talk in property circles was of would-be house buyers plotting a move to coastal and rural areas as city dwellers prioritised a bigger garden, access to nature and more room for home working. But, five years on, the reshaping of the housing market sparked by the pandemic has gone into reverse, with homes by the sea seemingly losing some of their lustre and fewer people looking to escape from cities, data shows. The property website Rightmove said that, while much had changed since 2020, one constant was a desire among many would-be buyers for a home with more space. - Guardian
A British space company is designing a fleet of satellites that could orbit the moon and map the early universe. The Italian Space Agency has commissioned Blue Skies Space to design satellites that could detect faint radio signals from the dawn of the universe. These signals are almost impossible to detect from Earth's surface due to human-made radio interference, but the far side of the moon is shielded from this noise. - Guardian
Italy has joined the race to challenge Eurostar after its state-owned rail operator pledged €1bn (£860m) to run trains through the Channel Tunnel. FS Italiane said it would join forces with transport group Evolyn to use Italian-made high speed trains on the London to Paris route. The bid comes after the Office for Rail and Road (ORR), the UK rail regulator, ruled there was room for another operator in addition to Eurostar, the French-controlled monopoly which has run services since 1994. - Telegraph
Sir Keir Starmer has inked a £50bn deal with Donald Trump's most-hated media company for a new Hollywood theme park in Bedford. The Prime Minister has given the green light to the Universal theme park and resort, which will be built on a 480-acre plot of land in Bedfordshire and open to visitors 365 days a year. Universal claims the resort, which will be one of the largest in Europe when it opens in 2031, will create roughly 28,000 jobs and deliver a £50bn boost to the economy. - Telegraph
New plans have been submitted for the £1 billion-plus redevelopment of Liverpool Street station in the City of London. Network Rail has been exploring for a number of years how it could improve Britain's busiest railway station, which opened in 1875, but has run into opposition from heritage groups in the past. - The Times
US close
US stocks sank sharply again on Tuesday despite starting off the session with decent gains, after Donald Trump followed through on his threat to hike tariffs on China, sending the S&P 500 to its lowest close in 14 months.
Markets initially rose strongly as investors attempted to pick up bargains after three days of heavy selling, but newsflow from the White House erased all gains by the early afternoon, and resulted in yet another sell-off across Wall Street.
The S&P 500 closed 1.6% lower (-80 points) at 4,983 - its first close below the 5,000 mark since February 2024 - with more than 350 points separating its intraday high and low. The Dow fell 0.8% to 37,646, while the Nasdaq sank 2.2% to 15,268.
In late-afternoon remarks, the White House confirmed that levies on Chinese imports into the US would be raised to 104% - slapping an additional 50% tariffs on the duties already announced last week - in response to Beijing's retaliation against Trump's initial tariff barrage.
Nevertheless, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the administration was still up for negotiating with trading partners and claimed the US could "end up with some good deals". Trump had said earlier in the day that he was in talks with "many" leaders regarding deals.
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