The Times
Alphabet’s drone project proves a titanic failure: Ambitious plans by technology companies to beam broadband from the sky have been dealt a further blow after it emerged that Alphabet has scrapped its internet drone programme.
Amazon on American hiring spree: Amazon has trumpeted a massive hiring spree in the U.S., promising to create 100,000 full-time jobs in the next 18 months, in a move widely seen as an attempt to curry favour with Donald Trump a week before his inauguration.
ECB extends bond-buying despite dissent: The European Central Bank has extended its bond-buying programme till the end of the year, despite dissent from some members of its ruling council concerned at the implications of continuing the debt purchases.
Supergroup’s figures are padded out by new jacket: Whether it was a gilet or the double-zip hooded “Super Fuji”, padded coats have helped SuperGroup report a hefty rise in first half sales and profits.
Home energy switchers still getting it wrong: Households are switching energy providers in record numbers but the regulator says millions of consumers are still probably on the wrong tariff.
First refunds after cruise group collapse: Holidaymakers who booked cruises with Swan Hellenic and Voyages of Discovery have started receiving refunds totalling £2 million under the Abta scheme after All Leisure Group, their parent company, collapsed last week.
Hospital delay sends Spire shares spiralling: Almost £150 million was wiped off the market value of Spire Healthcare yesterday after the company admitted its profits would be hit by delays in the redevelopment of one of its biggest private hospitals.
Tata settles on insider to replace ousted Chairman: Tata Sons, India’s largest conglomerate, has chosen an insider to succeed Cyrus Mistry, who was ousted as Executive Chairman in October.
Judge backs pensions Chief in battle with Silentnight: The Pensions Regulator has won a legal victory in its fight to bring a £17.2 million anti-avoidance claim over the retirement scheme of Silentnight, the bed manufacturer, three years after issuing a warning notice against its owner.
Tax cuts threaten America’s triple-A rating, Fitch warns: America was warned it risks losing its top tier credit rating if Donald Trump’s promise to cut taxes is put into play.
Home furnisher is hit by Brexit and the weather: Poor weather, Brexit and disruption in the supply chain were blamed for a weaker than expected Christmas trading update from Britain’s biggest homewares retailer.
Europe sales steer Bentley to record: Bentley Motors has clawed back all sales lost during China’s blitz on corruption and conspicuous consumption thanks to deals with Germans and Russians.
The Independent
Diesel emission allegations just lost Fiat $2.3 billion: Shares in Fiat Chrysler plunged on Thursday after U.S. authorities said that the carmaker had violated the Clean Air Act by allowing excess diesel emissions in some vehicles.
Wages for the lowest-paid men have been stagnant for two decades: Pay for the poorest fifth of men has been flat for twenty years, according to a new report for the Institute for Fiscal Studies.
George Soros takes $1 billion hit from Donald Trump’s election victory: A Donald Trump-inspired stock market rally, in the wake of the U.S. election, dealt a billion dollar blow to financier George Soros.
Swansea Bay project: Tidal lagoons cheaper than ‘almost any other source of power’, concludes energy expert: Harnessing the tides could provide major amounts of cheap, reliable and renewable energy, according to the author of a report commissioned by the Government into what could be the world’s first lagoon power plant.
John Lewis staff bonuses ‘likely to be significantly lower’: The owner of department store chain John Lewis has warned that staff bonuses could be slashed this year, as the effects of a weaker pound start to sting.
Financial Times
Lloyds customers unable to access accounts after IT glitch: Thousands of Lloyds Banking Group customers have had problems accessing their accounts as a technology glitch has affected the bank’s app and website for the past two days.
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Anadarko sells Eagleford Shale assets for $2.3 billion: Anadarko Petroleum has agreed to sell its Eagleford Shale assets in south Texas to Sanchez Energy and Blackstone Group for about $2.3 billion.
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Investment in green energy falls 18%: Global green energy investment has plunged by the largest amount in more than a decade as a spending splurge in China and Japan has levelled off and the price of solar panels continues to fall.
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Hess shares fall 8% even as it eyes more capital spending in 2017: Hess shares fell by the most in 11 months on Thursday after the energy company announced it would take more than $4.6 billion in charges for the fourth quarter, even as it prepares to nudge up capital and exploratory spending in the coming year.
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Oil prices rally on Saudi production cut: Oil continued its see-saw start to the new year, registering its biggest advance in six weeks on Thursday after Opec’s biggest producer said that it had slashed output to the lowest level in almost two years.
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Second trader pleads guilty in U.S. forex antitrust probe: A second trader has pleaded guilty to charges of conspiring to fix prices in the foreign-exchange market, U.S. prosecutors said Thursday.
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FSB sets out blueprint to make asset management sector safer: Financial regulators will be able to force asset managers to stop investors getting immediate access to their cash in exceptional circumstances as part of global recommendations to make the burgeoning asset-management sector safer.
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Top Morgan Stanley execs netted $17 million in post-election share sales: Seven Morgan Stanley Executives have netted about $17 million selling their shares in the bank since Donald Trump’s election, capitalising on a jump in financial stocks driven by his victory.
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UBI Banca offers €1 to buy three rescued banks: UBI Banca has confirmed it has made an offer of 1 euro to buy three small banks rescued by the Italian state in 2015.
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CAA sells pension liabilities to Pension Insurance Corporation: The Civil Aviation Authority has signed a £90 million deal with Pension Insurance Corporation, kicking off what is expected to be a bumper year for pension liability transactions.
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Binary trading group winds down after regulatory issues: Banc de Binary, a controversial and high-profile global online trading platform that sponsored Liverpool Football Club, is renouncing its licence after incurring regulatory penalties.
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Sanofi confident it can overturn Praluent patent ruling: Under pressure to deliver a new blockbuster medicine, Sanofi, France’s biggest drugmaker, bet big on a new class of cholesterol-lowering products with its Praluent treatment.
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Volkswagen Executive denied bail over emissions scandal: A federal judge on Thursday denied bail to a Volkswagen Executive who took an ill-timed vacation to Florida and was arrested only days before the company agreed to pay a $4.3 billion criminal fine to the U.S. government.
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AT&T Chief says he didn’t discuss Time Warner merger during Trump meeting: AT&T Chief Executive Randall Stephenson met with U.S. President-elect Donald Trump at the Trump Tower on Thursday, but the telecoms group says the pending AT&T-Time Warner mega-merger was “not a topic of discussion”.
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Primark hails strong Christmas but warns over weak pound: Primark said its U.K. stores traded well over the Christmas period and had taken market share off other retailers, but the fast-fashion chain warned profits this year would be hit by the weak pound.
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Nintendo shares slide ahead of Switch press conference: Nintendo shares are dropping like an Italian plumber down a drainpipe ahead of a press conference in Japan that should reveal further details about its upcoming console, the Switch.
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U.S. nears settlement with Takata over exploding airbags: Takata, the Japanese automotive supplier at the centre of a global recall crisis over its exploding airbags, is expected to plead guilty as early as Friday to criminal wrongdoing in the U.S., as the Obama administration targets the global auto industry with a final burst of fines over environmental and safety issues.
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CMA clears Bernard Matthews turkey takeover: The U.K.’s competition authority has cleared Ranjit Boparan’s purchase of Bernard Matthews, Europe’s largest turkey producer which went into administration last year.
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European football clubs net profit increase of €1.5 billion: European football clubs have increased profits by €1.5 billion over the past two seasons, after sustaining years of heavy losses, as so-called financial fair play rules kicked in.
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Lex:
Fiat Chrysler: Fuming: The Environmental Protection Agency has responded more rapidly to the emissions scandal at Volkswagen, and on Thursday, after putting more cars through a battery of tests, it accused Fiat Chrysler of illegally releasing toxic fumes into the atmosphere.
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McDonald’s: lovin’ it no longer: While some ponder whether coffee will outperform burgers this year, McDonald’s has concluded a $2.1 billion sale of 80% of its business in China and Hong Kong. Here, consumers prefer competitor Yum’s chicken over the food chain’s red meat.
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Tidal power: going with the flow: Plans for an artificial lagoon on the Welsh coast depend on the figure being low enough for Brits to stomach. If so, many more lagoons could be built, turning the U.K. into a Saudi Arabia of the tides.
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TSMC: chippy: Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company delivers exactly what it says on the label: for 30 years it has made pretty much nothing but chips. Producing these to customers’ designs has been profitable. Yet TSMC suffers an image problem.
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UniCredit: paying up: Bankers are not known for their self-denial. So Jean-Pierre Mustier, the Chief Executive of UniCredit, should be applauded for donning a hair shirt in the form of a voluntary two-fifths cut in his salary as he tries to salvage Italy’s biggest lender.
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Marks and Spencer: thread bear: Steve Rowe, the newish Chief Executive of Marks and Spencer, is not enamoured with the tradition of using quarterly like-for-like sales as a performance indicator. He is right to be circumspect. Department store retailing is not a growth business, so growth metrics have little relevance.
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Lombard:
Never mind the quality, feel the width: Just because Marks and Spencer managed to increase sales of all things elasticated to the superannuated, it seems unlikely that other retailers will now update, or outdate, their stock. But Thursday’s trading updates from these high-street names, and more, suggest that some may want to emulate M&S’s mature approach to pricing.
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The Daily Telegraph
National Grid avoids break-up with spin-off plan: National Grid has sidestepped a major corporate dismantling by the energy regulator in favour of an arms-length separation of its dual roles in the energy system.
Guardian U.S. Chief Executive exits after ‘a difficult few months: The Executive hired by the Guardian to build up its American business has stepped down after two and a half years in the job, amid deep cost cuts and missed revenue targets.
U.K. companies would cope with ‘hard Brexit’, says Fitch Boss: British companies across all sectors will remain resilient after the country leaves the European Union, even if the U.K. heads for a “hard Brexit”, according to Fitch.
Premier Oil’s financial reboot expected in weeks: Premier Oil’s major lenders are poised to hit the reset button on the debt-hit U.K. oil explorer within weeks after agreeing the commercial terms to one of the most complex financial restructuring deals in the North Sea’s history.
Fund manager Jupiter hit by surprise client withdrawal: Investors have sold off Jupiter’s shares after the fund manager reported a surprising exodus of client money in an otherwise bumper period in the financial markets.
High street names hail bumper Christmas sales on retail ‘super Thursday’: It’s a retail bonzana today with a multitude of big names on the high street revealing how they fared over Christmas. The festive trading period is the most important part of the year for retailers, accounting for a large chunk of their sales and profits.
Marks & Spencer reports long-awaited rise in clothing sales: Marks & Spencer has stopped the rot in its clothing division with its best Christmas sales performance since 2011. The high-street bellwether has posted a 2.3% lift in like-for-like clothing and home sales for the 13 weeks to December 31 after gaining share in all areas.
The Questor Column:
Shareholders’ patience has been tested, but at a 5% discount this trust is a buy: The flotation of Neil Woodford’s Patient Capital Trust two years ago drew unprecedented attention to the sleepy investment trust sector. Thousands of investors subscribed a record £800 million, far exceeding the float’s initial £500 million target. The ultimate rewards for the providers of this “patient capital” are high, he argues, and the trust aims to deliver 10% returns per year over time. In a sign that the market’s enthusiasm for Mr Woodford’s approach has waned, shares are trading at around 5% below the value of the trust’s underlying holdings. Patient Capital Trust, by contrast, is far more tilted toward medium-sized, smaller and very early stage companies. Around half the trust is invested in early stage companies, with the remainder split between various sizes of more established businesses. Patient Capital is a big-bet play, even if some of the risk is moderated by holdings in a few blue-chips firms such as Glaxo and Legal & General, held until last year. The trust’s current largest holding (a huge 17% of the portfolio) is in Prothena, an $1.8 billion company listed on Nasdaq. Shares have risen more 50% this year in sterling terms. The trust is admirably transparent about its holdings and has an attractive fee structure. It charges a small fee to cover trading costs – around 0.18% per year – but otherwise Woodford takes no money unless the trust delivers the hoped-for 10% return per year. Provided its concentrated, high-conviction style and long-term nature is taken into account, at this price it is worth a close look. Woodford Patient Capital Trust. Questor says “Tentative Buy”.
The Guardian
Top fund manager likens Trump market rally to dotcom bubble: Britain’s best known fund manager has likened the current stock market euphoria to the dotcom bubble, even as the FTSE 100 closed at yet another record high.
Toblerone maker to hike price of Cadbury’s Freddo bars: The company which cut the weight of Toblerone bars by widening the gaps between the chocolate peaks is now slapping a 20% price rise on Cadbury’s Freddo bars.
ILO warns of rise in social unrest and migration as inequality widens: Rising unemployment, inequality and a lack of decent jobs have helped fuel a rise in social unrest that threatens to intensify unless policymakers take swift action, the UN’s labour agency has warned.
Tesco hails turnaround as festive sales increase: Tesco hopes to deliver better than expected annual profits after higher sales of food, clothes and toys in the U.K. resulted in a strong Christmas performance.
BA cabin crew to hold further three-day strike over ‘poverty pay’: Almost 3,000 cabin crew from British Airways’ mixed fleet branch at Heathrow will strike again next week in a row over what the union describes as poverty pay.
Netflix targets BBC family audience with Lemony Snicket remake: Netflix is poised to launch its take on Lemony Snicket’s dark children’s tale A Series of Unfortunate Events, targeting the family drama audience traditionally catered for by ITV and the BBC.
Daily Mail
Low cost gym group powers on as it celebrates 22.6% boost in sales: Low-cost fitness firm The Gym Group believes it is poised for a Brexit boost as customers turn to cheaper memberships amid uncertainty.
Barratt Developments warns of house sale fall in London as figures drop by 50% from the previous year: Barratt Developments reported a 6% drop in house sales following a sharp fall in business in London. The FTSE 100 builder said it sold 7,180 new homes in 2016 – down from 7,626 the previous year.
Daily Express
Asda has been crowned the cheapest supermarket in 2016: Asda has been named the cheapest supermarket of 2016 among the major U.K. grocers by a consumer group.
FTSE 100 record run continues with incredible 13th consecutive day of gains: Britain’s top stock index extended its record winning streak after closing up for the 13th consecutive trading session on Thursday.
The Scottish Herald
Brexit clouds outlook as Scots insolvencies rise: The number of Scottish businesses which entered insolvency climbed by seven per cent last year, as the worst fears about the fall-out from the oil and gas downturn were not realised in the north east.
Menzies sees solid trading ahead of sell-off: John Menzies ended the year trading in line with expectations after a good performance in its aviation business and solid trading throughout its distribution business.
Aberdeen firm to drill off Norway: Faroe Petroleum has agreed with partners to drill an appraisal well on the Brasse discovery it made in the Norwegian North Sea last year in a move that reflects confidence in the find’s potential.
Activist investor becomes biggest shareholder in Johnston Press: Shares in Johnston Press have surged by more than 13% after activist investor Crystal Amber became the biggest shareholder in the newspaper group, writes Scott Wright.
Exova updates on 2016 trading: Edinburgh-based Exova Group has said trading for November and December was in line with Directors’ expectations. The materials testing firm’s guidance for its performance in 2016 has not changed since November.
Farrar to leave Edrington post: Bill Farrar is to step down from its role leading whisky giant Edrington’s high-end spirits division in the summer.
Losses double for Dawnfresh: Dawnfresh Holdings has seen losses more than double during a year of transition at the seafood company
Premier Oil keen on North Sea amid production challenges off Shetland: North Sea oil and gas giant Premier Oil has said production from its flagship Solan development West of Shetland will likely run well below expectations until next year as it grapples with technical challenges.
The Scotsman
Briggs rides out stormy conditions with rise in revenues: Fife-based Briggs Marine & Environmental Services has battled choppy conditions in the oil and gas markets to report a rise in annual turnover.
BrewDog hits out at ‘deluded’ council in land sale row: A leading Scottish brewery has branded Aberdeenshire Council ‘deluded’ in a row over the sale of land.
Conifers show strength of Scotland’s forestry industry: Scotland’s conifer forests are the biggest in the U.K., with more than a million hectares of conifer woodland across the country.
‘Perfect storm’ as Edinburgh office demand outstrips supply: Continued rising demand for office space across Edinburgh coupled with a lack of new developments coming on stream means a “perfect storm” is brewing in the capital’s commercial property market this year, according to property experts.
500 jobs to be axed as Kwik Fit’s Glasgow office closes: More than 500 jobs are to go with the closure of a Kwik Fit Insurance office near Glasgow. Workers at the office in Uddingston, South Lanarkshire, were informed of the decision on Thursday, confirming a plan set out in November.
City A.M.
Ireland targets U.K. fintech startups mulling Brexit contingency plans: The Irish government is eyeing up the U.K.’s thriving fintech sector and will make a bid to attract startups to Dublin directly in the wake of the Brexit vote, City A.M. has learned.
Gaps in net household incomes are falling, according to the IFS: Inequality in net household incomes has declined over the last 20 years according to a new report from the Institute for Fiscal Studies – the second set of figures this week to reveal a narrowing gap between Brits at the top and bottom of the scale.
Foundations of the housing white paper are still being laid as Prime Minister Theresa May asks for more meat on the bones: The long-awaited housing white paper is still weeks from publication as the government looks for ways to beef it up so that it passes muster with the Prime Minister Theresa May. The flagship policy document was originally pencilled in for publication late last year.
Barclays advises government on latest student loans sell-off push: Bankers have been appointed by the government as it seeks to sell-off up to £12 billion-worth of student loans. Ministers are preparing to kick-off the latest sale of loans issued to students before 2012, and City A.M. has learned Barclays is advising on the deal.
Unicredit shareholders approve Italy’s largest ever rights issue of €13 billion: Shareholders at Unicredit have today given the thumbs up to the bank’s €13 billion rights issue. Italy’s largest bank announced the country’s largest ever rights issue last month in a bid to rebalance its finances as part of its ongoing turnaround plan, with the shares set to be issued by June.
Hays Finance Chief says Brexit uncertainty makes hiring overseas a logical choice for City firms: The U.K.’s largest recruitment firm said City firms would choose job creation in Germany or France ahead of Britain while Brexit uncertainty remains.
Eurozone industrial production surge gives surprise growth picture: Industrial production has surged in the Eurozone, setting the scene for an increase in growth in the region.
Shares in Hilton Food Group increased nearly 6% after trading performed ahead of expectations: Hilton Food Group’s shares jumped up today after the international meat packer said its results would surpass expectations.
Londis and Budgens owner Booker Group beats expectations with its sales: Wholesaler Booker Group’s share price rose in trading today after the company reported a rise in sales.
Moss Bros focuses on online sales and improving margins: Menswear retailer Moss Bros scored a healthy sales growth in the second half of 2016 as it focussed on improving its margins and its online offering.
