Informa to acquire Penton, Next retail earnings down again

London open

The FTSE 100 is expected to open 21 points lower on Thursday, after closing 0.12% higher at 6,673.31 on Wednesday.

Stocks to watch

Informa, a business intelligence, events and academic publishing company, plans to buy Penton Information Services for £1.2bn. The proposed acquisition, part of the company's growth acceleration plan, will be funded by a fully-underwritten £715m rights issue, which will strengthen its global exhibitions and business intelligence divisions and its presence in the US.

High street fashion stalwart Next showed sales growth across the business in its half-year results on Thursday, but earnings were still facing an uphill battle in its retail division. The FTSE 100 retailer posted sales growth of 0.1% in retail for the six months to July to £1.084bn, with directory sales rising 7.1% to £821.2m and total group sales increasing 2.6% to £1.96bn. Divisional profit at Next retail slipped by 16.8% for the period, however, to £133.9m, though directory managed a 10.9% increase to £204.2m, with group operating profit down 0.4% to £360.5m.

Supermarket chain Wm. Morrison released its interim numbers for the half year to 31 July on Thursday, with first half like-for-like sales excluding fuel and VAT up 1.4%. The FTSE 100 firm said total turnover was almost flat, reducing 0.4% to £8.03bn, though underlying profit before tax rose 11% to £157m, or up 34% including the prior year’s restructuring costs. Underlying earnings per share were up 35% to 5.04p.

Newspaper round-up

Bayer has agreed a $66bn Monsanto deal to create an agrichemicals giant. The combined business will have annual revenues of $23bn and dominate a sector which has seen a wave of consolidation as falling crop prices trigger tie-ups in the hunt for efficiencies. In the past year DuPont and Dow Chemical agreed to merge, and China National Chemical Corp inked a deal to buy Syngenta, which for years had been eyed by Monsanto. - Telegraph

Ford has announced it is to move all small-car production to Mexico as its profits look set to fall. The second-largest US automaker dropped its expected pre-tax profits forecast from $10.8bn to $10.2bn as it announced plans to expand its self-driving and electric lines in the face of intense competition from Silicon Valley as well as traditional car firms. Chief executive Mark Fields also said that the company was moving all of its small-car production to lower-cost Mexico, drawing another rebuke from Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump who called the decision "Horrible". - Guardian

Biffa, the UK waste management business, has confirmed plans to list on the London Stock Exchange in October. The company, a stalwart of the cleaning-up industry with a 100 years of history behind it, says it made some £927.5m in revenues in the 2016 financial year. Underlying operating profits were £62.5m. It of course reckons there's money in them there bin bags. - Financial Times

The City watchdog is facing a courtroom showdown with a former top Barclays executive after regulators accused him of suppressing an internal report that was “highly critical” of the way in which the bank’s wealth management business was run. Andrew Tinney, former global chief operating officer of Barclays Wealth, is challenging a lifetime bar from the financial services industry over allegations that he repeatedly misled investigators over the existence of a damning report into the division’s culture. - The Times

MPs are to debate stripping Sir Philip Green of his knighthood. The sale of BHS by Sir Philip's Arcadia Group to a former bankrupt, Dominic Chappell, and its subsequent collapse a year later has also prompted questions about how corporate governance at private companies should be tightened. Mr Field said: "It is the first chance for the whole House to pass its judgment since our report into BHS and its collapse." - Telegraph

US close

US stocks ended on a slightly mixed note as traders waited on policy decisions from the Bank of England, US Federal Reserve and Bank of Japan over the coming week, with M&A activity and gains in Apple providing a boost.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average drifted lower by 0.18% or 31.98 points to 18,034.77, the S&P 500 erased 0.06% or 1.25 points to 2,125.77 and the Nasdaq Composite was up 0.36% or 18.52 points to 5,173.77.

Meanwhile, oil prices moved back into the red, after the US Department of Energy reported that US oil output had risen by 35,000 barrels to 8.493m barrels a day. West Texas Intermediate was down 2.84% to $43.66.

Prices had fallen sharply in the previous session after the International Energy Agency downgraded its forecast for global oil demand for this year and the next and said rebalancing the oil market would take longer than previously thought.

From a sector standpoint, the biggest losses were sustained by Coal (-8.62%), Non-ferrous metals (-8.39%) and Platinum and precious metals (-4.69%).