Petrofac still in talks over its finances, Mercantile Investment Trust grows returns
London open
The FTSE 100 is expected to open 41 points higher on Friday, having closed down 0.47% on Thursday at 7,923.80.
Stocks to watch
Petrofac updated the market on its ongoing negotiations concerning its finances on Friday, reporting that it was still in discussions with lenders to restructure debt, considering exchanging a significant portion for equity. It said talks were underway with potential investors and major shareholders for further investment, while negotiations regarding the sale of non-core assets also persisted. The company said it was focussed on meeting payment obligations, supporting recent contract awards, and ensuring Petrofac's capital structure aligned with its substantial backlog of $8bn.
UK equity investment firm Mercantile Investment Trust said managed to grow returns in the year to 31 January despite "a generally unsupportive environment". The company net asset total return based on debt at par value was 4.5% and the total return to shareholders was 6.1%, under the ten-year averages of 6.1% and 6.4% respectively. Chair Angus Gordon Lennox said most of the company's portfolio holdings performed well. "Existing portfolio holdings have been performing well despite the challenging conditions of the past year and should do even better as and when the economy strengthens," he said.
Newspaper round-up
Everton has paid about £30m in interest charges to an opaque lender associated with a tax exile, corporate records suggest. The charges appear to have reached about £438,000 a week, according to the troubled Premier League club’s most recent set of accounts, a figure more than three times the reported wages of the Everton and England goalkeeper Jordan Pickford. – Guardian
Aircraft could one day take off on fuel made from human waste under plans revealed by Wizz Air and the British sustainable aviation company Firefly to build a commercial refinery in Essex. Firefly, based in Bristol, said it had developed a process to convert treated sewage into sustainable aviation fuel, or SAF. – Guardian
AstraZeneca has suffered an investor backlash over a £19m pay award for its chief executive, in a vote that will deepen concerns of an exodus of UK companies to the US. Around 35pc of investors voted to reject AstraZeneca’s remuneration report and changes to its bonus plan at the company’s AGM on Thursday. The changes increase chief executive Pascal Soriot’s total reward package to £18.7m. His remuneration was up from £16.9m in the prior year, which already made the French-born executive the highest paid boss on the FTSE 100. – Telegraph
Annual profits at the City fund management firm co-founded by Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg, the Conservative MP, more than halved last year before client withdrawals forced the business to wind itself down. Latest accounts filed by Somerset Capital Management at Companies House show that net profits at the business fell to less than £3.1 million in the 12 months to the end of March last year, from almost £6.5 million in 2022. – The Times
Shares in Amazon closed at a new record high as the stock market value of the world’s biggest online retailer edged closer to $2 trillion. At the end of trading on Wall Street, its stock price had risen $3.10, or 1.7 per cent, to $189.05, compared with its previous high of $186.57 on July 8, 2021, giving it a market capitalisation of $1.97 trillion. The rise in Amazon shares yesterday helped the Nasdaq Composite index to close at its sixth record high of the year so far with a gain of 271.84 points, or 1.7 per cent, to 16,442.20. – The Times
US close
Wall Street stocks turned in a mostly positive performance on Thursday following the release of yet another key inflation report.
At the close, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 0.01% at 38,459.08, while the S&P 500 advanced 0.74% to 5,199.06 and the Nasdaq Composite saw out the session 1.68% weaker at 16,442.20.
The Dow closed just 2.43 points lower on Thursday, narrowly extending losses recorded in the previous session after March's hotter-than-expected consumer price index fuelled worries that the Federal Reserve may now implement fewer rate cuts than initially thought.
The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note rose 18 basis points on the news, hitting its highest level since November 2023.
With the CPI in the rearview, Thursday's primary focus was March's producer price index, which revealed, in seasonally adjusted terms, so-called total final demand prices were up in March by 0.2% month-on-month - less than consensus estimates for a 0.3% increase.