Maurice Tulloch elevated to chief executive at Aviva, Synthomer sees improvement in revenue and profit

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The FTSE 100 is expected to open 28 points higher on Monday, having closed up 0.45$ at 7,106.73 on Friday.

Stocks to watch

Aviva has promoted international insurance boss Maurice Tulloch to the role of chief executive with immediate effect. His appointment follows the surprise departure of Mark Wilson in October, who was replaced on an interim basis by chairman Adrian Montague.

Synthomer reported a 9.4% improvement in revenue in its full-year results on Monday, to £1.6bn, and a 3.9% rise in underlying profit before tax to a record £135.1m. The FTSE 250 chemicals firm said that reflected the benefits of geographic diversity and product differentiation, with its operating profit in the Asia and Rest of World geography 30% higher, while in Europe and North America it was 5% lower. It also said that it absorbed a total of £10.1m of US dollar currency transactional headwind in the 12 months ended 31 December.

Wizz Air Holdings reported a 9.3% year-on-year increase in its capacity for February on Monday, to 2,548,061 seats, while the number of booked passengers on its services improved 12.9% to 2,400,692. The FTSE 250 low-cost carrier said that made for a load factor of 94.2% for the month, which was three percentage points higher than at the same time last year. During February, Wizz Air expanded its route network with the announcement of five new routes and two new destinations, while its fleet expanded to 108 as it took delivery of two new Airbus A321 aircraft.

Ted Baker said its chief executive and founder, Ray Kelvin, has resigned with immediate effect. His resignation follows allegations of misconducts, including claims of a "forced hugging" culture at the fashion retailer, which he denies.

Canada’s Court of Appeal has upheld the Superior Court's decision four years ago to force British American Tobacco’s Canadian subsidiary to pay CAD 10.4bn of damages as part of a class action lawsuit. A BAT spokesperson said the subsidiary “needs to review the court's decision in more detail and will decide on next steps over the coming days and weeks” but have said that they “fully intend to appeal the decision” to the Supreme Court of Canada.

Newspaper round-up

Left-behind towns in England are to get a £1.6bn funding boost as part of a package of measures to win support for Theresa May’s Brexit deal among Labour MPs, who said the new cash would not buy their votes. Labour MPs including Lisa Nandy and Gareth Snell who have signalled they might back May’s deal criticised the approach and said the cash would do little to tackle the effects of austerity. – Guardian

Meng Wanzhou, the chief financial officer of Chinese technology company Huawei, is suing the Canadian government, its border agency and the national police force over her high-profile detention. Meng claims they detained, searched and interrogated her before telling her she was under arrest. Lawyers for Meng said on Sunday they had filed a notice of civil claim in the British Columbia supreme court. Canada arrested Meng, the daughter of Huawei’s founder, at the request of the US on 1 December at Vancouver airport. US prosecutors will accuse her of misleading banks about the company’s business dealings in Iran. – Guardian

The offshore wind industry is poised to clinch a long-awaited Government deal that could double the number of turbines in UK waters. After more than a year of negotiations between officials and industry leaders a so-called “sector deal” is expected to emerge later this week detailing a new partnership to help make the most of Britain’s lead in offshore wind power. – Telegraph

When Persimmon’s then-boss Jeff Fairburn agreed to do a local TV news interview in front of a towering pile of bricks outside the booming housebuilder’s factory in Yorkshire last October he probably didn’t realise he was about to become a viral hit. But after he refused to answer a question about his record-breaking £100m bonus, the sight of him storming off in a huff was beamed to television screens and Twitter feeds up and down the country. – Telegraph

One of Germany’s most powerful bankers has been accused of involvement in a suspected multimillion-euro insider trading scandal. Prosecutors believe that a former colleague and an acquaintance of Hendrik Riehmer, joint managing partner of Berenberg bank, made €3.2 million in profit from their advance knowledge of the sale of shares in a shipping company. Officials froze assets worth more than €20 million at the weekend after searching Mr Riehmer’s villa in Hamburg, the bank’s headquarters and the offices of a property company in the city. – The Times

US close

Stocks closed higher on Friday as investors worked their way through another day full of data releases and promising news coming from trade talks with China, following some solid GDP figures the day before.

At the close, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 0.43% to 26,026.32, while the S&P 500 had moved ahead 0.69% to 2,803.69 and the Nasdaq Composite traded 0.83% firmer at 7,595.35.

The Dow closed 110 points higher after sentiment got a boost after White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow told CNBC on Thursday that there had been "fantastic" progress in trade talks between the US and China last week.

"We’re making great headway on non-tariff barriers and tariffs regarding various commodities such as soybeans and energy and beef," he said. "We have mechanisms with regard to enforcement, which is - I think - unparalleled."

On the data front, faced with a partial shutdown of the US federal government and volatility in capital markets, Americans reined in their spending at the end of 2018, opting to put aside a surge in disposable income as savings.