Flutter mulling spinning off FanDuel, Ascential reports loss as revenue plunges

London open

The FTSE 100 is expected to open 20 points higher on Monday, having closed up 0.36% on Friday at 6,761.47.

Stocks to watch

Gambling company Flutter said it was considering spinning off its FanDuel business to cash on the growing US sports betting market. Responding to media speculation, the owner of Paddy Power and Betfair, said it “regularly evaluates its organisational and capital structure to assess how best to position itself to deliver upon the group’s strategy”. Flutter said options including the listing in the US of a small shareholding in FanDuel were being considered, but no decision had been made as yet.

Ascential reported a £166.5m annual loss and paid no dividend as revenue plunged and the company reported £99m extra exceptional costs. The marketing and events company swung to the operating loss for the year to the end of December from a £1.8m profit a year earlier as revenue from continuing operations dropped to £263.7m from £380.3m. Exceptional costs increased to £140.4m from £41.4m including £97.6m for the deferred consideration on its Flywheel Digital business after a strong year.

HgCapital reported a net asset value per share of 310p at year-end in its full-year results on Monday, making for a total return of 24% in 2020. The FTSE 250 firm said that was driven by revenue growth of 22% and EBITDA growth of 31% across its top 20 investments, making up 83% of the portfolio, for the year ended 31 December. Its board proposed a final dividend of 3p per share, making for full-year dividends of 5p per share.

Newspaper round-up

Britain’s biggest car manufacturers lobbied the government to delay a ban on petrol and diesel cars by warning that sales would plunge and jobs would be at risk from accelerating the transition to electric vehicles, the Guardian reported. The government announced in November that it would move forward a ban on the sale of pure internal combustion engine cars from 2040 to 2030, but said that it would allow the sale of hybrid vehicles until 2035, in a significant victory for the car industry. - Guardian

Spain could become one of the first countries in the world to trial the four-day working week after the government agreed to launch a modest pilot project for companies interested in the idea. Earlier this year, the small leftwing Spanish party Más País announced that the government had accepted its proposal to test out the idea. Talks have since been held, with the next meeting expected to take place in the coming weeks. - Guardian

Lawyers are preparing to bring a claim of more than £100m against the supervisor of Neil Woodford’s collapsed fund on behalf of 7,000 out-of-pocket investors. Law firm Leigh Day has served notice of its claim against Link Fund Solutions, alleging the fund administrator’s failure to properly monitor Mr Woodford led to the fund’s mismanagement. Those burned by the former star fund manager – once nicknamed Britain’s answer to Warren Buffett and the “Oracle of Oxford” – suffered an average loss of £15,000. - Telegraph

Britain’s largest independent chain of petrol stations is to spend £400 million on installing 3,000 fast electric chargers across its nationwide estate. In one of the biggest boosts to the government’s plans to build infrastructure for battery-powered cars. Motor Fuel Group (MFG), which operates 918 forecourts in the UK, plans to install chargers enabling drivers to add 100 miles of range in less than ten minutes. - The Times

A record number of shops closed last year as the pandemic put unprecedented pressure on businesses. More than 17,500 chain stores closed their doors, according to data from PwC and the Local Data Company. This was partially offset by 7,655 new openings, but there was a net fall in the number of shops of 9,877. - The Times

US close

Stocks on Wall Street ended in a mixed state on Friday, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average rising 0.9% to 32,778.64.

The S&P 500 managed gains of 0.1% to 3,943.34, while the Nasdaq Composite was 0.59% weaker at 13,319.86.