The Restaurant Group serves up new CEO, Cineworld gobbles up five Empire sites

London open

The FTSE 100 is expected to open 10 points higher on Friday morning, having closed up 0.7% at 6,914.71 on Thursday.

Stocks to watch

Pub and restaurant chain operator The Restaurant Group announced on Friday that after 15 years with the company, and two years as CEO, Danny Breithaupt will step down from the board and leave the company with immediate effect. The FTSE 250 firm’s board said it has completed the initial phase of its operating strategy review, and has decided that a new leader is needed to implement the initial actions and then prioritise the next phase of the review. It also announced the appointment of Andy McCue as CEO, who will start with the company and join the board on 19 September. McCue was most recently CEO at Paddy Power, where he embedded a new growth strategy which delivered record revenues and profits, as well as playing a central role in the merger with Betfair.

Movie theatre operator Cineworld Group confirmed on Friday that it has completed the acquisition of five cinemas from Cinema Holdings Limited, the holding company of Empire Cinema. The FTSE 250 company had initially flagged the acquisition on 28 July, with the deal being worth a total of £94m. Cineworld said the acquisitions included the Empire Leicester Square in London’s West End, an 18-screen multiplex in Basildon, a 17 screen multiplex in Hemel Hempstead, a 16 screen multiplex in Poole, and a smaller four screen cinema in the London borough of Bromley. The four larger cinemas feature IMAX screens, Cineworld reported.

The US District Court for Wisconsin ruled that two of Genus rival Sexing Technology's patents were valid and had been infringed and that ABS, a unit of Genus, had materially broken its confidentiality obligations as set out in the 2012 semen sorting agreement between the two parties. UK-based Genus said it was still awaiting the judge´s decision on a number of motions related to the provisions of the 2012 agreement and that would update further when the rulings were made.

Newspaper round-up

The business secretary flew to India for a secret meeting with the head of Tata Steel amid growing concern over the future of the Port Talbot steelworks. Greg Clark met Cyrus Mistry, the chairman of Tata Steel and of its parent company, Tata Sons, in New Delhi on Wednesday. The new minister was understood to be keen to hold a face-to-face meeting after a number of phone calls with Mr Mistry and ordered officials to set up the one-day trip. - The Times

A network of agents, payments from a Beijing-backed slush fund and a series of illicit transfers of highly sensitive nuclear knowhow: the case against Britain’s Chinese partner in the controversial Hinkley Point C project could have leapt from the pages of a modern spy thriller. According to the US Department of Justice, the FBI has discovered evidence that China General Nuclear Power (CGN) has been engaged in a conspiracy to steal US nuclear secrets stretching back almost two decades. - Guardian

July was the busiest month in Gatwick’s 80-year history as growth in long-haul traffic helped to push up overall passenger numbers up by 6.8 per cent over a year earlier. Gatwick said that 4.6 million passengers travelled through London’s second airport last month. Long-haul passenger numbers were up 23 per cent on a year earlier with traffic to Canada and Mexico much higher. - The Times

US close

US stocks finished Thursday in the green, following gains in Europe as investors kept an eye on oil prices and processed weekly jobs data.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average was last up 0.64% to 18,613.52, while the S&P 500 added 0.47% to 2,185.79 and the Nasdaq 100 gained 0.42% to 4,803.31.

Oil prices were flying after the International Energy Agency forecast crude markets would rebalance in the next few months following several years of overproduction.

West Texas Intermediate was last ahead 4.01% at $43.45 per barrel, and Brent crude gained 4.22% to $45.99.

The IEA forecast came with a caveat, however, as the Paris-based agency lowered its forecast for global oil demand in 2017.

Earlier, oil prices fell after data from the US Energy Information Administration on Wednesday showed an unexpected build in weekly crude inventories and following record Saudi Arabian production.

In economic data, the Labor Department revealed the number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits fell pretty much in line with expectations last week.

US initial jobless claims dropped by 1,000 from the previous week’s revised level of 267,000.

Economists had been expecting a decline to 265,000.