Whitbread buys 19 hotels in Germany, revenue grows at faster rate for Informa

London open

The FTSE 100 is expected to open 47 points lower on Wednesday, having closed down 0.1% at 7,282.45 on Tuesday.

Stocks to watch

Premier Inn and Costa owner Whitbread has announced the acquisition of a portfolio of 19 hotels in Germany from Foremost Hospitality Group for an undisclosed sum. It said the deal will give Premier Inn substantial presence in the German hotel market, increasing the total committed network pipeline to 31 hotels with over 5,700 rooms across 15 key cities that are all expected to be open by the end of 2020.

Business information group Informa posted its results for the 12 months ended 31 December on Wednesday, with revenue growing at a faster rate than the prior year - up 30.7% to £1.76bn - including Penton Information Services and YP. The FTSE 100 company said underlying growth was 3.4%. It also saw increased adjusted operating profit growth of 31.3% to £545.5m, as well as a higher statutory operating profit of £345.3m, compared to £198.6m in 2016.

ITV profits fell last year amid a squeeze on advertising sales, but the dividend was lifted 10% as a 'strategic refresh' got underway under new chief executive Carolyn McCall. Adjusted EBITA was down 5% to £842m even as total external revenue rose 2% to £3.13bn, of which the ITV Studios production arm saw revenue up 13% to £1.58bn.

Taylor Wimpey said it made a good start to 2018 as the housebuilder reported a rise of more than 10% in underlying annual profit. Pre-tax profit before exceptional items for the year to the end of December rose 10.7% to £812m, driven by improved performance in the UK and at the company’s Spanish business. Pre-tax profit fell 5.8% to £555.3m due to an exceptional charge resulting from a leasehold review.

Newspaper round-up

More than 5,500 retail jobs are at risk as two of the high street’s best known names teeter on the edge of collapse. Toys R Us, with more than 3,000 staff, is set to go into administration in the next 24 hours, and 11th-hour rescue talks designed to shore up Maplin are also said to have broken down, meaning that the 200-store electronics chain also faces imminent bankruptcy. – Guardian

Top executives at Carillion were “fantasists” who assumed the company would receive fees that might not be paid, according to MPs. In the latest in a series of critical statements, a joint parliamentary select committee investigating the collapse of the construction firm also accused Carillion’s former leadership of making a “litany of excuses” for the demise of the construction group. – Guardian

The Government must share the blame for the bungling of a multi-billion pound nuclear clean-up contract after failing to protect taxpayers from spiraling costs, MPs have said. In a damning report the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) accused the Government of being “culpable” in the collapse of a contract to clean up Britain’s redundant fleet of Magnox nuclear reactors. – Telegraph

The owner of the microchip designer ARM has backed an apparent bid to create a new mobile network in the UK as operators prepare to connect millions more devices. SoftBank, the Japanese mobile giant that swooped for ARM in a £24bn takeover in 2016, has backed a venture that has registered to bid in Ofcom’s forthcoming auction of airwaves suitable for new 5G networks. – Telegraph

The Qatari company accused of withholding payment to Carillion has hit back at suggestions that it contributed to the group’s collapse, claiming that it was itself owed £200 million. MPs said that a “litany of excuses” for the failure of Carillion was “fast unravelling” after Msheireb Properties wrote to the work and pensions committee accusing Carillion of mis-stating the value of work it had completed in the centre of Doha. – The Times

Shop prices have sunk deeper into deflation, suggesting that the worst of the squeeze on incomes from sterling’s devaluation since the Brexit vote may be over. Prices fell by 0.8 per cent in February compared with last year, driven by another sharp fall in non-food prices, the British Retail Consortium said. It extends the run of falling shop prices to 58 months. – The Times

US close

Wall Street indices finished in the red on Tuesday, after nerves kicked in as new Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell delivered his first congressional testimony.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average ended the session down 1.16% at 25,410.03, the S&P 500 lost 1.27% to 2,744.28, and the Nasdaq 100 was 1.27% lower at 6,900.35.

"The FOMC will continue to strike a balance between avoiding an overheated economy and bringing PCE price inflation to 2% on a sustained basis," Powell said in remarks released by the House Financial Service committee earlier in the day.

“At the moment the Fed are projecting three rate hikes this year while financial markets are currently pricing in around 80bp of rate hikes,” said James Knightley at ING.

“Given our above consensus 3% GDP growth forecast for 2018 and the potential for inflation to rise more quickly than many in the market anticipate (wages, dollar weakness, medical care costs, cell phone data distortions, commodity prices, we are now forecasting four rate rises this year.

On the data front, US consumer confidence jumped to 130.8 from 124.3, beating consensus forecasts of 126.5 to hit its highest reading since November 2000 as, according to the Conference Board's consumer confidence index, the drop in the stock market failed to upset consumers.