Hammerson secures £360m loan, Electra receives £67m from RISI sale
London open
The FTSE 100 is expected to open five points higher on Friday, after closing up 0.06% at 7,118.54 on Thursday.
Stocks to watch
Property developer Hammerson secured a £360m loan at an initial margin of 90 basis points from a syndicate of fourteen banks in a bid to reduce its debt. The revolving credit facility has a maturity of five years, which may be extended to a maximum of seven years, and will refinance an existing £175m facility maturing in April 2018.
Private equity firm Electra said it had received £67m from AXIO Group in relation to the sale of RISI. RISI was sold to Euromoney Institutional Investor for $125m (£97.5m) earlier this month. Electra said the sale was the sixth major realisation from AXIO's portfolio and takes total cash proceeds received by Electra from its investment in AXIO to almost £420m, or 4.6x original cost, and the total return, including Electra's investment in the remainder of the AXIO Group, including TechInsights, to more than five times original cost.
Consumer products group Reckitt Benckiser posted a trading update for its first quarter on Friday, reporting it was in line with expectations with continued strong performance in the health division led by Mucinex and Durex. The FTSE 100 firm said that growth was offset by headwind in Scholl / Amopé, which also impacted Europe-North America performance. Growth rates were set to improve through the year, and RB said it was on track for its full year net revenue target of 3% like-for-like.
Newspaper round-up
The president of the World Bank has told Theresa May that cutting the UK’s aid budget could lead to an increase in conflict, terrorism and migration and would damage Britain’s international reputation. In a strongly worded response to reports that the government was considering dropping its commitment to devote 0.7% of national income to aid each year, Jim Kim said the money the UK provided was vital not just for developing countries but for the future of the world. - Guardian
Tata Steel could pay more than £500m into its UK pension scheme as part of a deal with regulators that involves the Pension Protection Fund taking a stake in the business. The Indian-owned company needs to find a solution to its pension scheme to secure the future of its UK operations, which employs 8,000 workers and includes the Port Talbot steelworks in south Wales. Tata Steel is trying to hive off its historic liabilities before merging its European steel operations with German company ThyssenKrupp. – Guardian
Pay for chief executives at Britain’s biggest companies is on the decline as a fresh wave of shareholder activism appears to be driving restraint. Analysis of the first 40 blue-chip businesses to publish their remuneration reports has revealed that 42.5pc of their bosses did not get a salary increase this year. Consultancy PwC examined remuneration documents of the FTSE 100 businesses to get a snapshot of how pay policy is shaping up. – Telegraph
The Bank of England is moving further away from its hopes to see more women in top jobs, with Mark Carney's former adviser Jenny Scott the latest senior female executive to leave the Bank. Ms Scott, who was an adviser to the governor for a year before becoming the Bank's executive director of communications in 2014, is leaving at a sensitive time for the central bank, which has faced fresh criticism over its lack of senior female staff following a string of exits. – Telegraph
Christine Lagarde has called on countries to pull together in the fight against a damaging retreat into protectionism amid mounting evidence that a global trade war is already under way. The managing director of the International Monetary Fund said there had been a worrying increase in the number of trade violations over the past two years and described the apparent breakdown in relations between countries as “an issue that needs to be addressed”. - The Times
BT will be forced to open up its broadband network to rivals, making it cheaper and easier for them to build competing fibre networks to homes, under plans set out by Ofcom yesterday. In a move designed to boost competition and offer consumers faster and cheaper internet access, including full fibre connections to their living rooms, the industry regulator said new rules would be introduced next year. – The Times
US close
Wall Street marched higher on Thursday as American Express earnings highlighted consumer spending strength, while a combination of strong financial sector earnings and a oil prices in the previous session.
At the close, the Dow Jones Industrial Average had added 0.85% to 20,578.71, the S&P 500 0.76% to 2,355.84, and the Nasdaq 0.92% to 5,916.78.
Meanwhile, oil prices consolidated after heavy losses the previous day, as data showed an unexpected 1.5m barrel build in gasoline stocks last week. West Texas Intermediate and Brent crude were little moved at $50.27 and $52.99 per barrel, respectively.
Earlier, Saudi Arabia’s energy minister Khalid al-Falih said that Opec is likely to agree to extend production cuts into the second half of 2017 at the cartel’s next meeting on 25 May.