Investec and Rathbones agree all-share merger, Victrex commercial chief stepping down

Stocks to watch

The UK wealth business of Investec and Rathbones have agreed to merge in an £839m all-share deal, the two companies said on Tuesday. New Rathbones shares will be issued for 100% of Investec Wealth & Investment shares, which would leave Investec with an economic interest of 41.25% in the combined company.

High performance polymer solutions company Victrex said that chief commercial officer and executive director Martin Court plans to retire after ten years with the group. He will retire from the board after the September 2023 board meeting and will remain with the company until the end of December "to support a smooth transition".

Newspaper round-up

Some of the UK’s least well-off households could be left more than £200 worse-off on their energy bills this year because of reduced government support, the consumer body Which? has warned. Joining calls made by other campaigners, it said the government urgently needed to introduce a “social tariff” for gas and electricity to protect the most financially vulnerable. – Guardian

Britain’s data watchdog has issued a warning to tech firms about the use of people’s personal information to develop chatbots after concerns that the underlying technology is trained on large quantities of unfiltered material scraped from the web. The intervention from the Information Commissioner’s Office came after its Italian counterpart temporarily banned ChatGPT over data privacy concerns. – Guardian

Bickering in Brussels is threatening to inflict queues and disruption on British holidaymakers for years to come by derailing the rollout of new technology that would speed up passport checks. The European Union has been hit by opposition from member states over the development of a new app for border crossings by non-EU citizens. – Telegraph

A shareholder revolt against a £481 million private equity takeover of Hyve is being led by M&G Investments, which claims that it significantly undervalues the international exhibition company. Hyve announced last month that it had agreed to a 108p-a-share takeover offer from Providence Equity Partners after the media-focused US investor had initially offered 101p, then 105p. – The Times

Some savers with Phoenix Life have been unable to withdraw their funds since Friday because the company’s systems were serviced by Capita, the hacked outsourcer. Chris Johnson, a customer who contacted The Times, reported that he was advised by a Phoenix Life call handler that he could not cash in his pension because of the technical issues and should ring back “in a few days”, with no estimated timeframe for when normal services would resume. – The Times

US close

Wall Street stocks turned in a mixed performance on Monday but the Dow Jones still managed to kick off the second quarter in the same manner it wrapped up the first.

At the close, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 0.98% at 33,601.15 and the S&P 500 had advanced 0.37% to 4,124.51, while the Nasdaq Composite saw out the session 0.27% weaker at 12,189.45.

The Dow closed 327.0 points higher on Monday, extending gains recorded in the previous session.

Oil prices surged on Monday, with both West Texas Intermediate and Brent Crude up more than 6% following an announcement from Saudi Arabia and other OPEC+ members that they will make a voluntary cut to output of 5% - or around 500,000 barrels per day.