Imperial to buy back another £1.1bn in shares, Unite Group reports strong occupancy

Stocks to watch

Tobacco giant Imperial is to buy back a further £1.1bn in shares as it announced it was on track to hit forecasts this year. In a pre-close trading update for the fiscal year ended 30 September, the Lambert & Butlers and Golden Virginia maker said strong tobacco pricing has driven constant currency net revenue and adjusted operating profit growth.

Student accommodation specialist Unite Group reported a 99.7% occupancy rate for the 2023-2024 academic year on Thursday, reflecting an increase from the previous year's 97.9%. The FTSE 100 company also noted rental growth of 7.3% for the same academic year. Meanwhile, the quarterly property valuations remained fairly stable, with a slight increase in the Unite UK Student Accommodation Fund of 0.2% and a minor decrease in the London Student Accommodation Joint Venture of 0.2%.

Newspaper round-up

Private home rents in Great Britain have increased to their highest point on record after shortages in supply and mortgage rate rises combined to push the cost up by 10% over the past 12 months. The average rent for new properties being put on the market now stands at a record £1,278 per calendar month outside London in the July to September period, according to Rightmove. – Guardian

Metro Bank is considering raising hundreds of millions of pounds from investors, weeks after the high street lender failed to convince regulators it could be trusted to hold less cash against its mortgage risks. The high street lender, which became the first new chain in the UK for more than a century when it was launched by the American billionaire Vernon Hill in 2010, had applied to use its own internal models to assess the risks of its mortgages, but that request was denied in early September. – Guardian

Mike Lynch, the tech entrepreneur accused of leading Britain’s biggest ever corporate fraud, has launched a legal bid to have a string of US criminal charges against him thrown out. Mr Lynch, the founder of the former FTSE 100 software company Autonomy, has filed to dismiss the 17 charges against him, saying the US has no jurisdiction over the case. His lawyers describe the charges, which could lead to decades in prison, as “impermissibly extraterritorial” and say they contain “fatal legal deficiencies”. – Telegraph

The former chief executive of Carillion has been disqualified as a director for eight years for his role in allegedly concealing accounting troubles at the collapsed construction company. The Insolvency Service, acting on behalf of the business and trade secretary, said that it had accepted a disqualification undertaking from Richard Howson, 55, who led the failed outsourcer from 2012 until July 2017, when his departure was announced alongside the first of three profit warnings. – The Times

The majority of bosses believe that their staff will be back working in the office five days a week within the next three years. Sixty-four per cent of the 1,300 global chief executives who responded to KPMG’s annual outlook survey predicted a full return to in-office working by the end of 2026. – The Times

US close

Wall Street ended with a rebound on Wednesday, with major US stock indices ending the day in positive territory following a streak of losses, triggered partially by alleviating bond yields and underwhelming labour market figures.

At the close, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 0.39% to close at 33,129.55, halting its three-day decline.

The broader S&P 500 index climbed 0.81% to settle at 4,263.75, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite led the gains, ascending 1.35% to conclude the trading session at 13,236.01.

In the currency space, the dollar was last down 0.02% against sterling and the euro, trading at 82.38p and 95.18 euro cents, respectively.

It also declined 0.06% versus the yen, changing hands at JPY 149.03.