BAT appoints chief people officer, St James's Place reassures over fees review

Stocks to watch

British American Tobacco has appointed a chief people officer to its management board, as it hopes to improve the culture and collaboration within the tobacco company. Cora Koppe-Stahrenberg, formerly head of HR at Germany-listed healthcare giant Fresenius Medical Care, will join the company in this new role on 1 November.

St. James's Place responded to ongoing media speculation around its client fees and charge structures on Friday, as it considered a scalable charging platform under the Consumer Duty programme. It said that, although the assessment was yet to be finalised and no decisions had been made, it was confident that the options under consideration would prioritise client value while ensuring a sustainable business model. It added that it was in continuous engagement with regulators.

Newspaper round-up

The UK’s competition watchdog has cleared Microsoft’s $69bn (£54bn) deal to buy Activision Blizzard, the maker of games including Call of Duty and World of Warcraft, in a move that paves the way for both companies to complete the transaction. The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) moved to block the megadeal in April, citing concerns that Microsoft – maker of the Xbox gaming console – would dominate the nascent cloud gaming market. – Guardian

Microsoft has paid HMRC £136m in back taxes under a deal with authorities over how it shifts revenues overseas, as the company fights a multi-billion dollar US tax bill. The software giant made the payment in the last 15 months under a “bilateral agreement” with HMRC, it disclosed in its most recent UK accounts. – Telegraph

The boss of the world’s largest cinema chain has revealed he was blackmailed for hundreds of thousands of dollars after sending sexually explicit photos to a woman. Adam Aron, the outspoken chief executive of AMC Entertainment, said he fell victim to a failed catfish blackmailing plot last year. In a post on X, formerly Twitter, Mr Aron said he had been subjected to “elaborate criminal extortion” relating to “false allegations about my personal life”. – Telegraph

Seven years after the collapse of Carillion with debts of £7 billion and the loss of 3,000 jobs, the full extent of KPMG’s audit shortcomings has been laid bare in what the accountancy regulator called a “textbook failure”. A report on the failings of KPMG’s work by the Financial Reporting Council has found that the 2016 accounts of Carillion were signed off as a true and fair representation of Carillion’s finances by Peter Meehan, the KPMG partner on the audit, fully six weeks before the firm had finished the audit. – The Times

Default rates for mortgages and credit cards by households are expected to rise by the end of the year, according to a Bank of England survey of lenders. The range of UK banks that have seen more secured loans default over the past quarter reached its highest level since 2009, during the credit crunch after the financial crisis, the Bank’s data showed on Thursday. – The Times

US close

US stock markets finished with moderate losses on Thursday, snapping four straight days of gains, after consumer price inflation failed to ease as expected last month, causing bond yields to surge.

Despite a subdued start, markets dropped into the red around lunchtime with the Dow Jones Industrial Average closing down 0.5%, and the S&P 500 and Nasdaq falling 0.6%.

The yield on a 10-year US Treasury note jumped 13.5 basis points to 4.699%, following several days of declines, after the Bureau of Labor Statistics revealed that the consumer price index rose by 0.4% in September, down from 0.6% growth in August but ahead of the 0.3% gain expected by analysts.

The year-on-year rate of headline inflation held stable at 3.7%, above the 3.6% forecast, though core inflation fell from 4.3% to 4.1%, as expected.