Vodafone to halve dividend, Flutter posts quarterly net loss

Stocks to watch

Telecoms giant Vodafone said it was halving its dividend next year and handing back €2bn to shareholders after the sale of its Spanish unit as it also posted slightly better annual results. The company, which announced a 9 euro cent dividend for the 2024 fiscal year, said it was targeting a rebased payout of 4.5 cents a share “with an ambition to grow over time". An extra €2bn could be spent on a buyback from the proceeds of the sale of Vodafone Italy, expected in the first half of 2025. Operating profit fell 74.6% to €3.7bn, mainly due to disposals in the prior financial year, in particular the €8.6bn gain on disposal of Vantage Towers.

Flutter Entertainment reported a net loss of $177m in its first quarter on Tuesday, primarily due to non-cash charges including acquired intangibles amortisation and fair value changes in its Fox Option liability. Despite that, group adjusted EBITDA increased 46% to $514m, driven by strong performance in the US market and international expansion efforts. The FTSE 100 company said it was confident in its 2024 financial guidance, despite challenges in US sports results towards the end of March.

Anglo American has announced a number of "structural changes" to simplify its portfolio that it hopes will unlock significant value for shareholders, including the divestment or spin-off of its steelmaking coal, nickel, platinum and diamond operations. Following an asset review which started last year, the mining giant said it is now focusing on just three main divisions: copper, premium iron ore and crop nutrients. "We expect that a radically simpler business will deliver sustainable incremental value creation through a step change in operational performance and cost reduction," said chief executive Duncan Wanblad.

Newspaper round-up

Tesco is facing criticism from “shocked” charities who say they are struggling to distribute unwanted food to homeless and hungry people after they claim the retailer brought in rules that mean unwanted food can only be collected in the evening. The supermarket group has switched to a new system which asks charities to pick up unwanted food, such as items reaching their best before date, only in the evening when a store is closing rather than the following morning, the charities have claimed. – Guardian

OpenAI announced on Monday that it was launching its new flagship artificial intelligence model, called GPT-4o, and updates that included a new desktop service and advances in its voice assistant capabilities. Chief technology officer, Mira Murati, appeared on stage to a cheering crowd in the OpenAI offices, touting the new model as a step forward in AI. The new model will bring the faster, more accurate GPT-4 AI model to free users, where it was previously reserved for paid customers. – Guardian

Plans for a large nuclear power station on the Welsh island of Anglesey risk being derailed by government rules that will add an estimated £20bn to the national debt, insiders have warned. Efforts to develop a gigawatt-scale scheme at Wylfa are on the agenda this week as Andrew Bowie, the minister for energy security, meets representatives from the South Korean state nuclear company Kepco. The company is among several thought to be in the running to build a plant at Wylfa, with a consortium that includes US nuclear giant Westinghouse also putting forward proposals. – Telegraph

It was billed as potentially one of the most aggressive sighting shots against a FTSE 100 company. In March the New York-based activist investor Elliott Advisors disclosed that it had quietly built a 5 per cent stake in Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust (SMT). Elliott’s reputation for ferocity and opportunism has been second to none. It once seized an Argentine warship to apply pressure for a payout to bondholders. It has previously targeted another giant UK investment trust, Alliance Trust, in a siege that led to the expulsion of its chief executive Katherine Garrett-Cox, or Katherine the Great as she was dubbed in parts of the City. – The Times

Mortgage market pressures and wet weather drove a fall in new homes being built in the first quarter, new industry figures show. The number of new homes registered for construction slumped by a fifth year on year to 21,967 in the three months to the end of March. The number of new properties that were completed also slid by 13 per cent to 26,240, according to the National House Building Council. – The Times

US close

Wall Street stocks turned in a mixed performance Monday after a winning week for the Dow.

At the close, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 0.21% at 39,431.51, while the S&P 500 lost 0.02% to 5,221.42 and the Nasdaq Composite saw out the session 0.29% firmer at 16,388.24.

The Dow closed 81.33 points lower on Monday, taking a bite out of gains recorded in what was the blue-chip's best week so far this year.

As for the new week, market participants will hope to gain further insights into the Federal Reserve's thinking when it comes to the future of monetary policy, with April's consumer price index report set to be published on Wednesday.

Investors will look to see numbers that signal a return to rate hikes being largely off the table despite several pieces of hotter-than-expected inflation data in recent months.