Weir wins £25m Morocco contract, QinetiQ sells and leases back Cody property

Stocks to watch

Mining technology group Weir said it had won a £25m contract to provide services on the next phase of OCP’s Benguerir and Louta greenfield phosphate projects in Morocco. The order will support the continued construction of the Louta project and the trebling of production from the Benguerir project, where Weir has previously provided similar separation and desliming solutions, the company said on Monday.

QinetiQ announced on Monday that it has agreed to sell its 407-acre freehold site at Cody Technology Park to a fund managed by Tristan Capital Partners for £112m, retaining a 15-year lease on the portion it occupies. The FTSE 250 firm said the transaction was expected to improve its net debt by about £65m, with minimal impact on underlying operating profit and cash flow. However, a one-off non-cash accounting loss of around £30m will be recognised on completion due to IFRS 16 lease accounting adjustments.

Newspaper round-up

Britain’s only remaining coal power plant at Ratcliffe-on-Soar in Nottinghamshire will generate electricity for the last time on Monday after powering the UK for 57 years. The power plant will come to the end of its life in line with the government’s world-leading policy to phase out coal power which was first signalled almost a decade ago. – Guardian

Almost half of British adults will ration their energy use this winter, a survey has found, as energy bills will rise again by 10% this week. Charities have called on the government to do more to help vulnerable people to heat their homes, with the average household bill scheduled to rise by £149 after the energy price cap increases on Tuesday. – Guardian

Deloitte cut its UK partners’ pay packets by £48,000 in the last financial year as it sought to promote more people to its senior ranks. The “big four” firm said average partner pay was down to £1.012m for the year to the end of May, compared with £1.060m in 2023. It said this reflected the fact it had been increasing its number of people in senior posts, with 80 of its employees promoted to partner over the past 12 months. – Telegraph

The Government is poised to approve the extension of HS2 into Euston station, despite concerns it could saddle the taxpayer with billions of pounds in extra costs. The move will ensure that the high-speed rail route runs into the centre of London rather than ending at Old Oak Common in the west of the capital. Chancellor Rachel Reeves will reportedly use her first Budget next month to approve funding for the project, which will also include a multi-billion-pound transformation of Euston. – Telegraph

Instead of the London Stock Exchange’s junior market looking forward to celebrating its 30th birthday next year, the City is braced for the threat of a Halloween “Nightmare on Aim Street” at next month’s budget. In the run-up to Labour’s first budget in almost 15 years — to be delivered the day before Halloween — investors have been spooked by concerns that the Treasury is considering cutting a “vital” tax relief that has underpinned the Alternative Investment Market (Aim) since shortly after it was launched in 1995. – The Times

US close

Stocks on Wall Street closed in a mixed state on Friday, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average up 0.33% at 42,313.00.

The S&P 500 slipped 0.13% to 5,738.17, and the Nasdaq Composite was off 0.39% at 18,119.59.