Pearson will pay final dividend, Persimmon to reopen construction sites

Stocks to watch

Pearson said it would pay its final dividend as the education publisher reported trading in line with reduced expectations and announced pay cuts for its board. The FTSE 100 company said shareholders would vote on the final dividend of 13.5p a share at Friday's annual general meeting as planned. The payout, up 4% from a year earlier, will be made on 7 May. Pearson's revenue fell 5% in the first quarter as the Covid-19 crisis hit sales. Chief executive John Fallon is taking a temporary 25% pay cut and other directors are also reducing their pay. The waived money will go to charities working on Covid-19-related activities.

House builder Persimmon said it would start a phased re-opening of its construction sites from April 27 as the industry started to emerge from the coronavirus lockdown.

FirstGroup said on Friday that its liquidity has been “further enhanced” through a £300m issue under the UK government’s Covid Corporate Financing Facility, taking its free cash and committed headroom to £800m. The FTSE 250 passenger transport operator also said its Greyhound division was set to benefit from a “significant share” of the $326m (£264.39m) allocated under the CARES Act in the US to support intercity coach services.

Newspaper round-up

Business leaders have urged the government to expand its Covid-19 rescue schemes to prevent thousands of businesses from going bust, as figures showed lenders have approved fewer than half of the applications for state-backed loans made to date. The CBI said ministers needed to address shortcomings in the loans scheme for small and medium-sized businesses, under which 16,624 firms have borrowed £2.8bn to date, up from £1.1bn a week earlier. – Guardian

Commercial property landlords in the UK have been temporarily banned from taking legal action against tenants who have not paid their rent, to protect retailers and other businesses from “aggressive rent collection” during the coronavirus crisis. Landlords are prohibited by the government until 30 June from sending their tenants statutory demands, a formal request for payment or winding-up petitions - a legal notice usually sent by a creditor to request that the courts close a company that owes it money. – Guardian

The furlough scheme could merely delay redundancies instead of saving jobs for good, as economists fear the extent of the coronavirus recession will make it hard for businesses to reopen their doors. An extra million workers have been added to those furloughed under the job retention scheme, HM Revenue and Customs revealed, taking the total to 3.2m so far as 435,000 businesses signed up since Monday to avoid laying off staff. - Telegraph

Ailing shops, restaurants and pubs hit by the coronavirus lockdown are to be shielded from “aggressive” action by landlords to recover unpaid rent under new measures unveiled by ministers. Some tenants have been hit with statutory rent demands and winding-up orders after rent went unpaid at the end of March despite an earlier ban on evictions. – Telegraph

All companies should be given a three-month business rates holiday as part of almost £16 billion of potential new aid, according to the CBI. The business lobby group has called on the government to extend business rates relief beyond the retail, leisure and hospitality sectors to every company in England, Scotland and Wales, mirroring the temporary blanket suspension of payments in Northern Ireland. – The Times

US close

US stocks turned in a mixed performance on Thursday as recovering somewhat offset concerns around another surge in jobless claims.

At the close, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 0.17% at 23,515.26, while the S&P 500 was 0.05% weaker at 2,797.80 and the Nasdaq Composite saw out the session 0.01% softer at 8,494.75.

The Dow closed just 39.44 points higher on Thursday, continuing on a rally started in the previous session after oil prices staged a turnaround after a historic drop.

While market participants had been focussed on violently fluctuating oil prices for much of the week, with West Texas Intermediate crude dropping more than 70% from the highs seen earlier in the year, the contract for June delivery settled 19% higher at $13.78 per barrel on Wednesday after Donald Trump said he'd instructed the US Navy to "shoot down and destroy any and all Iranian gunboats" if they harassed American ships at sea.

With oil settling in the background on Thursday, market focus was on the Labor Department's latest report on jobless claims, which revealed initial claims continued to surge higher, underscoring the dire state of the jobs market.

According to the Department of Labor, unemployment claims soared by 4.427m over the week ending on 18 April, taking the total number to more than 26m since the country started shutting down in mid-March.

The number of confirmed Covid-19 cases in the US is nearing 850,000, with the outbreak claiming the lives of 47,681 Americans.