FTSE 100 movers: BT gains as it sells iconic London tower; HSBC tumbles

HSBCSharecast / public domain image

London’s FTSE 100 was down 0.7% at 7,663.29 in afternoon trade on Wednesday.

BT Group was among the gainers after saying it had agreed to sell the BT Tower to MCR Hotels for £275m.

MCR plans to preserve the BT Tower "as an iconic hotel, securing its place as a London landmark for the future," it said.

On the downside, HSBC tumbled as it posted a record jump in annual profits and announced a $2bn share buyback but missed forecasts as it was forced to take a $3bn hit from its exposure to a Chinese bank.

The Asia-focused lender said full-year pre-tax profit rose 78% to $30.3bn driven by high global interest rates, but below the $34.1bn average estimate of brokers compiled by the bank.

Danni Hewson, head of financial analysis at AJ Bell, said: "The company has been stung by a $3 billion charge on its stake in a Chinese bank and write-downs associated with commercial real estate and the sale of its French business. That’s made the results a bit of a mess and led to a miss on full year forecasts.

"The outlook is also a bit of fudge with the company expecting to hit previously guided returns in the mid-teens for 2024, but only once some one-offs are stripped out. Costs are moving higher and loan losses are also going in the wrong direction from the bank’s perspective.

"Amid all the noise, news of a $2 billion share buyback has been lost which feels a little unfair given the company will have returned upwards of 10% of its market valuation in dividends and buybacks in respect of 2023."

Rio Tinto was in the red as it said that commodity price movements led to a $1.5bn hit to underlying profits in 2023, though results were partly offset by a stronger US dollar and lower energy prices.

Glencore lost ground as it reported a halving of its full-year adjusted earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation amid lower commodity prices.

FTSE 100 - Risers

Convatec Group (CTEC) 247.20p 2.06%
BT Group (BT.A) 108.55p 1.59%
B&M European Value Retail S.A. (DI) (BME) 525.00p 1.47%
International Consolidated Airlines Group SA (CDI) (IAG) 149.85p 1.46%
Beazley (BEZ) 580.50p 1.22%
Frasers Group (FRAS) 840.50p 1.14%
St James's Place (STJ) 661.20p 1.13%
Halma (HLMA) 2,306.00p 1.05%
InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) 8,410.00p 0.91%
CRH (CDI) (CRH) 6,192.00p 0.85%