Land Securities returns to profit, Volex makes two bids for TT Electronics

Stocks to watch

Land Securities announced a return to profit in the six months ended 30 September on Friday, as the property market continued to recover, underpinned by growing demand. Pre-tax profit came in at £243m, compared with a loss of £193m a year earlier. The company also lifted guidance for EPRA full-year earnings.

Volex announced on Friday that it had made two proposals to acquire the London-listed TT Electronics, offering a cash-and-share combination that, at the latest valuation, implied 139.6p per TT share, valuing the company at £248.6m and reflecting a premium of 76.7% over TT’s recent share price. The AIM-traded company said the TT Electronics board had rejected both offers and declined further engagement with Volex. Volex said it believed its offers presented a compelling opportunity for TT shareholders to secure immediate cash value and benefit from potential growth within an expanded business.

Newspaper round-up

Investment firm London Capital & Finance (LCF), whose failure in 2019 triggered one of Britain’s biggest retail investment scandals, operated as a Ponzi scheme, a London judge ruled on Thursday. The high court said former chief executive Michael Thomson and four others had knowingly participated in the fraud, misled investors and misappropriated assets in a ruling welcomed by LCF’s joint administrators, which brought the case. – Guardian

The UK government has promised to introduce tougher enforcement action against airlines that fail to protect customers from losses caused by flight disruption after an inquiry into last August’s air traffic meltdown, which led to more than 700,000 people facing delays and cancellations. The transport secretary, Louise Haigh, said she wanted “all passengers to feel confident when they fly” and would introduce changes to “provide air travellers with the highest level of protection possible”. – Guardian

Britain must rebuild trade ties with Europe to help stem the economy’s long-term decline, the Bank of England Governor has told Rachel Reeves. In a major intervention in the wake of Donald Trump’s US election victory, Andrew Bailey urged the Chancellor to “welcome opportunities to rebuild” post-Brexit relations with the Continent as Ms Reeves orders regulators to focus on growth as part of plans to fire up the City. – Telegraph

A London-listed gold miner whose boss has been detained in Mali over a dispute with the government has been thrown into further turmoil after trading in its Sydney-quoted shares was suspended. Resolute Mining’s Australian stock has temporarily stopped trading after “various articles published relating to the status of negotiations with the government in Mali”, the company said in a statement. – The Times

A former BDO manager has been banned from the profession for 20 years after she was found to have forged signatures, falsified emails and fabricated letters. An investigation by the Financial Reporting Council (FRC), the audit watchdog, found that Amanda Nightingale, née Cleaver, a senior manager in BDO’s Gatwick office, acted with “sustained dishonesty” over a five-year period. – The Times

US close

Stocks on Wall Street closed in the red on Thursday, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average down 0.47% at 43,750.86.

The S&P 500 lost 0.6% to 5,949.17, and the Nasdaq Composite was off 0.64% at 19,107.65.