Source: Sharecast
Stocks to watch
Global fund administration platform JTC said it had agreed a £2.3bn takeover by private equity firm Permira, beating interest from rival Warburg Pincus. JTC shareholders would receive £13.40p a share, below Friday’s closing price of £13.58. Shares in the company have surged from 897p on August 13 when Permira made its first offer.
Drinks giant Diageo said it has named Haleon chair Dave Lewis as its next chief executive. Lewis, the former chief executive of Tesco, will take up the role on 1 January 2026, replacing Debra Crew, who quit in the summer. Haleon independent director Vindi Banga will replace Lewis as chair of consumer drugs firm.
Airport hospitality group SPP announced the retirement of its chair Mike Clasper after five and a half years at the helm. As SSP finalises a multi-year strategic review, Clasper said now was the right time to step away “to enable the appointment of a new chair who can help realise the full scale of these ambitions in the years ahead”. Clasper, who joined as a non-executive director in November 2019 before being appointed chair in February 2020, will step down at the company’s AGM in January.
Newspaper round-up
Drax power plant has continued to burn 250-year-old trees sourced from some of Canada’s oldest forests despite growing scrutiny of its sustainability claims, forestry experts say. A new report suggests it is “highly likely” that Britain’s biggest power plant sourced some wood from ecologically valuable forests as recently as this summer. Drax, Britain’s single biggest source of carbon emissions, has received billions of pounds in subsidies from burning biomass derived largely from wood. - Guardian
Royal Mail says that it has “delivered Christmas” for more than 500 years, but this year many workers have been left feeling less than festive after the company downgraded a small gift to workers to second class. The postal service, which traces its history back to the appointment of a “master of the posts” by Henry VIII in 1516, has given workers a collection of 50 Christmas stamps to recognise their work over the busiest time of year. In previous years, including in 2024, workers have received a book of 50 or 100 first-class stamps, but that has quietly been switched to second class this year. – Guardian
Donald Trump has vowed to pay a $2,000 (£1,520) “tariff dividend” to American households in a radical stimulus package that could trigger a stock market boom. The US president claimed he could reward households because America was making trillions of dollars from his trade war, which has led to sweeping tariffs being imposed on countries around the world. – Telegraph
Ovo Energy is preparing to slash tens of millions of pounds in costs under a radical plan to secure its survival. In a bid to convince the regulator of its financial viability, Britain’s fourth-largest gas and electricity supplier is plotting deep spending cuts to areas including advertising and brand building activities. The cuts come as Stephen Fitzpatrick, Ovo’s founder, scrambles to meet tougher financial rules imposed by Ofgem. – Telegraph
The head of Lazard’s investment-banking arm in the UK is predicting a wave of large and midsized stock market debuts in London next year, as companies grow too big to stay in private equity hands and the fashion for Wall Street listings fades. Cyrus Kapadia told The Times that London was “the natural destination” for a number of very large private equity-owned businesses in the market value range of more than $10 billion. – The Times
One in six employers expect artificial intelligence to reduce the size of their workforce over the next year, amid weak employer confidence, according to new research. In the latest sign of the threat to white-collar workers posed by the advance of artificial intelligence, 62 per cent of those employers believed that clerical, junior managerial, professional or administrative roles were most likely to be lost because of the technology. – The Times
US close
US stocks erased earlier losses but still finished in mixed fashion on Friday as ongoing concerns about stretched valuations in the tech sector and concerns about economic growth kept risk appetite in check.
A late rally pushed the Dow and S&P 500 marginally into positive territory, with the benchmarks finished just 0.2% and 0.1% higher, respectively. While Nasdaq bounced off earlier lows, the index closed the session down 0.2%.