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London Stock Exchange Group has cautioned of increased costs as it works to turn around Refinitiv, the misfiring data business it bought in 2019 for $27bn.
The stock market operator flagged that costs would rise in the second half because of legacy IT upgrades, inflation and the return of Covid-related expenses such as travel and marketing. LSE said it still was expecting to meet the full year 2021 guidance, however.
LSE said it had booked about £77m of cost synergies from the Refinitiv deal on a run-rate basis in the first half and targeted £125m of savings by the end of the year, up from its previous guidance of £88m. Interim results from the company showed adjusted operating profit of £1.2bn, from £457m a year earlier, on total income up around threefold to £3.1bn.
Briefly
UK house prices ticked higher last month after cooling in June, mortgage lender Halifax said. Its house price index for July rose 0.4 per cent from the previous month, which showed a 0.6 decline. In annual terms prices were 7.6 per cent higher than in July 2020, the slowest pace of inflation since March.
Drugmaker Hikma boosted targets for its generics business on the back of strong sales of recently launched products. For the full year Hikma guided towards generics revenue in the range of $810m to $830m, up from $770m to $810m previously. It also targeted a core operating margin of between 22 and 24 per cent rather than the previous target of around 20 per cent. Hikma posted a half-year operating profit of $326m, up 10 per cent, on revenue up 7 per cent to $1.2bn.
Outsourcer Capita said it remained on track to hit 2021 expectations for organic revenue growth, driven by new contracts and a recovery in Covid-affected businesses. Total contracts worth £2.6bn had been won in the first half with in-year revenue growing 13 per cent to £769m, the company said. Capita’s interim results showed adjusted pre-tax profit from continuing operations of £45.3m, from an £11.1m loss the year before.
ContourGlobal, the power plant owner, raised full-year guidance after reporting a better than planned performance across its fleet. Its interim adjusted ebitda grew 16 per cent to $406m on revenue up 38 per cent to $935m following the acquisition in February of plants in US and Trinidad and Tobago.
Private equity group Cinven said it continues to work on the potential takeover of Sanne, the £1.5bn-valued administration outsourcer for hedge funds and alternative asset managers. The Takeover Panel has given an extended deadline of August 30 for Cinven to make a firm offer or walk away, it said. Rival fund Apex said earlier this month that it had made a 920p per share offer for Sanne, trumping Cinven’s proposal pitched at 875p a share.
Beyond the Square Mile
Wall Street stocks hovered at fresh all-time highs after weekly data suggested employment in the world’s largest economy was beginning to stabilise. The blue-chip S&P 500 finished 0.6 per cent higher in New York, marking a new closing record level.
A blank-cheque company led by former Credit Suisse chief executive Tidjane Thiam is in exclusive talks with Mexican fintech start-up Credijusto and Latin American corporate data provider CIAL Dun & Bradstreet to merge and list the groups in New York this year.
Apple intends to install software on American iPhones to scan for images of child abuse, according to people briefed on the plans, raising security researchers’ concerns that it could open the door to surveillance of millions of people’s personal devices.
Essential comment before you go
Bryce Elder By choosing his son-in-law as a successor, founder Mike Ashley might just want a stooge up front to take the flak while he continues to make the big decisions. Yet by focusing on the Sports Direct founder exclusively, investors risk ignoring the possibility that parent company Frasers will no longer be built in his image.
Gillian Tett How soon can the Federal Reserve create an effective central bank digital currency? Fed involvement in crypto would present a symbolic shift that could threaten the first-mover advantage tokens like bitcoin have enjoyed.