BUSINESS LIVE: CMA to probe Amazon and Microsoft; Imperial boasts smoking alts growth; Grainger enjoys record year

National Grid expects annual earnings per share to be weighted more towards the second half of the year, with Britain’s energy systems operator confident of meeting full-year expectations.

The group, which also runs an electricity and gas business in New York and Massachusetts, said it expects operating profit to be broadly evenly split across the year for its UK businesses, but more heavily weighted towards the second half for its US ones.

National Grid expects 10 to 15 per cent of its New York business’s full-year operating profit to come in the first half ended 30 September, due to a higher non-cash environmental provision charge.

Britain’s biggest builder of homes for rent expects another record year for contruction, with the FTSE 250 group om trak for 1,600 units this year.

‘Our strong performance in delivering rental growth has continued through the remainder of our financial year. The team continue to deliver exceptional operational performance across all areas of the business and particularly in the completion and lease up of our new schemes.

‘Sales remain robust, valuations continue to demonstrate resilience, and our balance sheet remains strong. We continue to successfully execute on our growth plans which will see our post tax EPRA earnings double in the next three years.

‘We are delivering these new homes into one of the strongest occupational markets we have seen. Current leasing at our newly-opened schemes is exceeding underwriting and we continue to drive a step up in rental income across our national portfolio.

‘However, we remain mindful of protecting our customers’ rental affordability and, therefore, continue to ensure that rental growth across our portfolio moves broadly in line with wage inflation.’

Imperial Brands expects full-year profits to be in line with expectations, thanks to sustained demand, higher prices and strong adoption of tobacco alternatives such as e-cigarettes.

The company also announced a share buyback of £1.1billion.

The maker of Winston cigarettes and Backwoods cigars said its net revenue growth for tobacco products improved in the second half of the year, as higher prices helped offset the relatively steeper decline in volume when compared with historic averages.

The Government on Wednesday proposed banning younger generations from ever buying cigarettes, a move that would give the country some of the world’s toughest smoking rules and hurt the sales of major tobacco firms.

Tobacco shares suffered in the wake of the announcement.

Britain’s competition regulator will investigate US tech giants Amazon and Microsoft’s dominance of the UK cloud market, following an Ofcom probe that identified difficulties for UK businesses accessing or switching to multiple providers.

‘The CMA will now conduct an independent investigation to decide whether there is an adverse effect on competition, and if so, whether it should take action or recommend others to take action,’ Ofcom said in a statement.

Ofcom, which started looking into cloud services last year, had said in April it was particularly worried about the practices of Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft because of their market positions, and planned to ask the competition regulator to investigate.

UK businesses have told Ofcom they were concerned about it being too difficult to switch or mix and match cloud provider, Fergal Farragher, Ofcom’s Director responsible for the Market Study.

‘So, we are referring the market to the CMA for further scrutiny, to make sure business customers continue to benefit from cloud services,’ Farragher added.