BUSINESS LIVE: StanChart faces $850m writedown; CAB Payments names CEO; Energy bills to fall

Just before close, the FTSE 100 was 0.27% up at 7,704.93.

Meanwhile, the FTSE 250 was 0.49% lower at 19,168.53.

(PA) – The owner of British Airways is set to report soaring sales last year, shrugging off fears that the UK’s recent recession has dented demand for holidays.

International Airlines Group (IAG), which also owns airlines Iberia, Vueling and Aer Lingus, will publish its financial results for 2023 on Thursday.

The aviation giant is expected to report sales totalling just shy of €30billion (£25billion), a record yearly amount for the group and more than a quarter higher than the prior year.

It follows IAG reporting record profits between July and September last year, the critical summer season, as it benefited from a boom in leisure travel.

The company flagged particularly strong demand for flights on its North and South Atlantic routes and top holiday destinations in Europe.

Analysts are expecting an underlying operating profit for the full year of about €3.5billion (£3billion), which would top its previous peak achieved in 2018.

Jeremy Hunt is reportedly drawing up plans that would allow first-time buyers to get on the property ladder with a 1 per cent deposit.

The 99 per cent mortgage scheme could be announced in the Budget on March 6 by the Chancellor to help those struggling to build up enough savings to buy a home.

It marks another milestone in the chip maker’s meteoric rise over the last years as demand for chips used for artificial intelligence has soared.

(PA) – Apple has hit out at music streaming giant Spotify over its long-running competition complaint filed with the EU, which could reportedly soon see Apple facing a huge fine.

Following reports the EU has concluded its investigation into Spotify’s claims of anti-competitive behaviour by Apple over its App Store rules – and is ready to issue a €500million fine – the iPhone maker has accused the music firm of trying to get “limitless” access to Apple’s tools without paying for any of it.

Spotify filed a complaint with the EU in 2019, claiming that Apple’s App Store rules limit choice and competition because it charges a 30% fee on purchases made through the store – including music streaming subscriptions – which Spotify claims is an unfair “tax”, and that Apple’s own competing Apple Music streaming service is not subject to the same fees, giving it an unfair advantage.

The Swedish music giant has also argued that Apple’s rules do not allow it to tell users about cheaper ways to subscribe outside of the App Store.

According to reports earlier this week, the European Commission is close to concluding its investigation and Apple was said to be facing a €500million fine.

In a statement issued on Thursday night in response to the reports, the US tech giant said Spotify did not offer subscriptions via the App Store and therefore did not pay Apple any commission in the EU.

“We’re happy to support the success of all developers – including Spotify, which is the largest music streaming app in the world,” Apple said.

Mike Ashley’s Frasers Group’s appetite for distressed retailers continues to grow by the day.

On the menu this week was Hornby plc, the model train maker whose roots go back to the early 1900s.

Government outsourcer Serco has been ordered to cease the use of facial recognition tech and fingerprint scans when monitoring employees.

Britain’s information watchdog on Friday ruled the FTSE 250 firm must change the way it monitors the attendance of more than 2,000 employees at 38 leisure facilities across the country, and destroy what data it current has.

The chief executive of CAB Payments plans to stand down in March, just months after the payments provider’s calamitous initial public offering.

Bhairav Trivedi will leave as the financial technology group’s boss following the publication of its annual results on 26 March, but remain as a ‘senior adviser’ to its board.

Households woke up today to the announcement that the average energy bill would fall by £238 to £1,690 from April – but these high prices have left many wondering if they can get a better deal by switching.

Energy regulator Ofgem today said the current £1,928-a-year average price-capped bill would fall 12.3 per cent on 1 April.

Standard Chartered shares soared on Friday after the lender lined up almost $1.6billion in shareholder payouts on the back of strong profit growth.

The banking giant plans to repurchase $1billion of its own shares and hand investors $560million in final dividends, meaning full-year dividends were 50 per cent higher on the previous year.

(PA) – The UK privacy and data protection watchdog has ordered Serco Leisure to stop using facial recognition technology to monitor the attendance of leisure centre employees.

The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) found that Serco Leisure and community leisure trusts were unlawfully processing the biometric data of more than 2,000 employees at 38 leisure facilities across the UK.

It said facial recognition and fingerprint scanning were used to monitor workers’ attendance and then the subsequent payment for their time.

The leisure centre operator failed to show why these methods were needed rather than “less intrusive” means, such as ID cards or fobs for staff, the ICO said.

The ICO also said employees were also not offered a clear alternative to having their faces and fingerprints scanned.

John Edwards, the UK Information Commissioner, said: “Biometric data is wholly unique to a person so the risks of harm in the event of inaccuracies or a security breach are much greater – you can’t reset someone’s face or fingerprint like you can reset a password.

“Serco Leisure did not fully consider the risks before introducing biometric technology to monitor staff attendance, prioritising business interests over its employees’ privacy.”

Two thirds of Britons are £65,000 worse off on average over the course of their life due to low financial confidence and knowledge, a study claims.

Only 32 per cent feel confident when it comes to managing their money, new figures from digital wealth manager Moneybox suggest.

Lloyds has set aside £450 million to cover possible compensation payouts as a probe into car finance goes ahead.

The bank, which provides about one in six car loans in the UK, announced the hit as it revealed record annual profits of £7.5 billion for 2023.

Two thirds of house hunters are looking for a property with green technology installed, a study claims.

More homebuyers seek houses with environmentally-friendly upgrades such as solar panels, triple-glazed windows and roof insulation, that will help them be more energy efficient and reduce carbon emissions, a survey by Ovo Energy shows.

Japan’s main stock index soared to a new high yesterday, breaking the previous record which was set 34 years ago.

Tokyo’s Nikkei rose 2.19 per cent on Thursday to close at its highest level since the 1980s boom.

The owner of Cadbury has been attacked by MPs for continuing to sell chocolate in Russia two years after the invasion of Ukraine.

Labour’s Alex Sobel, who co-chairs an all-party Ukraine group, has written to Dirk Van de Put, chief executive of US food giant Mondelez, which took over the beloved British chocolate brand Cadbury in 2010.

The FTSE 100 has inched higher at the open, propped by financial stocks following Standard Chartered’s results, though the index is on course for marginal losses for the week as markets digest a raft of mixed earnings updates.

Standard Chartered has jumped 6.4 per cent to the top of FTSE 100 after the Asia-focused bank rewarded shareholders with dividends and a fresh $1billion buyback as annual profit rose 18%.

The stock powered a 1 per cent rise in British lenders .

The FTSE 250 has edged 0.1 per cent lower, led by a 2 per cent fall in the UK’s Domino’s Pizza Group as Barclays downgraded the firm to ‘equal weight’ from ‘overweight’.

Meanwhile, British consumer sentiment fell for the first time in four months in February as households took a gloomier view of their recent personal finances and the broader economic outlook, according to a survey.

Chipmaker Nvidia has jumped in value by £214billion, delivering the biggest increase in market value of any company in a single day’s trading in history.

Shares surged 16 per cent yesterday in New York. The increase outpaces the £156billion gain made by Facebook owner Meta at the start of February.

Matt Britzman, equity analyst, Hargreaves Lansdown:

‘Standard Chartered’s fourth quarter results benefited from lower impairments like many of its peers. Profit before tax beat expectations largely due to a release of impairments back to profit from one of its divisions. Strip that out and underlying performance was a little weaker than expected, but the focus will be on guidance.

‘The outlook for 2024 is a smidge lower than analysts had priced in but the medium-term guidance out to 2026 shows promising signs. Volume growth, cost cuts and a benefit from the structural hedge are expected to help deliver a return on tangible equity of 12% in 2026 (10% 2023). If delivered, that should provide a material tailwind to the current valuation.

‘The China story remains in focus. Standard took another write-down of its investment in the domestic Chinese bank, Bohai, over the quarter – taking the total to $850mn for the year. The stark performance difference between onshore and offshore business in China highlights the challenging domestic environment.’

British fintech company CAB Payments has named Neeraj Kapur as its new chief executive officer, just months after the group’s share went public.

Kapur will succeed Bhairav Trivedi, who will transition to the role of a senior adviser to the board.

The company, which went public last year and specialises in business-to-business emerging market cross-border payments and foreign exchange, has been looking to win back market trust after a sharp plunge in its shares following a profit warning.

Britain’s private sector is growing at the fastest pace for nine months according to new figures adding to evidence that the recession is already over.

The purchasing managers’ index (PMI) showed business activity picking up speed – in stark contrast to data showing a deepening downturn in Germany.

UK GDP shrank for two quarters in a row late last year, meeting the technical definition of recession, but there are signs it has started to bounce back.

Standard Chartered took a $850million impairment last year, mainly from its stake in Chinese lender Bohai Bank, its second time writing down the value of the unit as the lender was hit by increasing bad loans as growth in the world’s second-largest economy sputtered.

The hefty loss in China, a core target for StanChart’s strategy, underlines the challenge it faces to expand in the country as policymakers struggle to arrest a deepening property crisis and revive weak consumer confidence.

A fresh $150 million writedown of its stake in Bohai Bank, following a $700 million hit earlier this year, reduced its value to $700 million from $1.5 billion at the start of the year.

It follows news earlier this week from rival HSBC, which took a £2.4billion hit against the value of its stake in China’s Bank of Communications.