Office firm sinks 14pc as £2.5bn merger is aborted
SHARES in office rental firm
IWG plunged after the consortium trying to take it over backed away from its bid.
IWG – previously known as Regus – dived 14.4pc, or 38.3p, to 227.3p after Canadian firm Brookfield Asset Management and private equity company Onex abandoned their pursuit.
Brookfield put in a £2.5bn offer in December, alongside Onex, but the bid was rebuffed for being too cheap.
IWG has 3,000 office locations worldwide, and runs flexible shared offices under the Spaces name. Yesterday, it said it remained ‘highly confident’ in the prospects of the business and believes it has an exciting future as an independent company.
Building materials supplier SIG fell 4.2pc, or 6.8p, to 155.8p after an accounting irregularity had forced it to reinstate its profit.
It said it had suspended a number of staff and placed them under disciplinary investigation after identifying a historical overstatement of cash. The mishap has resulted in profits for 2016 being overstated by £3.7m and a further overstatement of £400,000 in the years before 2016.
Meanwhile, financial technology company NEX has become the latest firm to benefit from a Trump bump. It climbed 7.8pc, or 46p, to 639p after it said services were up 3pc and the company, which was formerly called ICap before rebranding after Tullett Prebon bought its voice trading business, said it was on track to make £40m of cost savings.
While its markets business sales fell 10pc in the three months to December, investors were buoyed by the news markets were more active in January, with potential interest rate rises expected to boost volumes further.
The FTSE 100 finished down 0.57pc, or 43.16 points, to 7490.39 though Ocado jumped following news the boss who spearheaded its international contract wins would be joining the board.
Luke Jensen, chief executive of Ocado Solutions, which licenses the grocer’s lucrative warehouse technology, got his reward for three recent deals which have transformed the firm, and was promoted to the board which he will join next month. He oversaw Ocado’s signing of international partnerships with the likes of Sobeys in Canada and Groupe Casino in France. Ocado shares were up 3pc, or 15p, to 518.6p.
Strong Christmas trading and booming demand for pork in China lifted meat supplier Cranswick. Third quarter sales were well ahead of the year before thanks to strong export volumes to the Far East.
Cranswick, which has a very strong presence in the pork export market in China, said UK pig prices continued to ease in the period and the downward trend would reflect in selling prices.
The company, which processes and supplies fresh meats, also sells in New Zealand and the US.
The bullish update, combined with Cranswick’s assurances that it was confident in its prospects for the rest of the financial year, sent company shares up 5.5pc, or 160p, to 3098p.
Private equity firm 3i soared 2.2pc, or 20p, to 951.4p, thanks to strong sales across Dutch discount store Action.
It opened 244 stores in 2017, including six in Poland, and said the move helped it to boost sales by 28pc. TalkTalk clawed back some of Wednesday’s losses after RBC said concerns over its balance sheet are overdone. Upgrading it to ‘outperform’, the investment bank said: ‘The balance sheet, whilst stretched, is not a danger.’
Its comments sent the broadband provider up by 2.4pc, or 2.9p, to 121.9p.