Rolls-Royce hampered by fresh engine trouble
THERE will be more delays ahead for airlines using planes with Rolls-Royce Trent 1000 engines, the FTSE 100 stalwart has warned.
Rolls said it has had to remove engines sooner than expected because it needs to replace faulty parts urgently. But it can’t fix them all at the same time, meaning some planes could be grounded for longer.
The latest delay comes after a Trent 1000 engine on a Norwegian plane broke while the aircraft was flying over an Italian town, damaging several cars.
The Trent 1000s are used in Boeing 787 Dreamliners, which are flown by the likes of Norwegian and British Airways.
Rolls has been plagued by Trent 1000 problems since 2016, when an inspection found turbine blades in the £34m engines were deteriorating faster than expected. It has had to earmark £1.6bn to deal with the repairs and it will take until next spring for Rolls to reduce the number of grounded aircraft to below ten, rather than by the end of 2019. Shares slid 2.1pc, or 17p, to 792.8p.
FTSE 250- listed investment bank and asset manager Investec stumbled after it warned its firsthalf profits will take a £42m hit.
The Anglo-South African firm blamed choppy markets and ‘persistent uncertainty relating to Brexit and global trade wars’ for chipping away at investment banking fees and trading income, though costs rose. The stock fell 8.4pc, or 41p, to 448.4p. Shares in building materials firm
Low & Bonar closed down 7.9pc, or 0.61p, to 7.12p.
But after the market closed it announced that management have agreed to be taken over for £107m, or 15.5p per share, by a subsidiary of German group Freudenberg. The firm will recommend shareholders back the deal at a meeting in the next few weeks.
Brexit paralysis and fluctuations on the currency markets held the
FTSE 100 back from making solid gains and it fell 11.50 points, to 7344.92. The FTSE 250 ended up 79.94 points, at 20,169.40.
After one of Europe’s most successful floats this year, Trainline shares skidded as some of its biggest investors disembarked.
Private equity group KKR, along with Index Ventures, Ares and Alven Capital sold shares worth £285m in the train and coach ticket-booking platform.
This is almost 14pc of Trainline’s total stock and means, with a smaller holding, KKR will take one of its two representatives, Franziska Kayser, off the board.
Shares in Trainline, which went public for £1.5bn in June, closed 6.1pc, or 28.5p, down at 438.5p.
Serco advanced 2.4pc, or 3.6p, to 152p, after it won a six-year, £450m contract to keep operating ferry services between the Scottish mainland and the Orkney Islands and Shetland Islands.
Keller Group was in the red after the engineering contractor said its chief executive, Alain Michaelis, had agreed with the board to step down from September 30. Finance boss Mike Speakman will step in on an interim basis.
Jefferies analysts also noticed Keller struck ‘a cautious tone’ by flagging uncertainty and slower trading in North America. It shed 6.5pc, or 43p, to 619p. North Sea oil and gas explorer
Hurricane Energy lost 1.8pc, or 0.86p, to close at 46.4p after releasing half-year results that included revenue figures for the first time.
Revenue in the six months to June 30 came in at a modest £18,000 or so. On the junior market, data and analytics software firm Statpro Group rocketed after it accepted a takeover bid that will take it private for £161m.
The 230p-per-share bid is from Confluence Technologies. Statpro rose 52.9pc, or 78.5p, to 227p.