THE DAILY BRIEFING
SHARE BOOST Standard Chartered shares jumped after it revealed it had completed three shipping finance deals worth more than £1.3bn.
The deals include £562m for BW gas JuJu, a Bermudan-Japanese joint venture; £287m for Saudi Arabia’s national shipping firm; and £468m for the Reliance Group in India. The stock rose 2.8pc or 20.4p to 744.7p.
BOOKINGS SLUMP Elegant Hotels has suffered a fall in bookings due to ‘challenging’ conditions in the Barbados luxury holiday market.
Revenue fell 5.2pc to £47.7m in the year to September 30, partly due to a decline in sterling since the Brexit vote last June. The firm’s holidays are priced in dollars.
However, profit rose from £5.9m to £15.8m. It proposed a dividend of 3.5p per share making a full year dividend of 7p per share.
PRICES SOAR House prices were £14,000 higher on average in November than a year earlier, according to official figures.
The average UK property value has increased by 6.7pc over the last year to reach £218,000, a report by the Office for National Statistics shows.
Prices were also £2,000 higher than a month earlier, the ONS said.
DELIVERING JOBS Takeaway delivery firm Deliveroo is creating more than 300 jobs as it bids to create one of the largest technology centres in the UK in Cannon Street, London. Revenues at Deliveroo were on course to hit £130m for 2016, according to reports in June last year.
SALES UP Dotdigital Group has posted soaring revenues after it sent 5.6bn emails for its clients. The email marketing firm said revenue was up 17pc to £15m in the six months to December 31. The total number of emails sent by its dotmailer platform rose 41pc.
SWEET TREAT A chocolateshaped reindeer taking a selfie helped Hotel Chocolat post a 16.2pc jump in Christmas sales. It sold so well the gourmet producer was forced to remake the chocolate slab three times in the 13 weeks to Christmas Day.
RAIL DEAL Dutch rail firm Abellio is selling 40pc of its Greater Anglia rail franchise to Japanese company Mitsui. The Rail, Maritime and Transport union said this showed that Britain’s rail network is ‘constantly up for grabs’.
SOLID RESULTS Care and support services provider Mears Group said it will deliver solid trading figures for 2016 and confirmed an overhaul that was announced in August is almost complete.
TRAVEL TIE-UP Online travel agency eDreams has bought Barcelona-based hotel-booking site Budgetplaces.com for an undisclosed sum.