Turnaround hopes send WPP to top of the Footsie
WPP barrelled to the top of the Footsie leaderboard after it clocked its first quarterly revenue growth in more than a year.
The update was a pleasant surprise from the world’s biggest advertising company.
It posted a 0.7pc rise in sales growth between July and September, far surpassing analysts’ estimates of minus 0.6pc.
The firm has been fire-fighting a lacklustre performance, lagging share price and management turmoil after former boss Sir Martin Sorrell abruptly left last year.
But replacement Mark Read hailed the turnaround yesterday, in a set of figures Societe Generale analysts dubbed ‘pivotal’.
Liberum brokers noted that the firm didn’t raise full-year guidance, in a move they said ‘could raise questions’, but this was attributed to the company taking a cautious stance on its rebound.
WPP shares were 6.1pc higher, up 56p, to 974.4p by the close.
In a bleaker trading update, chemicals group Synthomer issued a profit warning and said it is reviewing its assets between now and next March, when it will release annual results.
The FTSE250-listed group believes 2019 profit before tax will be 10pc lower than in 2018, when it made £135m. It said this had mostly been driven by ‘increased weakness’ in a division that makes rubber products which can be used to make items from tyres and shoe heels to chewing gum.
Like many companies that have recently warned on their performance, it also blamed ‘depressed European industrial activity combined with increased political and economic uncertainties’.
Shares tumbled 9.4pc, or 29p, to 280.6p. Synthomer’s drop helped push the FTSE 250 0.2pc lower, or 48.64 points, to 20103.51.
The FTSE 100 snapped a fourday winning streak as traders worried that the US-China trade spat was heating back up after US vice president Mike Pence accused China of curtailing ‘rights and liberties’ in Hong Kong in a controversial speech on Thursday.
London’s premier index fell only slightly by 0.05pc, or 3.78 points, to 7,324.47, seemingly unmoved by news that the EU had agreed to extend the deadline for Brexit.
BP investors were nonplussed by its £3.9m investment in a treeplanting firm, with shares shedding 0.4pc, or 2p, to close at 512p. The energy group’s venture capital arm has pumped the money into Finite Carbon, a forestry group that manages more than 40 projects across 3m acres, in its latest bid to boost its green image.
BP reports third-quarter figures next Tuesday.
A mixed set of production results from mining and commodities trader Glencore sent shares 0.8pc, or 1.9p, higher by the close, to 234.25p. Copper output fell 4pc and gold by 20pc, while cobalt rose by 21pc and coal by 8pc.
The Switzerland-based group lowered its full-year production guidance for copper, ferrochrome and zinc.
Fellow blue-chip miner BHP rose by 0.7pc, or 12.2p, to 1657.2p after analysts at RBC Capital Markets upgraded its rating to ‘outperform’ from ‘sector perform’.
Morrisons lost ground after it revealed fund manager Silchester International Investors doubled its stake in the firm from 5pc to 10pc. Morrisons shares shed 1.8pc, or 3.6p, to 201.1p. But small-cap gold miner
Petropavlovsk, on the other hand, added 2.6pc, or 0.25p, to close at 9.77p after it revealed Russian businessman Vladislav Sviblov had taken a 4.6pc stake in the firm.
Over on AIM, insolvency specialist Begbies Traynor rallied 2.9pc, or 2.5p, to 87.5p, after it bought a smaller rival, Londonbased Alexander Lawson Jacobs, for at least £2.4m.