KEY SHARES ON THE MOVE

CITY commentators wondered whether Fever-Tree’s slump this month meant we had all gone off gin and tonic.

But there may be another reason the shares have lost their fizz.

Speculation that bubbled over the summer appears to have died down. At the time, gossips said Fever-Tree had caught the eye of a big-time suitor such as PepsiCo, Unilever or Diageo.

The talk in the Square Mile, denied by a company spokesman, was that Fever-Tree was working with Morgan Stanley on an informal process to deal with interest from potential predators. If Pepsi and co are interested, the price tag just got a little cheaper. THE march of the online retailers continues apace. On Wednesday, fashion website Asos is expected to reveal that for the first time its annual profits will hit £100 million.

Shore Capital’s City scribbler Greg Lawless expects profits to surge by a quarter, thanks to an army of new shoppers overseas. International sales now account for two thirds of sales at Asos, which has a £4 billion market capitalisation.

Last month’s sale of 2.4 per cent of the shares by Danish billionaire Anders Holch Povlsen has knocked the share price.

However, Lawless reckons the figures should reassure the market that the firm is a ‘structural winner’ in the shift to online shopping.