Ladbrokes owner boosted as bosses snap up shares
Bosses at Ladbrokes owner Entain have snapped up £2.4m of shares in a bet on the gambling giant – sending the stock higher.
In a vote of confidence in the outlook, chief executive Jette Nygaard-Andersen bought nearly £325,000 worth of stock.
she was joined by entain’s chairman Barry Gibson and his wife Brenda, who together purchased more than £1m of shares. Board members stella David and Rahul Welde also increased their holdings. The purchases were made on Tuesday, November 7, according to the latest stock market filing.
It came a day after Dodge & Cox, the san Francisco-based investment fund, doubled its stake in entain from 5.01pc to 10.33pc. shares rose 1.8pc, or 17p, to 958p.
The FTSE 100 fell 0.1pc, or 8.3 points, to 7401.7 and the FTSE 250 was up 0.5pc, or 84.6 points to 17,846.3
Associated British Foods rose for a second day following a strong set of results. The Primark owner won support from the City as Bernstein and Deutsche Bank Research upgraded their target prices on the stock. shares increased 2.5pc, or 57p, to 2307p.
Hiscox became the latest insurer to provide a positive set of results after written premiums rose 6.8pc to £3.06bn in the nine months to the end of september.
It followed upbeat results from Direct Line and Beazley in the previous session.
But there was little to cheer for two of Britain’s biggest investment platforms. shares in Hargreaves Lansdown fell 2.3pc, or 17p, to 710.8p while AJ Bell was down 0.9pc, or 2.4p, to 272.4p after the broker UBs initiated its coverage with ‘sell’ ratings on both stocks.
From May, Serco will oversee the process of installing and removing electronic ankle tags on offenders in england and Wales after the public service provider won a sixyear contract worth £200m from the Ministry of Justice. shares rose 2.4pc, or 3.5p, to 147.7p.
economic turmoil, including a sluggish recovery in China and import restrictions in India, have hit sales of precious stones, according to Anglo American’s diamond arm. De Beers, which mines in Botswana, Canada, Namibia and south Africa, said it sold £65m worth of diamonds between october 4 and November 3.
That was less than the £163m it sold from september 18 to october 3 and far below the £370m recorded during the same period last year. Anglo American shares dipped 2.1pc, or 44p, to 2095.5p.
Daily Mirror owner Reach will axe 450 jobs in a bid to cut costs. The newspaper publisher of nationals such as the Daily star and regionals including the Manchester evening News, announced two rounds of reductions in January and March. shares fell 0.2pc, or 0.2p, to 77.8p. But strong demand for newspapers over the football World Cup, the death of the Queen and Coronation of King Charles gave a boost to Smiths News. Revenues edged up 0.2pc to £1.1bn in the 12 months to August 26 while profit rose 14pc to £31.8m. But shares fell 1.4pc, or 0.7p, to 48.2p.
Persimmon has poached the finance boss of Galliford Try, Andrew Duxbury, a day after it reported an uptick in sales activity since the start of october. shares fell 0.2pc, or 2.5p, to 1143p.
Begbies Traynor has bought Andrew Forbes, a firm of chartered surveyors, in a deal worth up to £1m. The newly acquired business will sit within the restructuring specialist’s property division eddisons. shares sank 0.8pc or 1p, to 122.5p.
The boss of GB Group, who has led the identity verification and fraud software firm since April 2017, is to step down at the end of January next year. Chris Clark will be replaced by Dev Dhiman. shares gained 1.6pc, or 4p, to 258.8p.