THE DAILY BRIEFING
DRONE AUDIT Accountants PwC used a drone in an audit for the first time, to take over 300 images of a coal reserve at one of the UK’s last remaining coal-fired power stations, Aberthaw, in South Wales.
COSTA COMPLETED Premier Inn owner Whitbread has completed the sale of Costa to Coca-Cola for £3.9bn. Whitbread will launch a share buyback programme and provide a one-off payment of up to £380m to its pension fund.
NUMBERS SOAR Passenger numbers at Ryanair grew by 9pc to 10m in December compared with the same month a year earlier. Budget airline Wizz Air flew 2.6m passengers in December, 18.3pc more than a year earlier.
BUSY QUARTER Private equity firms, which buy companies in the hope of selling them on for a profit, completed 14pc more deals in the Europe, Middle East and Africa region in the last three months of 2018 compared to a year before, according to Bloomberg.
WEALTHY WORRIED Britain’s wealthy elite are worried macroeconomic and political uncertainty could burn a hole in their pocket, says Canaccord Genuity Wealth Management. One in 10 high-networth individuals say they don’t feel confident in their financial future.
PRICES UP Shop prices rose at their highest rate since 2013 in December, despite big discounts in the critical Christmas trading period. Figures from the BRCNielsen shop price index show overall inflation accelerated to 0.3pc last month compared to a year ago, and up from 0.1pc in November.
DEAL OFF Cabot Energy and
Rockhopper Exploration have agreed to cancel plans for Cabot to buy Italian gas assets from Rockhopper, after failing to gain regulatory approval in Italy.
METALS ROLE Miner Anglo American has named a new head of metals in its restructuring of executive roles. Ruben Fernandes, who is the current chief of Anglo’s Brazilian arm, will replace Duncan Wanblad as the chief executive of base metals in March.
ON BOARD North Sea oil and gas firm Hurricane Energy has appointed Sandy Shaw as a nonexecutive director. She has held senior positions at Esso Petroleum and Marathon Oil, and is a nonexecutive director at Velocys.