Thomas Cook on rise amid wider sell-off

Thomas Cook received some welcome support yesterday as its chairman snapped up more than £80,000 worth of shares following the stock’s rocky ride in recent days.

According to a regulatory disclosure, Frank Meysman bought 373,000 shares at 21p each, amounting to £80,441.

The travel giant’s shares have tumbled since a profit warning last week – its third this year – and after it also revealed that it swung to a pretax loss of £163 million.

Meysman was not the only board member to snap up shares, with non-executive director Lesley Knox buying 208,778 shares at a price of 22p each, totalling £47,163.

Shares in Thomas Cook closed up 51.4 per cent at 34.4p. Brokerage firm Jefferies said the firm can avoid raising funds to shore up its finances because of its existing financing deals, potential earnings and the prospect of selling a stake in its airline.

Ted Baker’ s under-fire management received the backing of a top ten investor amid a harassment scandal involving the fashion label’s chief executive.

The major shareholder, which declined to be named, told the Press Association that it remains “supportive of the management team”.

“Ted Baker is a well-established global brand,” the investor said. Shares closed up 47p at 1,467p.

The FTSE 100 index closed down 100.92 points at 6,921.84. David Madden at CMC Markets UK said: “Longer-dated US government bond yields fell [on Tuesday], and that rattled confidence and increased chatter about a potential recession in the largest economy in the world.”