Holiday makers and business travellers will be breathing a sigh of relief as British Airways expects to run a full flight schedule at London's Heathrow on Tuesday. That’s after a worldwide computer system failure at the airline stranded 75,000 passengers over the bank holiday weekend.
Shares in BA-parent International Consolidated Airlines (IAG) come under fire in early trade on Tuesday, down 3.8% at 590.5p and heading the Footsie loser board, as investors react to the potential long-term brand damage to the airline.
This drags on the wider indexes. The FTSE 100 falls back from record 7,547.63 highs set on Friday bolstered by more pound weakness at the end of last week. The blue-chip index is currently around 50 points off at 7,499.
London Stock Exchange (LSE) has agreed to buy Citigroup's fixed-income analytics platform and index business for $685m in cash the company confirm today. LSE stock barely moves on the agreement, nudging just 12p higher to £34.03.
CASH CALL SETTLEMENT
A group representing Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) investors has accepted an out-of-court deal to settle a lawsuit that aimed to call disgraced former CEO Fred Goodwin to account over a £12bn cash call in 2008. The per share payout is likely to be tiny so the settlement is not likely to make very much difference to private investors or the share price, which dips 0.6% to 260p.
British American Tobacco (BATS) plans to expand sales of its ‘glo’ tobacco-heating device to Tokyo and Osaka from July and roll it out nationwide by year-end, intensifying a battle with Philip Morris for a share of Japan's vaping market. The implied extra marketing costs anticipated drag on the share price, down 1.4% to £55.12.
PENSION SCHEME PLAN
Britain's biggest telecoms group BT (BT.A) has begun informal talks about capping its multi-billion pound pension scheme to retired staff, according to reports. The group’s enormous £14bn-plus scheme black hole remains one of the biggest challenges facing the telco. BT shares remain largely flat at 312.9p.
Asset finance software supplier Alfa Financial (ALFA) looks set for a second day of gains following its strong start to stock market life on Friday. The share price jumped around 30% to last week having officially floated at 325p per share, valuing the business at more than £1bn. That’s London’s biggest IPO so far this year. The stock rallies another 10p-odd on Tuesday to 440p.
NHS IT SPENDING SQUEEZE
Digital migration services supplier Kainos (KNOS) feels the pinch of squeezed NHS IT budgets despite posting firm full year growth and bolstering its headcount. But investors push the stock 2.5% lower to 234p with little let-up seemingly likely in third-party sales or healthcare related IT projects.
Malaysia-based data analytics business Fusionex (FXI:AIM) tanks 67% to 42.5p as the company takes the drastic step of planning to ditch its stock market listing. The company points to long-term poor share price performance that it feels fails to reflect the company’s prospects, plus uncertainties over Brexit. The plan will be put to a shareholder vote on 15 June with an eye to a 26 June last day of trading, a motion expected to be carried given the 40%-plus stoke owned by directors that all support the move. Company broker Peel Hunt has resigned as an adviser.
