London markets get off to a fairly slow start on Tuesday with the blue-chip FTSE 100 index sliding around 20 points to 7,722 in early trading.
Acting as a drag is banking group Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) as the UK Government says it plans to sell another slug of its stake in the bank left over from the 2008 bailout.
Confirmation comes through today of a 7.7% share stake will be sold at a 271p per share strike price. That will raise roughly £2.5bn for the Treasury but it will also mean a rough £2bn loss for the British taxpayer.
The Government rump stake will be cut to 62.4%. RBS shares head the FTSE 100 loser board, the stock down about 3.5% on yesterday’s 280.9p level at 271.2p.
LOSSES IN LINE AT WHITE GOODS ONLINE SELLER
AO World (AO.), the internet retailer of fridges, freezers and washing machines, racked up bigger losses last year chalking up a £16.2m deficit versus £12m in the previous 12 months.
That was despite a 13.6% rise in sales to £796.8m. The company blames ‘challenging trading environment’ which means bigger discounts to attract sales, putting profit margins under stiff pressure. But expectations were for losses in this rough ballpark, which explains why the firm’s share price nudges 1.3% higher in early trade to 154.6p.
Shares in advertising giant WPP (WPP) are also heavy FTSE 100 fallers on Tuesday after analysts at Berenberg tell investors to expect things to get worse before they get better.
The stock slides around 3% to £12.15. WPP, which lost its figurehead boss Sir Martin Sorrell in April, is expected to face challenges that will be difficult to fix and profit margins are likely to be under pressure, according to Berenberg number crunchers.
Newspapers group Johnston Press (JPR) said an ‘extremely challenging’ trading environment’ in the first five months of the year had resulted in a 9% revenue decline.
What’s worse is that the company expects this pressure to drag on through the second, sparking investors to sell down the shares more than 6% to 7.9p.
CYBER SECURITY FIRM IMPRESSES
Global identity data intelligence specialist GB Group (GBG:AIM) puts up typically impressive full year results to 31 March, showing big jumps in sales and profits.
Revenue for the year rose 37% feeding through to a 33% rise in reported pre-tax profit, while the company now says that it has more than 17,000 business and organisation customers across 79 countries.
Shares in the near £800m business barely budge, up just 1p to 521p, although investors should note the stock’s 29% rally since early April as investors demonstrated their confidence that today’s figures would be good.
MORE FIRM FIGURES FROM DISCOVERIE
Electronic components supplier DiscoverIE (DSCV) has reported another strong set of results for full year to 31 March 2018 with earnings per share up 16% and a continuing positive outlook supported by a 12% increase in the order book.
Shares in the rough £310m business rally more than n 3% on Tuesday to 439p, just a fraction off their all-time 445p highs.
