Below are the key headlines from today’s updated papers, featuring the Financial Times, The Times, The Telegraph, The Daily Mail & more - see the full Press section here.
UK economy slows sharply as Brexit stand-off takes its toll. Brexit fears cast a deep chill over UK growth prospects on Monday as Theresa May desperately gropes for a breakthrough in negotiations with the European Union. The latest alarming snapshot from the biggest slice of the economy, the services sector, showed the pace of expansion at its weakest for seven months and new business wins at a two-year low. October’s Chartered Institute of Procurement and Supply activity index, where a score over 50 signals growth, weakened from 53.9 to a far worse than expected 52.2, the worst since March. If that trend continues, the economy is on track for growth of just 0.2% in the final quarter of the year, less than half the pace of the previous three months. Chris Williamson, chief business economist at survey compiler IHS Markit, said the economy’s expansion was likely to “weaken sharply”.
Zambeef is just what investors need to beef up their small-cap portfolio. Investors looking for a rounded small-cap portfolio don’t have many options in the food and supermarket space. Investors therefore have to look further afield for exposure, with one stock called Zambeef Products (ZAM) looking promising. The firm is the biggest supermarket player in Zambia, with 206 stores under the name Macro, selling beef, chicken, milk, egg and pork. It also farms the products it sells. The Macro stores are aimed at ordinary Zambians, and finance director Craig Harris says the business is very cash-generative. The share price has been held back by its debt. It was borrowing money in US dollars and then having to deal with the wild fluctuations in the Zambian kwacha. The company, which floated at 46p in 2011, expects year-end net debt of $59 million, nearly $10 million higher than what the City expects. Harris says it is selling non-core assets to pay down the debt but the City wants the company to do more. The British government has also invested in the company through its development finance arm, CDC Group. Harris says the investment has helped it become ISO compliant and export certified, meaning it can export to first world economies. If Brexit goes horribly wrong, maybe Zambeef will be doing a lot more business with the UK than it could ever have imagined.
Butchers chain Crawshaw cuts 350 jobs after falling into administration. Yorkshire-based business closes distribution centre and two-thirds of its stores. More than 350 jobs have been lost at Crawshaw Group (CRAW) after the Yorkshire-based chain of butchers went into administration and shut two-thirds of its stores. It is the latest high street retailer to go bust after Evans Cycles, House of Fraser, Toys R Us and Maplin, while a string of other well-known names have shut dozens of stores via an insolvency process known as a company voluntary arrangement. Crawshaw, which was founded in 1954, said it appointed Ernst & Young as administrators on Friday. It shut 35 stores and its distribution centre at Astley, with the loss of 354 jobs.
Sparks fly as boardroom battle at Airbus supplier Velocity Composites (VEL) takes off in public. On Friday, the aviation supplier’s founders wrote to executive chairman Mark Mills via their lawyers demanding he and his board members resign today. Founders Gerard Johnson, Christopher Banks and Jon Bridges, who collectively own 42% of the company, are understood to be unhappy with the way the AIM-listed company is being run and have demanded wholesale change. Former chief executive Bridges, who resigned from the board just last month, wants to return, as does Peter Turner who retired in February. The spokesman for the company, which makes parts for the likes of Boeing and Airbus, said there had been “a big falling out” and that this was now being played out in public. It is understood that Mills has no plans to resign, with the company describing the potential reappointment of Bridges and Turner as “damaging”.
ITV (ITV) chief executive Carolyn McCall on Monday turned to her former co-pilot to help reduce the broadcaster’s reliance on advertising revenues. Chris Kennedy, who for five years was McCall’s finance boss while she led easyJet, will join as ITV’s numbers man in February. Kennedy joins from software firm Micro Focus, where he’s been tackling the troublesome integration of its huge $8.8 billion (£6.8 billion) Hewlett Package Enterprises takeover since the start of the year. Before that he was finance chief at tech firm ARM, and was a key player in its £24 billion sale to SoftBank. His involvement in that deal could spark speculation a long-rumoured sale of ITV is back on the cards
Sky faces tough Disney content talks as it leaves the FTSE 100. Comcast must now renegotiate contracts with the firm it beat to buy Murdoch’s platform. Sky (SKY) leaves the FTSE 100 this week with its new owner facing the threat of Disney, which narrowly missed out on acquiring the pay-TV group, playing hardball over deals to screen its content, which include the Star Wars films and hits from the Marvel universe. Some of Sky’s key TV and film contracts could be at risk after US pay-TV giant Comcast triumphed over Rupert Murdoch’s 21st Century Fox – now owned by Disney – in a high-stakes auction. Comcast’s move thwarted Murdoch’s plan to roll Sky into his $71bn (£55bn) deal to sell Fox’s entertainment assets to Disney. Missing out on Sky means that Disney, the biggest Hollywood studio and now owner of the fourth largest in Fox, will be faced with a key decision about the future of its content on a platform owned by a rival.
