Below are the key morning press headlines, featuring the The Times, The Telegraph, The Daily Mail & more - see the full Press section here.
Metro Bank (MTRO) is facing questions over its future as the shock failure of a £200m bond sale sent shares crashing to a new record low. The stock plummeted 30% today after it was forced to cancel the fundraising due to a lack of investor interest. Analysts warned the debacle could leave Metro unable to meet a Bank of England deadline for securing extra cash at the start of next year. It is a fresh blow for the credibility of the embattled lender, which stunned investors in January when bosses revealed it had miscalculated the riskiness of a string of property loans.
The boss of Hotel Chocolat Group (HOTC) proudly described his stores as ‘a doorway into instant escapist happiness’, as sales accelerated for another year. The British chocolatier opened 16 new shops in the past year, helping it chalk up a 14% rise in sales to £132.5million. The company invested in its older shops during the period too, rolling out hot drinks, ice-creams and evening tasting events across its 100 UK sites. ‘This helps to keep stores relevant and exciting, as well as increasing shopper dwell time,’ said Emily Salter, an analyst at GlobalData. Hotel Chocolat also hailed the success of new products like a hot chocolate making machine and vegan ice lollies, and said sweet-toothed shoppers flocked to buy gifts for seasonal occasions such as Easter and Mother’s Day.
The boss of the Hong Kong stock exchange has admitted he would reject his own takeover offer if he was running the London Stock Exchange Group (LSE) as he put forward his arguments in a public “boxing match” between the two chiefs. David Schwimmer and Charles Li, the respective heads of the LSE and HKEX, took to the stage at an influential finance conference in London on Tuesday to get their points across just over a week after London rejected Hong Kong’s approach. Answering questions from an interviewer who said he felt like he was refereeing a “boxing match”, Mr Li acknowledged that now was not the best time to make a proposal for the British bourse and said he wished he made the bid earlier.
Thomas Cook Group (TCG) biggest rival is preparing to add extra capacity to fill the hole left by the travel group’s collapse. TUI AG Reg Shs (DI) (TUI) said that it was assessing its capacity needs for next summer and was talking to Thomas Cook’s hotel partners with a view to signing up some of them. Fritz Joussen, chief executive, said: “Everybody is racing to replace part of the capacity. Not all, as there was too much, but a good part of the capacity will be restored and part of it will be us.”
Neil Woodford is gearing up to ditch his entire stake in IP Group (IPO) , just two weeks after the company blamed the troubled fund manager for its sluggish half-year performance. Mr Woodford is understood to be offloading his entire 13% stake, worth more than £86m as per the firm’s closing share price, to other institutional shareholders after the market close on Tuesday. The sale will be overseen by Bank of America Merrill Lynch as well as brokers at Berenberg and Numis. Mr Woodford’s 142m shares in IP Group were held in his shuttered Equity Income Fund.
AA (AA.) is to pin its hopes of attracting new customers on the science fiction sitcom Red Dwarf, predicting that membership growth will lift off next year. The breakdown service is drawing a line under its “kinda naff” car repair adverts, which for years featured yellow vans coming to the rescue of drivers stuck on roadsides. Simon Breakwell, chief executive, said that the days of “fuddy duddy” promotions were over as the AA attempts to stem a decline in customers. Its base of personal members stabilised last year, falling marginally from 3.25 million to 3.19 million.
Burford Capital (BUR) took another battering after hedge fund Muddy Waters launched a fresh attack on its accounting practices. The lawsuit-funding firm’s shares tumbled after it was accused of ‘evading key questions’ in a document. On Monday, Burford issued a 45-page response to the latest Muddy Waters claims, which said it used ‘aggressive’ valuations for legal cases yet to be concluded. ‘Burford fails to address the key issues,’ Muddy Waters said. ‘Just because it is 45 pages long doesn’t mean it answers any of the important questions we raised.’
Card Factory (CARD) decision to stockpile Christmas cards in spring ahead of the original Brexit date in March has contributed to a fall in profits. The greeting card retailer said yesterday that pre-tax profits had declined by 14.4% to £24.3 million in the six months to the end of July, a slide that the company blamed on the additional cost of holding extra stock, along with investment in new lines and increases in the national living wage.
A promise that it was getting back on track after a profit warning in July was enough to reassure investors in Barr (A.G.) (BAG) yesterday. Shares in AG Barr rose despite the Scottish soft drinks maker announcing declines in both half-year revenue and pre-tax profit, setbacks that it had flagged up in the summer. After revealing that revenue was down by 10.5% to £122.5 million during the six months to the end of July and that profit was down 26% to £13.5 million, the company blamed tough comparisons with the long, hot summer of 2018 and patchy performance this year in Scotland and northern England.