Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news, The.
Speaker 2: Stock Movers Report, your roundup of companies making moves in
Speaker 2: the stock market, harnessing the power of Bloomberg Data.
Speaker 3: Well, let's take a look at some stocks on the
Speaker 3: move today in Europe. I'm Stephen Carroll. I'm joined by
Speaker 3: Bloomberg's Chloe Melee for more. Chloe, good morning.
Speaker 2: Good.
Speaker 3: Let's start in the UK with Greg's, an activist investor
Speaker 3: urging the food chain to cut costs. What's the latest.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so the activist investors said that greg Greg's could
Speaker 1: be taken over if it doesn't cut a minimum of
Speaker 1: twenty million pounds of annual costs. So Greg's share price
Speaker 1: is down about forty percent this yet it's also London's
Speaker 1: most shortaged stock, so it's clearly under quite a lot
Speaker 1: of pressure. And the hedge fund Lower Asset Management, which
Speaker 1: is a big shareholder in Greg's, said that Greg's management
Speaker 1: was timid and that it should be a lot more
Speaker 1: aggressive in trying to write size its costs. So it's
Speaker 1: a company that's struggling with rising prices for it's rowing
Speaker 1: radients and minimum wage increases as well. But David mccurio,
Speaker 1: who heads up that Hedgephund said that the expected cost
Speaker 1: growth next year of about eight percent was far too
Speaker 1: high if we consider the context that the UK minimum
Speaker 1: wages will be increasing by a by four percent in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty six. So he said that there are efficiencies
Speaker 1: that Greg's could find, but that A has so far
Speaker 1: kind of ignored, and so it said that if it
Speaker 1: doesn't kind of sort those things out, private equity in
Speaker 1: particular could be circling. So there's quite a lot of
Speaker 1: pressure there. But the shares have been of this morning
Speaker 1: as all of those discussions are going on.
Speaker 3: Okay, so that's in Greg's. Turning to Italy next, shares
Speaker 3: in montet Pasco di Siena falling for the third consecutive
Speaker 3: day investors digesting an investigation into its takeover of Italian
Speaker 3: rival Medio Banco.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we are seeing that weakness continue as we get
Speaker 1: a little bit more details on that probe. So documents
Speaker 1: from prosecutors alleged that the CEO of Montepesci and two
Speaker 1: big Italian investors has had coordinated actions to seize control
Speaker 1: of Mediobanker, with the ultimate goal of being to control Generale,
Speaker 1: which is Italy's biggest insurer, and so a key step
Speaker 1: in that plan was the purchase last year of a
Speaker 1: Montepesci stake by the Italian government, and that is part
Speaker 1: of a process that prosecutors have described as orchestrated and
Speaker 1: lacking in transparency. And so this probe into this alleged
Speaker 1: market manipulation is risking delaying the integration of Mediobanker and Montepesci,
Speaker 1: which is already a process that's facing quite a lot
Speaker 1: of challenges because the business models are already so different.
Speaker 1: So this is just an additional obstacle there. And as
Speaker 1: I have said that the merger was already in an
Speaker 1: elevated risk of failing even before the investigation, and now
Speaker 1: this is making it a lot more worse. So we're
Speaker 1: just kind of a wait now for more details on
Speaker 1: this as it comes.
Speaker 3: Okay, and chares in the bank down two point eight
Speaker 3: percent at the moment. Turning to air bos next and
Speaker 3: an updates from the plane maker this morning after that
Speaker 3: software glitch.
Speaker 1: Yes, there's been quite a weakness in the shares this
Speaker 1: morning after this disruption over the weekend. So the software
Speaker 1: update for A three twenty aircraft required an urgent fix
Speaker 1: because it left flight controls vulnerable to cosmic radiations, and
Speaker 1: so that meant that airlines had to rush this weekend
Speaker 1: to fix this to avoid grounding during what was obviously
Speaker 1: a very busy Thanksgiving period, and most airlines actually managed
Speaker 1: to fix things fairly quickly, and Ebers said this morning
Speaker 1: that the vast majority of aircraft had received that necessary
Speaker 1: modification over the weekend, that there were very few now
Speaker 1: that were left to fix, but it's still quite a setback,
Speaker 1: and that created some delays and also raised questions about
Speaker 1: whether that software update was rolled out without the appropriate safeguards.
Speaker 1: And Ebbus has been benefiting from a reputation of safety,
Speaker 1: especially in contrast with Boeing and its well documented issues,
Speaker 1: so that weakness in those shares this morning is not
Speaker 1: surprising given the widespread issues that came from this from
Speaker 1: this software update.
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