Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2: The Stock Movers Report, your roundup of companies making moves
Speaker 2: in the stock market, harnessing the power of Bloomberg data.
Speaker 1: Now, let's take a look at some of the stocks
Speaker 1: on the move today in Europe. I'm Lizzie Burden in
Speaker 1: London alongside Stephen Carroll in Brussels and were joined by
Speaker 1: Boomberg reporter Chloe Melly. So Clarie, let's start with Axo
Speaker 1: no bell a dark hue from them this morning.
Speaker 3: That's great, great stuff, Lizzie. So, Exo Nobel the paint maker,
Speaker 3: and the suitors for Exo have backed off. So Nippon
Speaker 3: Paint and Sherwin Williams have now ended their effort to
Speaker 3: buy Exo Noobel, which means that EXO will go ahead
Speaker 3: with its merger its planned merger with Exalter Coatings instead.
Speaker 3: So EXOD rejected two offers from those two firms. So
Speaker 3: the latest actually valued at twelve point five billion euros
Speaker 3: and it involved plans to break up the business, but
Speaker 3: it said that the agreement that it had with ex
Speaker 3: which was agreed in November last year, was actually superior,
Speaker 3: and so that's led to a massive plunge in the
Speaker 3: chars this morning, so big reversal from the massive jump
Speaker 3: that we had seen when Axo revealed that it had
Speaker 3: received and then subsequently rejected those offers, and so the
Speaker 3: sell off as actually eraised all of those prior gains.
Speaker 3: And now the context behind this kind of m and
Speaker 3: A activity in the paint making sector is that those
Speaker 3: companies are chemical companies, and so they are dealing with
Speaker 3: the same things that this chemical sector is dealing with,
Speaker 3: which is really high raw materials costs, and then also
Speaker 3: a lot of weakness in end markets and markets like
Speaker 3: the industrial or the automotive and markets, and so this
Speaker 3: creates this need for scale for consolidation in this sector,
Speaker 3: and so we are seeing that. So we'll probably be
Speaker 3: hearing more from this pain making sector. But in the
Speaker 3: meantime we're getting and exalt merging apparently.
Speaker 2: Okay, so that's actual abround the paint space. We're going
Speaker 2: to go to the high street next into Text, the
Speaker 2: owner of Zara and other fashion brands say the high
Speaker 2: streets giving high margins.
Speaker 3: Yes, so Zarah owner Intertext is doing very well. So
Speaker 3: said that growth had really picked up at the start
Speaker 3: of its second quarter. So it has the quarter that
Speaker 3: starts in May, is what it means. So that came
Speaker 3: as a relief for investors that have been obviously really
Speaker 3: worried about the impact of the Iran war on retailers.
Speaker 3: Of course, that's the sector that's been dealing with really
Speaker 3: high energy costs, high shipping costs, and then at the
Speaker 3: same time lower consumer spending. But it seems that Intertext
Speaker 3: is quite resilient within this quite tough backdrop. It's benefited
Speaker 3: from a strategy of investing in very big flagship stores
Speaker 3: and then also trying to move more towards the higher
Speaker 3: end of the fashion market because the lower end is
Speaker 3: where it's actually much more competitive, because we've got names
Speaker 3: like Sheen for example, really lowering prices, and so for investors,
Speaker 3: this update from Intertext this morning was really seen as
Speaker 3: evidence that it can probably better whether this current environment,
Speaker 3: which is getting actually more and more difficult than some
Speaker 3: of its peers, and perhaps it can do better than
Speaker 3: a company's like H and M, which has actually been
Speaker 3: seeing a bit of weakness. And so we were seeing
Speaker 3: shares in Intertext rising on the back of this update,
Speaker 3: which was seen as really reassuring from that retail perspective.
Speaker 1: Were saying in retail, but moving to the bargain bin
Speaker 1: because B and M seems to be really flying this morning.
Speaker 3: Why, yeah, absolutely, So this is another positive retail story
Speaker 3: for B and M. The context is that BNM has
Speaker 3: had a very tough year, so the profit is actually down.
Speaker 3: It's had to implement the big strategy reset in October
Speaker 3: after a lot of poor execution has led to a
Speaker 3: pressure on sales growth, and then there's of course still
Speaker 3: that backdrop of a low consumer sentiment the prospect of
Speaker 3: potentially higher interest rates as well in the UK. But
Speaker 3: what the stock is reacting to today very positively is
Speaker 3: that despite all of those challenges, B and M was
Speaker 3: actually quite optimistic for the future. So it's said that
Speaker 3: is starting to see some of the benefits of this turnaround.
Speaker 3: Mented in October said that BNM UK in particular was
Speaker 3: on track to return to higher and stronger margins and
Speaker 3: also that it will actually be able to upset the
Speaker 3: impact from those higher energy costs and higher shipping costs
Speaker 3: as well, and so this is very positive. It also
Speaker 3: echoes what we heard from Debenham's as well this morning,
Speaker 3: formerly known as Boohoo, which actually was even more bullish.
Speaker 3: It said that it expects very strong momentum this year
Speaker 3: after returning to growth for this quarter. So maybe UK
Speaker 3: retail is actually doing fairly well and better than feared.
Speaker 2: Really. The Stock Movers report from Bloomberg Radio. Check back
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