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: Well, let's take a look at some stocks on the
Speaker 1: move today in Europe. I'm Stephen Carroll and I'm joined
Speaker 1: by Bloomberg reporter Chloe Melee. Chloe, good morning. Let's start
Speaker 1: with some news from AB Foods, a company name we've
Speaker 1: often flagged is somewhat logical, and it's about to become
Speaker 1: a little bit more logical.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, So there's a couple of things for Maybe Foods
Speaker 3: to flag this morning. So first of all, it mentioned
Speaker 3: quite a lot of weakness across the board, so it
Speaker 3: downgraded expectations for its sugar business. And they also said
Speaker 3: that its fashion prime Mark, had experienced softer trading in
Speaker 3: April because for the Middle East conflict really hitting that
Speaker 3: consumer confidence. So that has led the shares weeker this morning.
Speaker 3: But the bigger update in what you were hinting at,
Speaker 3: is that the company is going ahead with the separation
Speaker 3: of prime Mark from its food operation. So this is
Speaker 3: a de merger that is set to complete by the
Speaker 3: end of twenty twenty seven and it will result in
Speaker 3: those two entities being listed separately under London Stock Exchange.
Speaker 3: So that is a really massive change in the history
Speaker 3: of the group. It's a breakup of one of the
Speaker 3: UK's biggest conglomerate and it is a plan that was
Speaker 3: first announced as a possibility back in November because Prime
Speaker 3: Mark had just grown so much. And so now we've
Speaker 3: got those two separate businesses and that will face really
Speaker 3: different challenges. We've got those inflationary pressures that will be
Speaker 3: a big challenge for the food business and then for
Speaker 3: the Primark business. There's weak consumer confidence that obviously prime
Speaker 3: market what ABE Foods are already flagged. But then there's
Speaker 3: also this rising competition from online rivals like Shean as well,
Speaker 3: so that's going to be a bit of a problem
Speaker 3: as well. But we have the shares weaker this morning,
Speaker 3: though that is mostly in reaction according to analysts to
Speaker 3: that weaker Shulgar business and weaker Primark sales as well.
Speaker 1: Okay, so that's for AB Foods and their shares down
Speaker 1: four point three percent in London. Another share that's dropping
Speaker 1: sharply this morning the UK home builder krest Nicholson. What's
Speaker 1: going on yeah.
Speaker 3: Really massive guidance cut at Chris Nicholson, and they said
Speaker 3: that it was due to economic uncertainty, so saying essentially
Speaker 3: that buyers were being deterred by interest rates still being
Speaker 3: quite high, and then of course the macroeconomic backdrop that
Speaker 3: has led to a deteriorating consumer confidence that has meant
Speaker 3: a fewer land sales and that has forced Chres Nicholson
Speaker 3: to prioritize cash a preservation and so this profit warning
Speaker 3: has led the shares down massively this morning, really plummeting
Speaker 3: and also dragging the rest of the UK home builders lower.
Speaker 3: So we've got the likes of Barrett Redrow, Taylor, wimp
Speaker 3: Person and all of those names in the red as
Speaker 3: well today. So for Chres Nicholson specifically, it means a
Speaker 3: lot of pain this year, but then potentially that is
Speaker 3: necessary to get back on track. So for example, RBC
Speaker 3: analysts have said that they have made a decision to
Speaker 3: play at the long game and that this would have
Speaker 3: really hit profit this year, but that they essentially agree
Speaker 3: with the decision not to sell land at suboptimal prices
Speaker 3: and to kind of wait it out. So the guidance
Speaker 3: is going to put a lot of pressure on the
Speaker 3: company right now, but we'll see if this was actually
Speaker 3: a good decision to kind of get back on track later.
Speaker 1: Okay, well, let's go to an energy company next, SSA.
Speaker 1: What's the news from them?
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, the renewable sector in the UK is fittingly
Speaker 3: in the green today. That's because the UK is said
Speaker 3: to be speeding up efforts to cut the costs of
Speaker 3: green electricity by essentially reducing its exposure to more expensive
Speaker 3: gas and de linking gas and power prices. So what
Speaker 3: that actually means is that the UK will, for example,
Speaker 3: offer new voluntary subsidies for older wind and solar farms
Speaker 3: and encourage them to move to cheaper fixed contracts. So
Speaker 3: of course that is very relevant the moment, given that
Speaker 3: guess costs have been rising very sharply because of the
Speaker 3: conflict in Iran, and therefore the government is under a
Speaker 3: lot of pressure to reduce bills for consumers. So all
Speaker 3: of that could be good news for us and for
Speaker 3: our energy bills, but it's also good news for some
Speaker 3: of those renewable names in the UK. So who've got
Speaker 3: SSE and Santraca for example at Hire this morning.
Speaker 2: On the back of that, the stock movers report from
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