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: Let's take a look at some of the stocks on
Speaker 3: the move today in Europe. I'm Caroline Hepget with Lizzie
Speaker 3: burden Out, joined by Bloomberg reporter Chloe Malay. Good Morning,
Speaker 3: Good morning, John Mensis, Travel Essentials and in Motion. These
Speaker 3: are all the brands of W. H. Smith. What's been
Speaker 3: going on with that business?
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, it's really kind of setback after setback for
Speaker 1: W Smith lately. So there were two big, three big
Speaker 1: things happening today, so we had a guidance scout, so
Speaker 1: as guidance by quite a bit. It also announced that
Speaker 1: it will launch a capital race to try and bolster
Speaker 1: its balance sheet, and then it also had one hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty million pound impairment charge. So all of that
Speaker 1: is essentially because of the Iran wars. So they now
Speaker 1: only operate airport stores. Last year WH Smith sold their
Speaker 1: high street business to Madella Capital, so now they're only
Speaker 1: really doing this airport side of the business, which means
Speaker 1: that they're very exposed to any kind of air travel disruption,
Speaker 1: and so all of their airport stores in the Middle
Speaker 1: East are of course struggling because there's been so much
Speaker 1: a disruption there to air travel. And then also more globally,
Speaker 1: there's obviously this week consumer confidence that we've been talking
Speaker 1: about for all retailers, and so that means that we
Speaker 1: are seeing fewer passengers and then also lower spend per passenger,
Speaker 1: and so that's really really weighing on performance on the
Speaker 1: sales for the wh Smith and it's not the first
Speaker 1: time this year that it had worn actually about that impact.
Speaker 1: Back in Aprooid suspended its dividend on the back of that,
Speaker 1: saying that it needed to reduce debt and to bolster
Speaker 1: the balance sheet during this downturn. And then then today,
Speaker 1: as I said, this guidance capital raise impairment charge, so
Speaker 1: kind of a triple whammy there for that company. And
Speaker 1: then in addition to this, we also had this major
Speaker 1: accounting era in the US business that happened last year,
Speaker 1: and so that led the CEO to resign. And then
Speaker 1: just yesterday the UK's Financial Reporting Council said that it
Speaker 1: had started an investigation into PWC's audit of the results
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty four, So overall, very bad time for
Speaker 1: wo Smith and we can see that reflected in those
Speaker 1: shows that really really slumped today. They were down about
Speaker 1: seventeen percent at the open. Next Dot Chloe, Sonofi and
Speaker 1: I'll let you pronounce the weird drug name. Well I
Speaker 1: was planning on not pronounced, so I don't know how
Speaker 1: we're going to do this. So there's also set back
Speaker 1: for Sophie because it just halted a late stage trial
Speaker 1: for an experimental drug for a rare autoimmune disorder, which
Speaker 1: again I'm not going to try to pronounce, but it
Speaker 1: is a condition that causes progressive weakness and sensory impairment
Speaker 1: in the arms and legs. And so the late stage
Speaker 1: trial disappointed there. It's not the first drug recently from
Speaker 1: Sonofi that's failed to impress. We also had one for
Speaker 1: dermatitis that disappointed, another one for MS that also showed
Speaker 1: mixed results. So it's kind of setback after setback there
Speaker 1: as well. And Setian has said that this really now
Speaker 1: sort of ramps up the pressure on the new CEO
Speaker 1: to work on rebuilding this research and development pipeline. The
Speaker 1: previous year was actually removed for failing to bring new
Speaker 1: drugs to the market quickly enough, so I'm sure that
Speaker 1: the new CEO is now definitely feeling that pressure as well.
Speaker 1: And of course getting new medicines out is super important
Speaker 1: for drug makers that are seeing those patents expire for
Speaker 1: some of their best sellers.
Speaker 3: Yeah, really proved, But is the name of the drug
Speaker 3: or at least that's how it's caled. Well, if anyone
Speaker 3: is interested in understanding one knows about it, I think
Speaker 3: it's worth mentioning just a brief word on st micro Electronics.
Speaker 3: Lizzie's been talking about the move in the share price today.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so it was raised to a BI rating by
Speaker 1: Bank of America analysts and also they set a new
Speaker 1: street high price target for the company. Said that essentially
Speaker 1: has a lot of positive growth drivers, of course benefiting
Speaker 1: from data centers but also the satellite business, and also
Speaker 1: there's some recovery in industrials and autos. So overall doing
Speaker 1: quite well and of course quite relevant with all this
Speaker 1: air trade talk that we've been having over the last
Speaker 1: few days.
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