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Below are the key morning press headlines, featuring the The Times, The Telegraph, The Daily Mail & more – see the full Press section here.
will start offering a “buy now, pay later” service on its website next month as it tries to attract younger customers and boost trade going into the key Christmas period. The retailer has teamed up with Clearpay to offer customers the option of paying for orders of more than £30 in interest-free instalments. The Australian firm and its better known rival Klarna are among a wave of fintech companies being embraced by millennials on tight budgets. Many of M&S’s rivals, including H&M and Asos, already offer delayed payment services and the struggling business is eager to attract a younger generation of shopper, including families with young children. M&S said its customers were increasingly looking for ways to spread the cost, particularly of larger purchases. The Clearpay service enables customers to spread the total over four instalments paid back across six weeks. The maximum spend is £800 and does not require a credit application and customers can manage their payments through a phone app.
Profits at tumbled by 40% as the oil super-major was hammered by tropical storms and lower prices. They fell to £1.8 billion between July and September, from £3 billion in the same quarter of 2018. But this was higher than the £1.3 billion analysts expected, as growth in the refining division offset a weaker performance in its oil production. Revenue dropped 23% to £48 billion. BP was also hit by maintenance costs at some of its most profitable fields and the effect of Hurricane Barry, which shut facilities in the Gulf of Mexico for around a fortnight and dealt a ‘significant’ blow to production in July. Overall, oil and gas production fell 2.5% when stripping out BP’s stake in Russian group Rosneft. It expects fourth-quarter production will improve as maintenance works wind down. Bernstein analyst Oswald Clint said: ‘In a challenging quarter for energy, BP’s results are remarkably resilient.’
City insurers are braced for a wave of legal battles over the $50bn US opioid crisis – sparking bitter memories of the asbestos pay-outs which almost destroyed the Lloyd’s of London market in the 1990s. Insurance companies linked to Lloyd’s provide cover for a string of drugmakers accused of stoking the opioid epidemic, which has killed almost 400,000 Americans in the past two decades. The catastrophe is alleged to have started when pharmaceutical firms flooded the market with ultra-high strength prescription painkillers and created a generation of addicts. Firms responsible are expected to face a total bill as high as $50bn (£38bn).
announced revenues and profits yesterday that were better than expected, raising hopes among investors that it is recovering from the regulatory clampdown. Revenues at Plus500 rose by 10% to $110.6 million in the three months to the end of September compared with a year earlier, while adjusted profits climbed by 39% to $70.1 million. Regulators have grown concerned about CFDs because most amateur traders who use them lose money. In August last year the European Securities and Markets Authority introduced stricter rules on CFDs that have hit Plus500 and IG Group and CMC Markets, its rivals. Australia, which accounts for 15% of Plus500’s revenues, has proposed similar restrictions.
A big loser yesterday was , after JP Morgan Cazenove analysts sounded the alarm over industrial action. More than 97% of Royal Mail staff balloted by the Communication Workers Union have backed a strike – though whether this will go ahead is very much uncertain. Royal Mail yesterday made a fresh plea to avoid the strikes, saying it would speak to the CWU ‘without preconditions’ if it removes the threat of walkouts. JP Morgan has been rattled by the fact that the union intends to time a strike for maximum impact – meaning it could coincide with Black Friday sales on November 29, Cyber Monday on December 2 and December General Election. Although analysts believe the direct cost may be ‘manageable’, the knock-on effects, such as fewer parcels being sent, could hit the 500-year-old postal service where it hurts. JP Morgan cut its rating to ‘underweight’ from ‘neutral’ and trimmed its target price to 192p from 252p.
The government has given the green light for , Britain’s largest satellite company, to be acquired by private equity bidders. Connect Bidco, a consortium including buyout giants Apax Partners and Warburg Pincus, put forward a number of “voluntary undertakings” earlier this year in order to secure a deal with the British government, after it came under scrutiny from regulators relating to national security. The group, which swooped in with a $3.4bn (£2.6bn) offer in March, said it would ensure that the majority of key strategic decisions are made within the UK and that key parts of its global network operations would remain in the country.
Britain will be a big beneficiary from a $7 billion update to a contract to cover 114 F-35 aircraft for the American military and foreign governments. Of the 114 aircraft covered by the agreement awarded to Lockheed Martin by the Pentagon, America will receive 77 aircraft, while 15 will go to Australia, 12 to Norway and ten to Italy. The supply of parts, software data, safety items and engineering services are included in the deal. The Maryland-based Lockheed, which was founded in 1926 and merged with Martin Marietta in 1995, will work in partnership with and Northrop Grumman on most of the work.
said that it had been hit by a surprise US tariff of 15%, imposed at the start of last month, on books printed in China and shipped to the United States. This had affected 50 titles. Analysts at Peel Hunt, the broker, advised investors to buy the shares, noting that despite a weaker first half, dividend growth was robust and the group ended the period with a solid net cash position. Bloomsbury expects a strong second half, especially with an illustrated version of the fourth Potter book to be published this month. Its digital division has also moved into profit.
