Time to wrap up.It’s been a fairly quiet day (as expected), with markets shaking off an early dip to chalk up decent rises.
These were some of the biggest stories:
Chinese stocks dropped, breaking a string of gains as the Chinese state moved to calm down surging markets. Statement media warned against the dangers of a “mad” bull rally.
UK 2- and 5-year bonds reached new record low yield as demand for safe-haven assets remains high.
One of Boohoo’s top shareholders, Standard Life Aberdeen, said it had ditched its stake in the fast fashion retailer amid concerns over its supply chains.
French industrial production picked up more than expected in May, but remains well below pre-virus levels.
Wagamama and Frankie and benny’s-owner The Reasturant Group warned that one in 10 of its sites will not reopen this year as it faces up to the collapse in footfall caused by coronavirus.
Thank for following along. We’ll be back on Monday for what’s set to be a busy week of economics data and company reports.
03:19 PM
Virgin Atlantic closing in on rescue – Bloomberg
Struggling airline Virgin Atlantic is closing in on a £400m pound rescue deal led by Davidson Kempner Capital Management, Bloomberg reports, citing sources.
The news service says:
Davidson Kempner has offered funding on terms that an alliance of Elliott Management Corp. and U.K. investment firm Greybull Capital declined to match, while Centerbridge Partners has stepped back after coming late to the process, according to the people, who asked not to be identified because the talks are private.
Billionaire Richard Branson would also inject cash into the airline he founded and controls. Virgin Atlantic could announce details of the financing package as soon as early next week if it’s able to pin down final elements, said one of the people. The Virgin Group board will be updated on the situation Friday and could meet to sign off on a deal after the weekend if sufficient progress is made, the person said.
02:48 PM
Market moves
European equities have steadily climbed higher today despite a downbeat open, while across the pond the US benchmark S&P 500 is trading pretty flat.
02:24 PM
Muji USA files for bankruptcy
Muji USA, the American entity of the Japanese retailer, has filed for bankruptcy, becoming the latest high-profile business victim of Covid-19.
Bloomberg reports:
Muji USA Ltd., which is operated by Ryohin Keikaku Co., filed for Chapter 11 in Delaware, according to a filing. It listed assets and liabilities in the range of $50 million to $100 million, and estimated the number of creditors at 200 to 999.
Ryohin Keikaku said in a separate statement that Muji USA filed for bankruptcy due to shutdowns from the coronavirus. The company had been grappling with losses due to high rent and other costs, and was taking steps to improve sales and renegotiate rents before the pandemic hit, it said.
It joins more than 110 companies that have declared bankruptcy while blaming Covid-19.
02:12 PM
Not so appy...
Apps including Spotify and Pinterest have been suffering outages due to an apparent bug in Facebook’s systems.
Facebook said it was aware of an issue causing some apps to crash on iPhones and was investigating the cause.
Users began tweeting early Friday morning that they were unable to open Spotify and other apps.
The site Downdetector, which monitors for internet problems in real time, showed a rise in problems for a number of applications, including Spotify, Pinterest, Waze and the New York Times.
01:45 PM
Metro Bank appoints risk chief
Metro Bank has appointed a chief risk officer as it tries to recover its reputation following a scandal over how it classified loans to companies and landlords.
Richard Lees will join the bank early next year, reporting to chief executive Daniel Frumkin.
A veteran of the Co-operative Bank, Lloyds and HBOS, Mr Lees said: “Metro Bank has proven itself as a challenger bank committed to bringing something different to banking and really delivering for its customers and communities. I’m really looking forward to joining the team.”
Flight safety could be put at risk by easyJet’s system to decide which pilots to axe, a union has claimed.
Alan Tovey reports:
Balpa, which represent pilots, has labelled as “outrageous” the airline’s plan to judge staff performance on factors including sickness when deciding who to make redundant.
The union called such a system “completely unacceptable in a safety critical-industry where pilots are legally required not to go to work if they are unfit to do so”.
It warned that “punishing pilots for being sick or unfit to fly is outrageous and could significantly harm easyJet’s previously successful and well-regarded flight safety culture”.
EasyJet is cutting more than 700 pilots as the airline reacts to the collapse in demand for air travel caused by coronavirus.
Standard Life Aberdeen, Britain’s biggest listed asset manager, has dumped almost all of its stake in scandal-hit fashion group Boohoo, the FT reports.
It says:
[SLA] said action taken by Boohoo after a Sunday Times investigation claimed workers at a factory making its clothes were paid below minimum wage and suffered poor working conditions was “inadequate”.
Boohoo has announced an independent review of its UK supply chain but SLA said it had sold all of its holdings in Boohoo across three funds that aim to invest responsibly and that these accounted for the vast majority of its investment in the retailer.
“Having spoken to Boohoo’s management team a number of times this week in light of recent concerning allegations, we view their response as inadequate in scope, timeliness and gravity,” said Lesley Duncan, deputy head of UK equities at Aberdeen Standard Investments, SLA’s fund management business.
SLA was one of Boohhoo’s biggest shareholders, with a 4pc stake in the Aim-listed group according to Bloomberg data. The online fashion retailer’s shares are down slightly today, having risen sharply yesterday. As I reported then:
The Aim-listed firm jumped 61.6p to 286.1p, regaining some ground lost after a 40pc plunge across the first half of the week. In a statement, the Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority said that “officers have not at this stage identified any offences under the Modern Slavery Act”, while the National Crime Agency said it “does not intend to give a running commentary” on its activity.
The GLAA said it had not undertaken any enforcement action during its visit to factories in Leicester.
12:44 PM
Spain hits out as Ireland takes top Eurogroup job
Nadia Calvino - REUTERS/Lucas Jackson/File Photo
Spain’s economy minister has accused another eurozone member of betrayal after narrowly missing out in a bid to lead the bloc's finance group.
My colleague Lizzy Burden reports:
Nadia Calvino had been the favourite to replace Portugal’s Mario Centeno as president of the influential 19-member Eurogroup, but was defeated by Ireland's Paschal Donohoe. He will begin his term on Monday alongside his current role.
Speaking to Spanish radio, Ms Calvino said: "We had 10 votes secured. Someone didn't do what he said he was going to do.
“The vote is secret and, in this case, remote."
She declined to name the minister she suspects.
The Eurogroup is not an official European Union body, but the job is regarded as one of the organisation's most powerful roles along with the heads of the European Commission, EU Council and the European Parliament.
The Sunday Telegraph’s Edward Malnick reported Boris Johnson is poised to begin phasing out the company’s technology from Britain’s 5G network:
GCHQ is understood to have revised its previous assurance that the risks posed by the Chinese technology giant can be safely managed.
A report due to be presented to the Prime Minister this week is expected to conclude that new US sanctions on Huawei will force the company to use untrusted technology that could make the risk impossible to control.
The report, by GCHQ’s National Cyber Security Centre, has concluded that the sanctions, which bar Huawei from using technology relying on American intellectual property, has had a “severe” impact on the firm that significantly changes their calculations.
UK house prices fell the most since the financial crisis under lockdown as Britain’s real-estate market ground to a near halt, according to the Halifax house price index.
Prices fell 0.9pc on a quarterly basis just the three months to the end of June according to the gauage, which is administered by IHS Markit. The average house price was £238,025, compared to £240,080 in the first quarter.
That drop was the worst since the first quarter of 2009.
Phil Smith, IHS Markit’s economics director, said:
The second quarter of the year was one characterised by opposing forces acting on the housing market.
On the one hand, transactions put on hold towards the end of March were brought back online, whilst those buyers fortune enough to have seen incomes protected and savings rise over the pandemic were able to move forward with purchasing plans.
Prices were generally down across the UK, with Scottish prices also lower on an annual basis. IHS Markit said:
The strongest inflation was seen in the North West, were prices were reported to have risen by 5.0% on the year, followed by Wales and then the East and West Midlands.
IHS Markit
11:52 AM
Big Four to give staff anti-racism training
Top accountants are to be given compulsory anti-racism training as the industry's biggest players scramble to tackle a lack of diversity in their highest ranks.
My colleague Michael O’Dwyer reports:
All staff at Deloitte are to take courses on race and ethnicity awareness amid a growing backlash over the overwhelmingly white management at the so-called Big Four firms. EY and KPMG have also announced a raft of measures to tackle inequality, while PwC has already taken some action.
The changes come in response to the Black Lives Matter movement, which sparked calls for improved diversity in business and wider society.
Only 11 out of 3,000 equity partners at the Big Four are black, The Telegraph revealed last month.
It’s not the level of boost hospitality firms need, but data released by booking service OpenTable suggests more Britons have been heading out to eat in recent days.
Daily seated diners from online, phone, and walk-in reservations have been down by about two thirds year-on-year in recent days.
It still leaves the UK pretty low compared to other countries for which data is available:
10:49 AM
Standard: St James’s Place signs lease for Knightsbridge office
Wealth manager St James’s Place has signed the lease for an office space in Knightsbridge, the Evening Standard reports.
It says:
The FTSE 100 firm has agreed to take nearly 19,000 square feet of space at 116 Brompton Road, a recently refurbished property. A hedge fund, which was not named, is also taking 8267 square feet at APML Estate’s building.
Around 150 St James’s Place staff will relocate to the new Knightsbridge site later this year from one of the firm’s five existing London offices which it is due to exit.
Wealth manager St James’s Place has signed a lease for a Knightsbridge office. A company spokesman tells @standardcity :"ability to have access to office space and to meet with clients in person remains core to our business". More here: https://t.co/4pt0VOfCSt
Chancellor Rishi Sunak’s “eat out to help” ambitions to aid a struggling hospitality sector suffered a setback on Friday as the Office for National Statistics suggested just one in five people are ready to return to restaurants.
Our economics editor Russell Lynch reports:
The ONS survey of 2,500 people, carried out before the £500m voucher scheme was announced, found just 20pc of adults were comfortable with eating at restaurants either indoors or outdoors, compared with 60pc of respondents put off by the idea.
Among the over-70s at most risk of dying from Covid-19, two-thirds of all respondents rated themselves either “uncomfortable” or “very uncomfortable” with eating out.
Private savers have their last chance this morning to buy discounted shares in a listed fund that invests in the royalties of songs sung by artists as varied as Cher and David Bowie.
My colleague Richard Evans writes:
Hipgnosis Songs Fund, an investment trust, is enabling private investors to buy shares via an online platform called PrimaryBid. Often such share sales are restricted to institutional investors only.
The shares on offer are “C” shares, which will not pay a dividend until the money raised from their sale is invested. The offer will close today at 1pm. The C shares are priced at 100p but in effect give holders the right to acquire the ordinary shares at their prevailing net asset value, currently 116.7p. This would still represent a discount to the current market price of about 122p.
09:44 AM
Money round-up
Here are the day’s top stories from the Telegraph Money team:
UK 10-year bond yield hits lowest since early March
Yields on the UK 10-year gilt has fallen to 0.128pc, its lowest level since March 9th – when stock markets were more or less in freefall.
09:07 AM
The Gym Group says membership has fallen by a fifth
London - Kirsty O'Connor/PA Wire
British exercise chain The Gym Group has said it lost one in five of its members across the UK – 178,000 people – during lockdown as it prepares to reopen on July 25.
PA reports:
On March 18, the 179-chain Gym Group had 870,000 members. On Thursday, when the Government set out its timetable to allow gyms and nailbars to reopen, 692,000 were still signed up. Their average age is 32.
The company said it has done research to show that 92pc of its members are keen to return. Customers' direct debits will resume but they will be given the option to continue to freeze their memberships.
The Gym Group chief executive Richard Darwin said “opening safely” was his primary concern.
Despite the improved sentiment across European equities, bond yields (which move inversely to prices) have dropped further today in a sign of nerves across the markets. The UK 2-year, UK 5-year and US 5-year bonds have all hit record low yields this morning.
08:25 AM
European markets rebound
Stocks across Europe have bounced back from their initial falls, and are now pushing higher after a pretty solid turnaround. The chemicals, real estate and technology sectors are providing the biggest boost across the continent.
08:14 AM
Pound dips amid risk-off mood
The pound has fallen slightly against the dollar amid a general move against risky assets across markets today. It has shifted slightly higher this week overall, strengthening against a weakening US currency.
07:46 AM
Ryanair accuses travel website of refusing to pay refunds
Ryanair, the budget airline, has accused travel booking websites of not paying refunds to customers.
My colleague Jonathan Jones reports:
The group claimed it had received thousands of complaints from customers of websites including kiwi.com, lastminute.com, On The Beach and Love Holidays who are yet to receive their money back for flights cancelled because of coronavirus.
The firm said “screen scraper” websites, which book flights on behalf of customers using Ryanair’s own website, had supplied the firm with fake customer details and “virtual” credit cards.
The airline said it would not refund any customers from websites that had provided false customer or credit card details after it received “thousands” of complaints per day from disgruntled customers still awaiting refunds that it had passed on to the firms.
The decision will affect the refunds of thousands of customers who booked flights through travel websites.
France’s industrial production rose 19.6pc in May, more than economists expected, as factories got back to work.
The shift – which left production down 23.4pc year-on-year – was the biggest one-month jump ever, albeit showing a bounceback from a dramatic low.
07:11 AM
European stocks fall
Stocks in Europe have fallen at the open today, continuing a pretty sorry week for the FTSE 100.
Bloomberg TV - Bloomberg TV
07:03 AM
How Chinese shares have shifted
A recent bull run has lifted the CSI 300 composite index to levels unseen since the aftermath of China’s market crash in 2015:
06:55 AM
Chinese stocks tumble
Losses are accelerating on China’s stock markets, taking the edge off a mighty eight-day surge that had fueled worries of a new bubble.
Bloomberg TV - Bloomberg TV
Bloomberg reports:
Signs of Beijing’s unease over the rally’s speed emerged late Thursday, when a pair of government-owned funds announced plans to trim holdings of stocks that soared this week. On Friday the state-run China Economic Times warned about the dangers of a “crazy” bull market, while Caixin reported that regulators had asked mutual fund companies to cap the size of new products.
Traders said the moves amounted to a warning from Chinese officialdom that the country’s world-beating equity boom has gone too far, too fast. While cheerleading from state-run media helped ignite gains at the end of last month, authorities appear keen to engineer a steady bull market rather than a repeat of the bubble that ended in a $5 trillion crash five years ago.
06:46 AM
Restaurant Group delays reopening sites
Rishi Sunak - HM Treasury
The owner of Frankie & Benny's and Wagamama has warned that one in 10 of its sites will not open at all this year as it faces up to the collapse in footfall caused by coronavirus.
My colleague Jon Yeomans reports:
The Restaurant Group (TRG) said around 40 of its 400 sites were “not expected to open this calendar year reflecting locations where footfall is anticipated to remain considerably weak (primarily in some airport locations)”.
The company plans to have a quarter of its estate open by the end of July, 60pc by the end of August, and 90pc by September.
TRG said it had boosted its debt facilities by £10m, by accessing the government-backed CBILS scheme, while extending agreements with its current lenders and receiving a covenant waiver on some of its loans until next year.
Last month TRG secured a company voluntary agreement (CVA) with its landlords and creditors that allowed it to restructure its estate and close up to 125 sites. Frankie & Benny's and Garfunkels sites were most affected with no Wagamama restaurants expected to close.
Good morning. European shares are set for a mixed start after Asian and US markets fell overnight as record-breaking new coronavirus cases in several American states stoked concern about economic recovery.
2) Average tariff on food imports will surge to 20pc if no Brexit trade deal agreed: Launching a new report, A fair deal for consumers, the group highlighted that 85pc of foodstuffs imported from the EU would see tariffs under a no deal scenario, with products such as cheddar cheese having tariffs imposed of over 50pc.
3) £500bn of borrowing will loom over the economy for decades: This year’s deficit will come in at about £350bn, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies - a record for any peacetime year. It will fall by more than half to £150bn next year, the analysts estimate, which still almost matches the £158bn borrowed at the peak of the financial crisis.
4) Brussels backs down over London clearing houses in win for the City: European Commission vice-president Valdis Dombrovskis said the bloc will introduce “time limited” provisions from January next year to ensure firms are still able to access the capital's clearing houses.
5) Andrew Bailey sets new date to meet Tory MPs: The Bank of England’s Governorwill appear in front of the 1922 Committee next Wednesday after raising eyebrows for initially scheduling the meeting for just hours following Rishi Sunak’s mini-Budget.
What happened overnight
Asian shares and US stock futures fell on Friday as record-breaking new coronavirus cases in several US states stoked concerns that new lockdowns could derail an economic recovery, while investors looked forward to earnings season.
MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan fell 0.76pc. Australian stocks dropped 0.42pc, while Japanese stocks declined by 0.4pc.
Shares in China fell 0.72pc, the first decline in more than a week, as investors booked profits on a surge in equities to a five-year high.
E-mini futures for the S&P 500 erased early gains to trade down 0.01pc.
The Antipodean currencies fell and the yen rose as traders shunned risk and sought safe havens.
Coming up today
No FTSE 350 companies are due to report
Economics: Industrial production (Italy, France); PPI inflation (US)
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Callum Laing, 40, was diagnosed with a stage 4 Glioblastoma brain tumour, after he had been suffering from intense headaches - but surgeons in Edinburgh have made a surprising discovery.
Yahoo Finance 
