Yahoo Finance Trending tickers: Frasers | UBS | Lookers | Alibaba
Frasers (FRAS.L)
Mike Ashley’s Frasers Group has taken an 8.9% stake in electricals retailer Currys (CURY.L).
Frasers’ newly acquired shareholding in Currys is worth around £53.5m given the firm’s market capitalisation of £601.9m ($769.81m).
Shortly after announcing the Currys stake, Frasers Group bought a 5% stake in online fashion retailer Boohoo (BOO.L).
The news coming a little over a week after the group increased its holding in online electricals retailer AO World (AO.L) to 21.3%, becoming its biggest shareholder.
The former Sports Direct has a track record of acquiring minority stakes in struggling rivals.
Earlier this month, Frasers also increased its stake in online fashion retailer Asos (ASC.L) to 10%.
Read more: LIVE: FTSE muted as UK grocery inflation drops to 16.5%
Frasers’ shares were up as it instructed Liberum Capital to begin a £70m share buyback program from today.
The share buyback programme has been launched to reduce the share capital of the company and will conclude when Frasers publishes its results for the financial year ended 30 April 2023.
UBS (UBS)
UBS faces hundreds of millions of dollars in penalties over Credit Suisse's mishandling of Archegos Capital, after UK, Swiss and US regulators completed their investigations, the Financial Times reported.
This comes just days after UBS completed its acquisition of its beleaguered Swiss rival in a landmark deal backed by the Swiss government.
The UK’s Prudential Regulation Authority could impose a fine of up to £100m ($127.81m), while the US Federal Reserve could impose a penalty of up to $300m, the newspaper reported.
UBS is said to have set aside $4bn from its war chest to deal with litigation against Credit Suisse.
Archegos' collapse stemmed from its founder Hwang's aggressive use of total return swaps to boost the effective size of his market positions. When investments held by Archegos plummeted, Credit Suisse and other lenders were forced to sell large positions at losses.
When Archegos blew up in March 2021, it was the largest trading loss Credit Suisse had in its history, losing some $5.5bn.
Lookers (LOOK.L)
Car dealership Lookers has agreed to be bought by Canada’s Alpha Auto Group in a deal worth close to half a billion pounds.
The all-cash offer is worth 120p-a-share, a premium to the group’s closing price on Monday of 88.7p.
Lookers said investors who hold around 42% of its shares had already agreed to the takeover offer.
Alpha Auto Group was founded in 2014 and operates seven sites in the US, as well as 10 in its home market. It is linked to key manufacturers such as Audi, Ford, BMW, Toyota and Mercedes.
Lookers reported a pre-tax profit of £84.4mn last year on revenue of £4.3bn.
“Lookers received a takeover offer, continuing a trend that has seen the UK-listed car retail sector shrink in recent years including successful bids for Marshall Motors and Cambria Automobiles as well as a failed one for Pendragon. Scale matters in this industry and operators are always looking for a way to plant more flags, be it locally or internationally," Russ Mould, investment director at AJ Bell, said.
“Investors will be looking closely at Motorpoint in this regard as its shares last night hit a new all-time low of 102.75p, having lost 73% of its value since September 2021 thanks to a pullback in car prices, with the pains of higher interest rate costs and the cost-of-living pressures hurting demand for vehicles. Might it be the next company in the sector vulnerable to a bid?”
Alibaba (BABA)
Alibaba Group has revealed that longtime leader Daniel Zhang is being replaced as chief executive and chair of the Chinese ecommerce giant in a surprise shake-up.
Eddie Wu, chairman of its Taobao and Tmall Group, has been named Alibaba’s new chief executive, while executive vice chairman Joseph Tsai will take over Zhang as chairman.
Both appointments will take effect on Sept. 10, Alibaba said.
Read more: Banks raise mortgage rates to 6% anticipating interest rate rise
“The good thing is that the new CEO and chairman are all co-founders of the company and are the closest to Jack Ma. That means Ma remains the spiritual leader of Alibaba,” said Kenny Wen, head of investment strategy at KGI Asia Ltd. “I don’t think the management change signals a big strategy change,” Bloomberg reported.
Daniel Zhang will step down from the roles to focus on its cloud division as the Chinese e-commerce giant moves ahead with a plan to split into six business units, each with their own boards and CEOs.
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