BUSINESS LIVE: Business confidence weakens; Entain hands activist board seat; FTSE 100 turns 40

Just before close, the FTSE 100 was 0.59% down at 7,676.22.

Meanwhile, the FTSE 250 was 0.99% lower at 19,317.85.

Wizz Air flew almost 5 million people in December as the low-cost airline benefited from its ambitious expansion plans.

The Hungarian air carrier carried 4.96 million passengers last month, compared to 4.18 million in December 2022, despite widespread cost-of-living pressures affecting Europe and conflict in the Middle East.

Cash withdrawals at Britain’s biggest building society rose for the second year in a row, new data shows.

Nationwide – which now has more branches than any major bank – recorded 31.4million withdrawals from more than 1,200 cash machines last year.

HSBC is the latest lender to announce another wave of mortgage rate cuts, including a rate below 4 per cent.

From tomorrow, the bank’s cheapest five-year fix for people remortgaging will fall from 4.79 per cent to 3.94 per cent, according to industry insiders.

(Reuters) – Oil benchmark Brent rose by around a $1 a barrel on Wednesday, after reports of a disruption to Libya’s top oilfield added to supply concerns emanating from tensions in the Red Sea.

Brent crude gained 63 cents to $76.52 a barrel by 1346 GMT, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude futures rose 50 cents to $70.88 a barrel.

Protests have forced a partial reduction in production in the Libya’s 300,000 barrels per day (bpd) Sharara oilfield, two engineers told Reuters.

Meanwhile, oil prices had climbed around $2 earlier in the week following attacks on vessels in the Red Sea by Houthi rebels.

On Tuesday, the U.S. Central Command said they fired two anti-ship ballistic missiles into the Southern Red Sea, though no damage was reported.

A wider conflict could close crucial waterways for oil transportation and disrupt trade flows.

“Although the supply of oil has not been affected, as reflected in yesterday’s oil price sell-off, the nervousness is conspicuous,” said Tamas Varga of oil broker PVM.

Both oil benchmarks ended Tuesday more than 1% down, as optimism about early and aggressive U.S. interest rate cuts ebbed ahead of the release of Federal Reserve meeting minutes and jobs data on Wednesday.

“The market bade farewell to 2023 with a considerable liquidation of length and persisting anxiety about the geopolitical outlook failed to draw buyers back to the fore as the new year has kicked off,” added Varga.

Ryanair has cautioned over a temporary hit to sales after a raft of online travel agents removed the Irish airline from their websites last month.

The budget airline said on Wednesday that booking sites like Booking.com, Kiwi and Kayak had taken Ryanair flights off their websites since early December.

Labour could promise cuts to income tax and national insurance to blunt the Tories election pitch, it was claimed today.

Keir Starmer and shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves are mulling a ‘retail’ offer to voters that could offset moves by Rishi Sunak to ease the burden.

New laws have come into force today (3 January 2024) that will force car makers to sell an increasing number of electric vehicles (EV) from this year until the ban on sales of new petrols and diesels in 2035.

Dubbed by minsters as ‘the world’s most ambitious regulatory framework for the transition to electric vehicles’, the Zero Emission Vehicle (ZEV) Mandate has officially been enacted and will demand of manufacturers to annually increase their share of battery car sales from this year.

The ‘relentless’ pace of delisting and takeovers by foreign buyers will continue if urgent action to incentivise UK stock ownership is not taken, a senior analyst has warned.

Britain’s stock markets have seen a flurry of delistings in recent years as low valuations drive pessimism about the prospect of public companies and interest from global buyers.

Business confidence weakened in December as executives turned more pessimistic about the outlook for the British economy in 2024, a closely-watched survey suggests.

The Institute of Directors’ economic confidence index, a measure of the difference between how optimistic and pessimistic bosses feel regarding the broader economy, declined from -21 in November to -28 last month.

Supermarket inflation has seen its fastest monthly drop on record as the average household spent an all-time high of £477 on groceries in December, data show.

Grocery prices are now 6.7 per cent higher than a year ago, the lowest level since April 2022, and a plunge from November’s inflation of 9.1 per cent, analysts at Kantar said.

Activist investor and hedge fund manager Ricky Sandler has been appointed as a non-executive director at Entain.

The appointment comes weeks after Entain’s former boss, Jette Nygaard-Andersen, quit the group amid the resolution of a prolonged bribery scandal.

For the 12.5 million retirees in the UK, the state pension triple lock was undoubtedly the quiet hero of 2023.

As the cost of essentials from butter and eggs to fuel and clothes soared, the triple lock made these price rises more bearable for those in retirement.

Tesla is no longer the world’s biggest electric car maker.

The US company, which is run by Elon Musk, delivered a record 484,507 cars in the final three months of 2023 – up 20 per cent on a year earlier.

The price of bitcoin hit its highest level for nearly two years as the world’s biggest cryptocurrency started 2024 with a bang.

The digital coin shot past $45,000 for the first time since April 2022 amid speculation US authorities are on the cusp of giving the industry a much-needed credibility boost.

Marks & Spencer made a bright start to the new year following a bumper 2023.

On the first day of trading of 2024, shares in the High Street stalwart rose 1.3 per cent, or 3.6p, to 276p following an upgrade by analysts at BNP Exane Paribas.

The price of oil swung wildly as mounting tensions in the Red Sea were overshadowed by concerns about the global economy.

On the first day of trading of the new year, Brent crude rose more than 2.5 per cent to as high as $79.03 having ended 2023 at around $77.

The surge came after Iran sent a warship into the Red Sea following the sinking of three Houthi boats by US Navy helicopters over the weekend.

Susannah Streeter, head of money and markets, Hargreaves Lansdown:

‘Caution has returned, as investors have begun to re-assess the prospects for interest rates and just how resilient economies will be over the months to come.

‘There is also fresh nervousness about the prospects for conflict in the Middle East to escalate after a drone strike killed Hamas deputy leader Saleh al-Arouni in Lebanon. Israel is bracing for retaliatory action from Hezbollah, another twist in an already highly complex and tragic situation in the Middle East.

‘The initial pulse of positivity on the first day of trading in Europe has largely disappeared, with stocks losing ground. A gloomier sentiment is taking hold, which doesn’t provide much cheer for the FTSE 100, which is marking its 40th birthday, amid what seems to be a bit of a confidence crisis.’

Ladbrokes-owner Entain has handed a board seat to the chief executive of activist investor Eminence Capital after the fund manager led shareholder dissent over the gambling giant’s flagging performance in core markets.

Ricky Sandler, who also serves as Eminence’s chief investment officer, will join Entain’s board as a non-executive director with immediate effect, the group told investors on Wednesday.

He will also become a member of Entain’s People & Governance and Capital Allocation committees.

Sandler will be given the chance to help pick an additional non-executive director ‘mutually agreeable to Eminence and the company’, Entain said.

Barry Gibson, chairman of entain, said: ‘Ricky has a deep knowledge of our business and a firm belief in the quality of our operations and substantial growth opportunities. We look forward to benefiting from his perspectives and expertise as we work to drive value for all Entain shareholders.’

Returning to the Square Mile after their festive break, the handful of men who gathered in a room at the Stock Exchange Tower in Old Broad Street 40 years ago today could not have imagined what they were about to set in train.

The low-key switch-on of a computer programme on January 3, 1984 heralded the birth of one of the UK’s most recognisable business brands and, more than two years before Margaret Thatcher’s momentous Big Bang deregulation, a notable City of London modernisation.

Business confidence weakened in December as executives turned more pessimistic about the outlook for the British economy in 2024, a closely-watched survey suggests.

Dr. Roger Barker, director of policy at the Institute of Directors, said:

‘Director sentiment ended the year in a relatively depressed place. According to our members, it has been more or less stuck in the doldrums since last Summer.

‘Although aspects of the business environment have improved in the last couple of months, particularly with regard to inflation, this is not yet exerting a meaningful impact on business decision-making. Business leaders remain extremely cautious about the outlook for the wider economy over the next 12 months, although they are more optimistic about the prospects for their own organisations.

‘In the coming months, the Bank of England will be considering its next step in term of interest rates. Based on the evidence of this survey, an early cut in interest rates would be justified in terms of helping to kick-start business confidence. With inflationary pressures abating, business is in dire need of a boost if it is help drive meaningful economic growth in 2024.’