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London’s blue chip index was beaten by its peers in Paris and Frankfurt on Wednesday morning, as grocer J Sainsbury saw its shares decline after Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund sold some of its stake; meanwhile investors await a UK services PMI reading to be out very shortly. The FTSE 100 index opened up 1.18 points at 9,702.98. The FTSE 250 was down 31.75 points, 0.1%, at 21,950.25, and the AIM All-Share was up 2.26 points, 0.3%, at 750.58. The Cboe UK 100 was marginally down at 971.96, the Cboe UK 250 was flat at 19,049.25, and the Cboe Small Companies was up 0.2% at 17,640.59. In European equities on Wednesday, the CAC 40 in Paris was up 0.2%, while the DAX 40 in Frankfurt was 0.4% higher. High-stakes US-Russia talks on ending the war in Ukraine failed to yield a breakthrough, as the Kremlin said ‘no compromise’ had been found yet on the key question of territory. Russian President Vladimir Putin met US President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and special envoy Steve Witkoff in the Kremlin, after earlier signalling that his forces were ready to fight on to achieve Russia’s initial war goals. On occupied Ukrainian territories, ‘so far we haven’t found a compromise, but some American solutions can be discussed,’ top Russian presidential aide Yuri Ushakov said after the Moscow meeting. ‘Some proposed formulations do not fit us, and work will continue,’ he added. Trump said progress on ending the nearly four-year-long war would not be easy. ‘Our people are over in Russia right now to see if we can get it settled,’ he said during a cabinet meeting at the White House. ‘Not an easy situation, let me tell you. What a mess.’ Sterling was at $1.3262 on Wednesday morning, up from $1.3195 at the London equities close on Tuesday. The euro was higher at $1.1645 from $1.1607. Against the yen, the dollar was lower at JP¥155.67 versus JP¥155.76. In Asia on Wednesday, the Nikkei 225 in Tokyo was up 1.1%. In China, the Shanghai Composite was 0.5% lower, while the Hang Seng Index in Hong Kong fell 1.3%. The S&P/ASX 200 in Sydney gained 0.2%. In the US on Tuesday, Wall Street ended higher, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average up 0.4%, while the S&P 500 climbed 0.3% and the Nasdaq Composite gained 0.6%. The yield on the 10-year US Treasury narrowed to 4.08% on Wednesday morning from 4.10% at Tuesday’s close. The yield on the 30-year was at 4.74% slightly slimmed from 4.75%. In London, HSBC shares fell 1.0% after the banking firm named Brendan Nelson as group chair. Nelson, who previously worked at KPMG and has also served on the boards of BP and the Royal Bank of Scotland, joined HSBC’s board in 2023 and has been acting as interim chair since October this year. The bank said Nelson had been appointed following ‘a robust process that considered both internal and external candidates’. Previous chair Mark Tucker stepped down at the end of September to take up the same post at Hong Kong-based insurer AIA Group. HSBC senior independent director Ann Godbehere said: ‘On behalf of the board, I am delighted with Brendan’s appointment as our group chair. ‘Since assuming the role of interim group chair, Brendan has demonstrated his excellent leadership capabilities backed by his strong banking and governing credentials.’ Antofagasta led the FTSE 100 index and climbed 2.8% after JPMorgan raised its price target to 3,500 pence from 3,400p and maintained its ’overweight’ rating on the stock. Smiths Group gained 2.1% as it agreed to sell Smiths Detection to funds advised by CVC Capital Partners at an enterprise value of £2.0 billion. The London-based engineering firm expects to receive net cash proceeds of around £1.85 billion from the sale. ‘The proposed transaction, in combination with the recently announced sale of Smiths Interconnect, represents significant further progress on the strategic actions announced in January 2025. This repositions Smiths as a focused, high-performance, industrial engineering company, and delivers significant value for all stakeholders,’ the firm said. It expects the sale to complete in the second half of 2026. ‘We are focusing Smiths as a premium industrial engineering company specialising in flow management and thermal solutions, and today’s announcement positions us strongly to deliver enhanced growth and returns,’ said Smiths Chief Executive Roland Carter. Smiths said it intends to return a ‘large portion’ of the net cash proceeds to shareholders. J Sainsbury shares sunk 4.3% after Qatar Holding said it plans to sell around £272 million worth shares in the London-based grocer. Qatar Holding, founded in 2006 by the Qatar Investment Authority, invests internationally and locally in strategic private and public equity as well as in other direct investments. Late on Tuesday, Qatar Holding said it intends to sell 83.6 million shares in Sainsbury to institutional investors, reducing its interest from the current 10.5%. In addition, JPMorgan Securities is planning to sell a further around 14 million Sainsbury’s shares in a related hedging transaction for Qatar Holding, taking the total placing to about 97.5 million shares. Qatar Holding is currently the largest shareholder in Sainsbury, according to the FTSE 100-listed company’s website. But the share sale will see it overtaken by Vesa Equity Investment Sarl, run by Czech billionaire Daniel Kretinsky. Vesa currently has a 10% stake in Sainsbury. On the FTSE 250 index, Zigup shares jumped 13% as it reported increased earnings for the first half of the year. The Darlington, England-based vehicle rental and management firm said revenue rose 2.9% to £929.6 million in the six months to the end of October from £903.6 million a year prior. Pretax profit jumped 16% to £65.0 million from £56.2 million. Looking ahead, Zigup said it has confidence that underlying pretax profit will ‘be at least at the top of the range of analyst’s expectations’ for the full year. The analyst expectations are for underlying pretax profit between £150 million and £155 million. The company said underlying pretax profit fell 0.4% to £81.7 million from £82.0 million. It declared an interim dividend of 8.8 pence per share, unchanged from a year ago. The firm said this is supported by the strength of Spanish rental performance and continued investment in fleet growth. Spire Healthcare shares sank 13%. The London-based healthcare company said it expects full-year adjusted group earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation for financial 2025 to be around the bottom end of its guidance range of between £270 million and £285 million. It said this is ‘despite strong progress in business transformation’ and is due to ‘market trends’. Spire expects adjusted Ebitda for financial 2026 to be ‘broadly in line or slightly ahead’ of the figure for 2025. ‘Looking further ahead, we would naturally expect this market environment to lead to further growth in private patient volumes and we remain confident in the medium-term outlook,’ the company said. It said revenue increased 3.6% on-year in the four month period from July to October. Shares in Trainline sank 7.2% as JPMorgan cut the digital rail and coach ticketing platform to ’underweight’ from ’neutral’ and lowered its price target to 230p from 300p. Among small caps, Physiomics shares were down 28%. The Oxfordshire, England-based mathematical modelling firm said Chief Executive Officer Peter Sargent will step down from the company to pursue other opportunities from May 29. The firm said Jim Millen, currently non-executive chair, has confirmed he can resume the position of executive chair ‘for as long as required to ensure business continuity in the event a suitable replacement has not been found’ by the time Sargent leaves. The company said it expects to deliver total revenue in line with market expectations and will post its interim results in March, in line with its usual reporting timetable. Gold was up at $4,206.80 an ounce early on Wednesday from $4,174.00 late Tuesday. Brent oil was trading slightly lower at $62.80 a barrel from $62.81. Still to come on Wednesday’s economic calendar is a composite PMI reading for the UK, due at 0930 GMT, along with ISM services figures and payroll data from ADP in the US. Copyright 2025 Alliance News Ltd. All Rights Reserved.
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