Deliveroo rider
Takeaway company Deliveroo is expected to be valued at up to £8.8bn when it starts selling its shares on the stock exchange in London.
The business aims to sell shares for around 390p to 460p each, it revealed on Monday, in what is expected to be one of the biggest public listings of the year.
Chief executive Will Shu said: “We are proud to be listing in London, the city where Deliveroo started.”
Elsewhere, MPs will meet today to discuss whether to launch a formal inquiry into the collapse of supply chain financier Greensill.
09:13 AM
Travel stocks slide as Europe tightens restrictions
Manchester Airport
Travel stocks are getting hammered this morning after Covid restrictions were extended across much of Europe over the weekend. British Airways parent IAG is leading the FTSE 100 lower.
-
IAG -6.3pc
-
Ryanair -5.5pc
-
EasyJet -6.8pc
-
TUI -2.9pc
-
Rolls-Royce -2.7pc
08:55 AM
Hedge funds capitulate on dollar short bets as losses mount
Hedge funds have capitulated on their short-dollar bets after surging Treasury yields upended a favourite global macro strategy.
Bloomberg has the details:
Leveraged funds flipped to become net buyers of the world’s reserve currency during the week to March 16 – a tumultuous period that saw Treasury yields breaching key levels on feverish inflation fears.
They added bearish bets on the yen and euro, and switched from bullish positions on the New Zealand dollar, data from Commodity Futures Trading Commission show.
The great unwind may just be gaining traction, some strategists said.
“It is the bond market that has been driving the U.S. dollar in the past couple of months, and it appears to be intensifying,” said Alvin T. Tan, head of Asia foreign-exchange strategy at RBC Capital Markets. “I would expect further short-covering versus the US dollar.”
An intensifying debate over the pace of inflation gains has split investors, with some seeing Treasury yields soaring to 2pc as a global recovery takeoff with vaccine rollouts and stimulus spending. That in turn is trouncing one of Wall Street’s most popular macro calls of 2021.
Holding dollar shorts would have served traders a 1.8pc loss this year after being a profitable strategy in eight of the nine months through to December, Bloomberg data shows.
08:35 AM
Turkish lira plunges 15pc after Erdogan ousts bank chief
Erdogan
Turkey’s lira slid 15pc to a near all-time low on Monday after President Tayyip Erdogan’s shock weekend ousting of a hawkish central bank governor sparked fears of a reversal of recent rate hikes, before clawing back some overnight losses.
We report:
The appointment of Sahap Kavcioglu, a former banker and ruling party lawmaker, in the early hours on Saturday marked the third time since mid-2019 that President Erdogan has abruptly fired a central bank chief.
Mr Kavcioglu sought to ease concerns about a sharp selloff in Turkish assets and a pivot from tight to loose policy, telling bank chiefs on Sunday he planned no immediate policy change, a source told Reuters.
The currency tumbled to as weak as 8.4850 versus the dollar, from 7.2185 on Friday, back to levels touched in early November when it reached an intraday record of 8.58.
It recovered about half of those losses after Finance Minister Lutfi Elvan said Turkey would stick to free market rules, reaching 7.76 at 0620 GMT, 7pc weaker from Friday.
Goldman Sachs and others had expected a sharp dive in the lira and Turkish assets given the new governor’s dovish and even unorthodox views, and what was seen as the latest damage to the bank’s credibility amid years of policy interference that has dogged the major emerging market economy.
08:21 AM
Profits soar at B&Q owner
B&Q
The owner of B&Q posted soaring profits last year after the pandemic triggered a do-it-yourself (DIY) boom.
Kingfisher, which also owns Screwfix, said sales jumped 7.2pc to £12.3bn, while pre-tax profits rocketed more than 600pc to £756m last year.
The company said the strong performance has continued into 2021, with sales up by a quarter since the end of January.
Chief executive Thierry Garnier said: “Current trading remains positive and while visibility is limited for the year as a whole, we are confident of continued outperformance of our wider markets.
“The Covid crisis has established new longer-term trends that are clearly supportive for our industry – including more working from home, the renewed importance of the home as a ‘hub’ and the development of a new generation of DIYers – and we expect these to endure.
“With our strategic progress, we are well positioned to capitalise on these new and positive market trends.”
Shares rose 1.5pc to 317.3p in early trading.
08:08 AM
FTSE opens in the red
London’s blue-chip index has started the week in the red as the EU threatens to block AstraZeneca exports to the UK, threatening the country’s vaccine roll-out.
European market data – Bloomberg
07:34 AM
Deliveroo ‘proud to be listing in London’
The takeaway company aims to sell shares for around 390p to 460p each, valuing it at between £7.6bn and £8.8bn.
The company will create new shares that it will sell to investors, raising about £1bn in the process. Existing shareholders will also sell off some of their stake.
Chief executive Will Shu said: “We are proud to be listing in London, the city where Deliveroo started.
“Becoming a public company will enable us to continue to invest in innovation, developing new tech tools to support restaurants and grocers, providing riders with more work, and extending choice for consumers, bringing them the food they love from more restaurants than ever before.
“This will help us in our mission to become the definitive food company.”
Deliveroo revealed that the value of transactions on its platform rose 121pc between January and February last year and the same two months in 2021.
07:25 AM
Greensill under the microscope
Good morning. One of Westminster’s most influential committees will meet today to discuss whether to launch a formal inquiry into the collapse of supply chain financier Greensill, amid claims that former prime minister David Cameron personally lobbied the Government on the company’s behalf.
Two years after he left Downing Street, Mr Cameron was hired as an adviser to Greensill in 2018.
Now reports claim Mr Cameron used his personal email, at least one phone-call and “multiple texts” to Rishi Sunak’s private phone number to lobby the Treasury and 10 Downing Street last May to try to help Greensill access the Bank of England’s Covid Corporate Financing Facility for large firms.
My colleagues Rachel Millard and Danielle Sheridan have the full story here.
5 things to start your day
1) MPs consider inquiry into claims Cameron lobbied Treasury for Greensill: Committee expected to discuss probe into Mr Cameron’s alleged efforts to secure coronavirus funding for collapsed financier
2) Thousands of Hongkongers will be unable to cash in their pensions after moving to the UK: Almost 30,000 people have applied to move to the UK from Hong Kong under a new visa scheme which is becoming “highly political”
3) Saudi Aramco’s dividend pledge survives 44pc plunge in profits: The world’s biggest oil company pegs optimism on a post-pandemic bounce back and plans to work with China to achieve low-carbon ambitions
4) 1m buildings will need modernising under Government’s net-zero strategy: New plans would mean commercial properties having to score a ‘B’ rating in energy efficiency by 2030
5) Billionaire Bamford gets taxpayer cash for green buses: The JCB heir’s bus company is being backed by a new round of Government funding to try and slash carbon emissions
What happened overnight
Asian stocks turned mixed and bonds bounced on Monday as a plunge in the Turkish lira sparked talk that capital controls might be needed to stem the rout, though the wider fallout was relatively restrained for the moment.
The dollar was trading almost 12pc higher versus the lira at 8.0520, the sharpest move since August 2018 when Turkish markets were in another of their periodic crises.
The slide came after President Tayyip Erdogan shocked markets by replacing Turkey’s hawkish central bank governor with a critic of high interest rates.
The uncertainty saw Japan’s Nikkei fall 1.6pc, partly on speculation Japanese retail investors could face losses on large long positions in the high-yielding lira.
The ripples were more modest elsewhere with MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan actually adding 0.3pc, aided by a 0.7pc rise in Chinese blue chips.
EUROSTOXX 50 futures eased 0.3pc and FTSE futures 0.2pc. Nasdaq futures firmed 0.6pc, while S&P 500 futures dithered either side of flat.
Coming up today
Full year results: Centamin, Kingfisher
Economics: Existing home sales (US)