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The Stock Movers Report, your roundup of companies making moves in the stock market, harnessing the power of Bloomberg Data.
Well, let's take a look at some stocks on the move today in Europe. I'm Stephen Carroll and I'm joined by Bloomberg reporter Chloe Melee. Chloe, good morning. Let's start with some news from AB Foods, a company name we've often flagged is somewhat logical, and it's about to become a little bit more logical.
Yeah.
Absolutely, So there's a couple of things for Maybe Foods to flag this morning. So first of all, it mentioned quite a lot of weakness across the board, so it downgraded expectations for its sugar business. And they also said that its fashion prime Mark, had experienced softer trading in April because for the Middle East conflict really hitting that consumer confidence. So that has led the shares weeker this morning.
But the bigger update in what you were hinting at, is that the company is going ahead with the separation of prime Mark from its food operation. So this is a de merger that is set to complete by the end of twenty twenty seven and it will result in those two entities being listed separately under London Stock Exchange. So that is a really massive change in the history
of the group. It's a breakup of one of the UK's biggest conglomerate and it is a plan that was first announced as a possibility back in November because Prime Mark had just grown so much. And so now we've got those two separate businesses and that will face really different challenges. We've got those inflationary pressures that will be a big challenge for the food business and then for the Primark business. There's weak consumer confidence that obviously prime
market what ABE Foods are already flagged. But then there's also this rising competition from online rivals like Shean as well, so that's going to be a bit of a problem as well. But we have the shares weaker this morning, though that is mostly in reaction according to analysts to that weaker Shulgar business and weaker Primark sales as well.
Okay, so that's for AB Foods and their shares down four point three percent in London. Another share that's dropping sharply this morning the UK home builder krest Nicholson. What's going on yeah.
Really massive guidance cut at Chris Nicholson, and they said that it was due to economic uncertainty, so saying essentially that buyers were being deterred by interest rates still being quite high, and then of course the macroeconomic backdrop that has led to a deteriorating consumer confidence that has meant a fewer land sales and that has forced Chres Nicholson to prioritize cash a preservation and so this profit warning has led the shares down massively this morning, really plummeting
and also dragging the rest of the UK home builders lower. So we've got the likes of Barrett Redrow, Taylor, wimp Person and all of those names in the red as well today. So for Chres Nicholson specifically, it means a lot of pain this year, but then potentially that is
necessary to get back on track. So for example, RBC analysts have said that they have made a decision to play at the long game and that this would have really hit profit this year, but that they essentially agree with the decision not to sell land at suboptimal prices and to kind of wait it out. So the guidance is going to put a lot of pressure on the company right now, but we'll see if this was actually a good decision to kind of get back on track later.
Okay, well, let's go to an energy company next, SSA. What's the news from them?
Yeah, well, the renewable sector in the UK is fittingly in the green today. That's because the UK is said to be speeding up efforts to cut the costs of green electricity by essentially reducing its exposure to more expensive gas and de linking gas and power prices. So what that actually means is that the UK will, for example, offer new voluntary subsidies for older wind and solar farms
and encourage them to move to cheaper fixed contracts. So of course that is very relevant the moment, given that guess costs have been rising very sharply because of the conflict in Iran, and therefore the government is under a lot of pressure to reduce bills for consumers. So all of that could be good news for us and for our energy bills, but it's also good news for some of those renewable names in the UK. So who've got SSE and Santraca for example at Hire this morning.
On the back of that, the stock movers report from Bloomberg Radio. Check back with us throughout the day for the latest roundup of companies making news on Wall Street, and for the latest market moving headlines. Listen to Bloomberg Radio Live, catch us on YouTube, Bloomberg dot com, and on Applecarplay and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business app.