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Let's take a look at some of the stocks on the move today in Europe. I'm Tima Adabaya with Caroline HaCaT and we're joined by our reporter Chloe Melee. Chloe, let's start with Partners Great. This is the Swiss private markets firm. It's fallen to its lowest level in more than six years. Can you tell us what's responsible for the drop?
Yeah, So this company has kept withdrawals from one of it's a private equity fund. So it's an evergreen private equity fund. And so what that means is a fund that typically allows investors to withdraw at least a portion of their investments rather than locking up the capital for a set period. And Partners Group is actually one of the pioneers in that space of evergreen private equity funds.
But the problem here is that it said that it has been there had been quite an important pickup in a redemption request from private wealth clients across this evergreen portfolio, and those clients make up a particularly large portion of that investor base for Partners Group, and so that has essentially forced the company to gate that fund to avoid too many redemptions. And so what this shows is that there's this anxiety around private credit that is starting to
really spill over into other parts of private markets. And so that's kind of the broad thing, but then for Partners specifically, it's kind of yet another challenge after a short seller report recently also alleged that it systematically overvalues assets. So there's quite a few things happening there for Partners Group, and shares are taking quite the hit, as you mentioned, Ta.
Yeah, absolutely.
Meanwhile, ASML, your's largest company by market cap, benefiting from an analyst upgrade. Yeah, so JP Morgan analyst gave ASML a new Street high price tag and they also increase their estimates by a quite big margin. Said consensus was well behind the curve. So of course this fits within this broader AI enthusiasm sort of narrative with really expectations of continued growth for all of those companies within that sector,
the chip makers, the chip making equipment manufacturers. So shares for ASML already up about sixty percent yet today, but it seems that there might be even further to go. This is, of course, as well a global story. If we go over to the US, we recently had the chip maker Micron joining that trillion dollar valuation club. We had Nvidio CEO saying this week that Marvel Technology, which is another company in that space, could be the next
one to join that one trillion dollar club. So this really shows that the AI trade, the AI story is not going anywhere, and that ASML is going to be, of course one of the really big beneficiaries of that, because it's the only company making the most advanced machines for that chip making.
Okay, well, we're going from a joint street high price target for ASML to the high street now for B and M, and it seems like their turnaround plan might just be working. Can you tell us a bit more about the gains that the retailer are seeing this morning?
Yeah.
Absolutely, BNM is having a very good morning this morning, but it has had quite a tough year. The thing now that is really driving those shares is that it
is cautiously optimistic. So it said that it's starting to see some of the benefits from the turnaround that had launched in October, which was really about more competitive pricing and better store availability as well, and so it said that bnm UK was on track to return to stronger margins over the medium term, and also that the company would be able to offset the impact from higher energy costs, higher shipping costs that we've seen because of the Iran War.
And so this echoes what we heard from Debenham's as well this morning, which was known before as Boohoo, that is a company that returned to growth this quarter, expects very strong momentum for the rest of the year. And so those two updates from those two companies point to perhaps a more resilient retail sector than was feared by some investors and analysts. The challenges are still there, you know, we still have low consumer spending, still the prospect of
higher interest rates. But for now the sector is doing okay despite all of those potential hurdles.
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