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The Stock Movers report, your roundup of companies making moves in the stock market, harnessing the power of Bloomberg Data.
Let's tickle up now at some stocks on the move today in Europe. I'm Stephen Carroll and I'm joined by Bloomberg's Breaking News editor Louise Moon.
Luise, good morning.
Let's start with HSBC, then Europe's largest bank, appointing Brendan Nelson as its next chair to replace Mark Tucker.
Indeed, yeah, so Brendan Nelson. He's been in an interim position since October. That's after, as you say, Mark Tucker left. He he had been chaired four much of the last decade. He was very hands on and he left over the summer or the end of summer to be the chair of AIA, the insurer. So I've chosen Brendan Nelson to replace him. As I say, he's been in the interim position. He joined the board in twenty twenty three, but aside from that he spent most of his career at KPMG.
So in terms of the UK, he's well known in UK boardrooms, but he's being seen as quite a surprise choice and a bit of a safe pair of hands in a way. The surprise being that first he's kind of indicated that he wouldn't expect to serve a long term and that was echoed by the CEO yesterday. You know that Nelson doesn't want to do the full six to nine years, so potentially a short tenure for him. And then also in terms of it being a surprise, HBC have had a long process of trying to find
a chairman. There's been lots of kind of high profile external candidates that have been named in various reports, you know, people including the likes of George Osborne, the former UK Chancellor. So the choice of Brendan Nelson kind of suggests that they couldn't find a good external candidate. He also doesn't have at least publicly much experience or any experience in Asia, and obviously it comes as HSBC is overhauling itself and kind of grappling with the tensions that are ongoing between
the US and China. That will be quite a key thing to his role to navigate all that volatility. So a bit of a surprise pick there, and yeah, it's been seeing a bit of a safe pick just to stick with the interim.
Interesting to see the shares in HSPC gennero one percent this morning. Let's turn to Sainsbury's next, the Qatari Sovereign Wealth Fund selling a large steak in the supermarket chain.
Indeed, so the Quitari is Sovereign Wealth fund.
They've been Sainsbury's largest shareholder for a long time. They first invested in twenty in two thousand and seven. That was one of their first investments in the UK. But they've sold down now about eighty four just under eighty four million shares, so that's worth two hundred and sixty.
Six million pounds.
So it brings their their almost two decade run as the biggest sholder to an end. So now Sainsbury's biggest shaholder will be the investment fund that's run by the Czech billionaire Daniel Kratinski, so he will now be Sainsbury's largest shareholder. Interesting, So since Katar have invested, Sainsbury's shares have fallen about forty five percent. They've kind of struggled to reshape their business as the competition heats up in.
The grocery space.
They have been doing a bit better recently, shared so far this year risen about nineteen percent. They're tapping into kind of cashtrup consumers wanting promotions, wanting loyalty cards, so Bloomberg Intelligence. They're saying this morning that that sales growth has kind of allowed that sharehold exit and they would expect the wealth fund to sell down more of their state to sell down the remaining stake. So an interesting one. Sainsbury's falling on the news this morning.
Yeah, down three point nine percent at the moment, and the latest move in a different direction from Intertext the owner of Zara of eight percent in Spain.
Indeed a better day for Zara, so end of Techsara's owner, Yeah, shares soaring the most in five years. That's after their sales figures fought November, so sales accelerated, revenue up about almost eleven percent.
Is being seen as kind of a bit of a relief.
They've had a spell of slightly lackluster sales, so it's kind of easing investor concerns of it losing steam. Their expansion has cooled quite a lot from their post pandemic heart as they've been dealing with a whole host of things, including trade frictions softer to consumer demand. But the figures this morning are pointing to a bit of resilience despite you know, there's still relatively weak consumer sentiment, but.
Showing some resilience.
It's coming out above their peers on the back of a vast number of reasons, you know, including they've got a relatively agile supply chain. The designs are seen as being very on trend that kind of thing, so anlessa pointing to that, pointing to their strong margins, their strong cash flow, and they're expecting upward revisions on the back of this.
So, as you say, shares accelerating on the back.
Of the news 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 MHM.