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Let's take a look at some stocks on the move today in Europe. I'm Stephen Caralworth, Caroline Hepker, and we're joined by Bloomberg's Breaking News editor Louise Moon. Luise, good morning. Someone is looking to be the new boss of Hugo.
Boss, indeed, and it is Mike Ashley's Frases Group in London. Here in London, so they offered two billion euros to buy the remainder of Hugo Boss. Obviously, over in Germany, they already own about twenty six percent of Hugo Boss, but they want to buy the rest out so they currently sell so obviously, Frases Group is the owner of sports Direct and a host of other brands as well, and they sell Hugo Boss already online and in stores. But full ownership will obviously give it control of a strategy,
capital allocation, etc. For Hugo Boss. It comes as it's trying to turn itself around. They've seen softer demand in China, quite a bit of weakness in their women's wear sector, and then for Frasers Group, it's you know, partly they've been turning slightly more premium or a bit more of a focus on premium, and it's also part of their kind of ongoing playbook that we've been seeing over the years. They've got quite a reputation of growing steakes and businesses
trying to buy out other retailers. There's frequent clashes. You've seen them class recently, for example, with Boohoo quite a lot, and actually with Hugo Boss over the past year or so, there have been quite a few clashes. They're not convinced about, you know, some of their decisions. So for example, last year they threatened to vote against the proposed dividend, arguing that cash should instead be invested for growth, for longer term growth. Says they've already seen some clashes and now
trying to take that full ownership. An interesting note from bluemogon intelligencying it's not that obvious what phrases could do to make that recovery for Hugo Boss faster, and also saying on on a kind of a separate point that it seems a bit opportunistic and it's unlikely that shareholders will accept it given the small premium in terms of the offer price. Hugo Bos shares up as much as seven percent in Germany, phrases actually falling in London. So
we'll keep an eye that if this happens. But as I say, it's quite a Mike Ashley kind of playbook to put pressure on brands to try and buy them up.
Yes, I'm surely opportunistic. Is kind of is very much part of the brand, isn't it for for Mike Ashley? And in terms of yeah, style of business. But look what about Wizair. I've been thinking a lot about oil prices today and how this is affecting well, so many industries, but including airlines.
What's been happening, Yeah, so withz I mean kind of again just demonstrating that, really demonstrating how much the war, the rise and oil prices, the rise and fuel costs is upending the aviation sector. So if you look at their profits, they slumped down to two point two million euros. That's compared to two hundred and twenty five or two hundred twenty six almost million euros a year earlier, So a massive slump there has to be said, though it
is better than expected. They were expected to come in profits were expected well, it was about to have a big loss essentially, so they've missed that, but but profit's still slumped, so showing that impact. Obviously, you know, as it's been said many times, fuel costs are higher high affairs. As a result, bookings, people are kind of holding off bookings,
particularly in the peak summer season. And obviously no resolution yet in the Middle East, so there's no end in sight to and there's kind of a lack of visibility, and that's what WIZ has been saying this morning, saying that because of that that lack of visibility, they're not giving an outlook for the full year, the next full year coming. Despite you know, that kind of bad news that negativity shares actually rose this morning. It's as much
as five percent. Focus being that they didn't hit they didn't make a loss, They made that profit, even if it was a small profit, particularly compared to last year, so focusing on that. Analysts are saying also that there's signs of normalization in consumer confidence. They gave some solid revenue guidance for the first quarter of next year, despite not giving a full outlook, and the CEO is on bloombog TV this morning kind of vowing to take advantage
and push for growth in the market. So it's still lots of risks ahead, but some glimmers there that shares are reacting.
On okay, and just briefly then on ASML cutting back on jobs.
Yes, they are cutting back on jobs, but now fewer job cuts than planned before of negotiations with trade unions. So in January they announced plans to cut about thy seven hundred jobs, which is about four percent of their overall staff. The new figure isn't exactly known, but they're saying it's going to be a lot less than a thousand, so shares reacting on the back of that into the green leading tech gings across Europe.
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 Apple CarPlay and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business app.