Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
The Stock Movers Report, your roundup of companies making moves in the stock market, harnessing the power of Bloomberg Data.
Let's have a look at some stocks on the move today here in Europe. I'm Caroline Hepget and I'm joined by Boomberger portacloimb Malay. Good morning, good morning, Happy Friday. So ITV is in talks with Comcasts about a sale, so potentially a bit of amna.
Yeah, absolutely, and that's really boosted the shares this morning. So ITV confirmed that it was in early talks to sell its media and entertainment unit to Sky, which is owned by a Comcast, for six sorry, one point six billion pounds. And so it seems that investors are very happy. After years and years of ITV being discussed as a takeover target, it seems that now it is finally happening.
This is interesting because this is a doubling down on the UK broadcasting market from Comcast after buying Sky, which is an interesting bet given that it's not necessarily worked out super well for them so far. So Compcast has written down the valley of Sky by billions of dollars since it acquired it in twenty eighteen, and the division of ITV that it wants to buy, this media and entertainment unit, is struggling quite a bit because of a slowdown in advertising and this move away from kind of
traditional media as well. So the CEO said of ITV said just yesterday that businesses were really holding back on spending on advertising because of the uncertainty surrounding the UK budget that's coming later this month and that it will mean lower revenue in that division for the fourth quarter. So it's quite an interesting move to be buying this particular division which has been a struggling a little bit.
But let's see if the deal goes through. But so far it seems that investors are very very keen on it.
Yeah. Absolutely, So that's on ITV in terms of never more disc they've increased their bid for Metsarah. We're talking about this yesterday't way this offer and a battle to buy a company that's also making vival obest jugs.
Yeah, absolutely, but it is Actually Nova was actually down this morning after raising that bid for the OBC startup mid Serah. So it's another escalation in that take of a battle between Phiser and Nova for for that company, getting mid Sarah is really going to be crucial for both of them. So Novo has fallen behind its closest rival Eli Lilly and that abest space and Pfizer is really trying to make inroads in that market because that's
such a profitable market. So they both really want it and you can see that with that take of a battle continuing. But now, the reason why Nova shares were down this morning is because there are concerns now arising among investors that the higher the bids go, the more likely the bidders will be overpaying. And there's also the threat of regulatory hurdles. There's antitrust concerns coming into view as well. So we'll see how this goes going forward.
The bidding what is apparently expected to conclude in a few days, so let's see who actually wins out and how the investors will be reacting to that based on the eventual price.
Okay, so that in the farmer space. Now looking at IAG, which owns British Airways and Arthur as their share price has not done well today.
Not at all, and that is because it seems that people are just not traveling between the in Europe as they did before as much as they used to before. So the North Atlantic route, which is really crucial for IAG, is it was quite weak over the third quarter and that in turn weighed on earnings which ended up missing estimates for that quarter. Airlines in Europe have been mentioning that weakness for quite a while now, saying that passenger demand into the US is becoming more and more restrained.
That is because partly travelers are quite put off by the stricter immigration procedures that are currently in place in the US, and then also because amid all of the trade tensions, companies are scaling back on corporate travel, so there's fewer work trips as well, and that is obviously quite a big part of demand for British Airways or Iberia as well, which is also owns. The demand for premium cabins though is still quite solid, so that is
also what air France and Luftanza have said. So those are the three kind of legacy carriers, so at least there's that, but that weakness in North Atlantic group is really what is dragging down those shears. This morning for IAG.
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.