RHI Magnesita buying Resco, Bank of Georgia gets nod for Ameriabank purchase
London open
The FTSE 100 is expected to open one point higher on Tuesday, having closed up 0.26% before the Easter break on Thursday, at 7,952.62.
Stocks to watch
RHI Magnesita said it was buying Resco Group, a US-based producer of alumina monolithics and wide range of basic and non-basic refractories, for up to $430m. Resco makes products for use in the petrochemical, cement, aluminium, and steel making industries operating seven plants and two raw material sites in the US and two plants in the UK and Canada.
Bank of Georgia updated the market on the acquisition of Ameriabank on Monday, having now received regulatory clearance from the National Bank of Georgia. The FTSE 250 company received shareholder approval for the purchase on 14 March. With subsequent unconditional approvals from Armenian regulatory bodies, including the Competition Protection Commission and the Central Bank of Armenia, Bank of Georgia said it could now move to finalise the acquisition agreement.
America's drug regulator gave the green light to AstraZeneca's for the add-on use of Voydeva in the treatment of extravascular haemolysis (EVH) in patients with paroxysmal nocturnal haemoglobinuria (PNH). PNH is a condition under which some patients' immune systems destroy a larger proportion of red blood cells than they should, whilst EVH was the condition in which red blood cells outside of blood vessels were destroyed. Voydeva could now be used as an add-on therapy to ravulizumab or eculizumab to treat EVH in adults with PNH.
Newspaper round-up
The value of Donald Trump’s stake in Truth Social fell by more than $1bn on Monday after the social media company revealed it lost $58.2m last year and an auditor disclosed “substantial doubt” over its ability to continue operating. Shares in Trump Media & Technology Group, the owner of Truth Social, dropped 21.5% as investors scrutinised the fundamentals of its business. The former president’s vast stake in the firm was worth about $4.88bn on paper after its extraordinary stock market debut last week . After Monday’s sell-off, it was valued at about $3.83bn. – Guardian
Thames Water has hired the restructuring firm that worked on the special administration of Bulb Energy as it scrambles to stave off nationalisation. The crisis-stricken water firm has appointed advisers at Teneo as it confronts an imminent financial crisis. Concerns are growing that the UK’s largest water company, which serves 15 million people, could be taken over by the Government in a special administration amid a standoff between its shareholders and the water industry regulator. – Telegraph
US investment firm Clayton, Dubilier & Rice has agreed to buy IT business Presidio from UK rival BC Partners, according to several people familiar with the details, in the latest sign that private equity dealmaking is starting to come back to life. The investment, which values Presidio at around $4bn, comes after a significant slowdown in the past 18 months as the buyout industry, which relies on debt to acquire businesses, felt the effects of higher interest rates. – Financial Times
A group of companies that received £9 million in taxpayer funding via Rishi Sunak’s Future Fund is on the brink of collapse after the government accused them of “breaches” of scheme rules. Several businesses part-owned by Nova Group Holdings, a start-up investment group backed by Sir Terry Leahy, are “insolvent” after the state-owned British Business Bank called in their loans, administrators have said. – The Times
Up to 1.6 million more pensioners will be paying income tax within four years as a result of Conservative stealth raids, new analysis has revealed. As many as 9.3 million older people will be paying the tax by 2028 after the Government froze the threshold at which people start to pay. Currently, 8.5 million pensioners pay income tax – but analysis by the House of Commons Library has found that the frozen threshold means an extra 1.6 million will pay the tax than would have done if the threshold had risen along with inflation since 2021. – Telegraph
US close
Stocks on Wall Street closed mixed but little changed on Easter Monday, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average down 0.6% at 39,566.85.
The S&P 500 lost 0.2% to 5,243.77, while the Nasdaq Composite managed gains of 0.11% to end the session at 16,396.83.