Frasers Group offers loan to ailing Arcadia, Lloyds chooses HSBC's Nunn as next CEO

London open

The FTSE 100 is expected to open 33 points lower on Monday, having closed up 0.07% on Friday at 6,367.58.

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Frasers Group confirmed it had offered a £50m loan to Philip Green's Arcadia retail group, currently on the verge of collapse. It added that should efforts to agree an emergency funding package fail and Arcadia fell into administration, Frasers "would be interested in participating in any sale process". Green's retail empire, which includes Topshop, Burton and Dorothy Perkins, is expected to collapse and enter administration on Monday, putting 13,000 jobs at risk after talks last week to secure extra funding failed. The group needed the extra cash to help cover the cost of lost sales during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Lloyds Banking Group has hired Charlie Nunn, HSBC's head of retail banking, as the FTSE 100 lender's next chief executive. Nunn will replace António Horta-Osório at Lloyds when his contract at HSBC allows. He has a six-month notice period and up to six months of further restrictions. If he does not arrive before Horta-Osório leaves in June 2021, chief financial officer William Chalmers would become acting CEO.

AstraZeneca said on Monday that ‘Forxiga’, or dapagliflozin, has been approved in Japan for the treatment of patients with chronic heart failure who are receiving standard-of-care. The FTSE 100 pharmaceuticals giant said the approval by the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare was based on positive results from the landmark ‘DAPA-HF’ phase 3 trial, published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Newspaper round-up

London has suffered the biggest fall in job opportunities among Europe’s biggest cities, according to a report showing that national capitals across the region have been damaged most by Covid-19. Britain’s capital is also among five of the biggest cities in western Europe – London, Berlin, Madrid, Paris and Rome – that have recorded a larger drop in new job adverts than elsewhere in their respective countries, according to Indeed. - Guardian

Carmakers are bracing for the final Brexit deadline by moving cars and parts both ways across the Channel to make sure they are not hit by tariffs if the UK and EU fail to agree a trade deal. Trade between the UK and EU will be governed by new rules from 1 January, but the imported cars will become 10% more expensive overnight if tariffs are imposed under the World Trade Organization regime. - Guardian

City crisis experts have parachuted into easyJet as it attempts to refinance more than £1.4bn of debt owed to taxpayers and lenders. The budget airline has called in AlixPartners to assist with cash flow forecasting amid crisis talks with Whitehall officials and banks. EasyJet had its finances red-flagged by auditors earlier this month as it slipped into the red for the first time with a £1.3bn pre-tax loss. - Telegraph

The former owner of Little Chef is eyeing more than 40 pubs being sold in the wake of Stonegate’s £3bn takeover of Ei Group. Buy-out fund RCapital is understood to be among the suitors for 42 pubs that are being auctioned off to secure competition approval for the mammoth tie-up. Stonegate Pubs, which is backed by TDR Capital and owns chains Slug & Lettuce and Yates, swooped on Ei last year to create an industry giant with nearly 5,000 pubs and bars. - Telegraph

Britain’s leading business lobby group “must change” as the country leaves the European Union and grapples with the economic cost of coronavirus, according to its new director-general. Tony Danker, who starts at the CBI today, is calling for an overhaul of its relationship with Downing Street after turbulence since the Brexit referendum. Writing in the Times, he argues that the pandemic amounts to a “wake-up call” for the UK, which must “grab this moment” and boost productivity and invest in innovative industries. - The Times

US close

Stocks on Wall Street closed higher on Friday, after a half-day of trading, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average up 0.13% at 29,910.37.

The S&P 500 added 0.24% to 3,638.35, and the Nasdaq Composite advanced 0.92% to 12,205.85.