Tesco annual profits fall, British Land collects 82pc of FY21 rent

London open

The FTSE 100 is expected to open three points lower on Wednesday, having closed up 0.02% on Tuesday at 6,890.49.

Stocks to watch

Tesco reported an unchanged annual dividend as the supermarket chain reported a 20% drop in annual profit after Covid-19 costs outweighed higher revenue. Pretax profit for the year to the end of February fell to £825m from £1.03bn a year earlier as sales excluding fuel rose 7% to £53.4bn. Analysts had expected pretax profit of £891m. Tesco proposed a final dividend of 5.95p per share taking the annual payout to 9.15p - the same as a year earlier. Tesco said the annual dividend was higher than its policy allowed for, reflecting its confidence in future cash flows.

British Land said it had collected 82% of total rent for the year ended 31 March on Wednesday, with collection for offices at 99%, and retail at 70%. The FTSE 100 company said 76% of March rent had been collected to date, adding that it made 1.4 million square feet of total lettings and renewals in retail in the first 11 months of the financial year, ahead of the prior year. As at 12 April, 79% of its retail properties were open, following the opening of non-essential retail in England and Wales.

Newspaper round-up

Hundreds of British Gas engineers will lose their jobs by midday on Wednesday after refusing to sign up to tougher employment terms imposed by the company’s controversial “fire and rehire” scheme. On 1 April Britain’s biggest energy supplier handed dismissal notices to close to 1,000 of its engineers, who install and repair boilers and heating systems for the company's nine million service customers. - Guardian

Celebration was in the air as England welcomed the return of outdoor drinking and dining on Monday, but the easing of lockdown was also met with concerns about a lack of social distancing, and a wider sense of nervousness within the hospitality sector as businesses tried to operate at significantly lower capacity and with some confusion over the rules. As people braved the inclement weather to enjoy their first night out in months, images circulated on social media showing packed streets and “very little” social distancing in Soho in London. - Guardian

A billionaire investor known as the “Czech sphinx” has launched a raid on Sainsbury’s - sparking speculation that Britain’s second-biggest supermarket could be targeted in a deal to take it private. Daniel Kretinsky’s firm Vesa Equity Investments has increased its stake in the grocer to almost 10pc by buying shares worth more than £300m from Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund. - Telegraph

A star stock picker has cemented his status as one of the highest-paid investors after it emerged that Terry Smith stood to earn as much as £125 million from his Fundsmith asset management business last year. The accounts for Fundsmith show that its boss took home £29.7 million of the £48.5 million in profits earned by the partnership in the 12 months to the end of March 2020. This was almost double the £16.2 million profit share he received a year earlier. - The Times

The financial watchdog will undertake a thorough post-Brexit review of Britain’s capital markets to help attract more foreign company listings, one of its senior regulators has said. The comments by Clare Cole, the Financial Conduct Authority’s director of market oversight, were reinforced by Nausicaa Delfas, head of its international division, who said that Britain could use its freedom from European Union rules to regulate markets flexibly. - The Times

US close

Wall Street stocks turned in a mixed performance on Tuesday after the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control recommended the use of Johnson & Johnson's single-dose Covid-19 vaccine be temporarily halted after six people out of the 7.0m who received the jab developed blood clots.

At the close, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 0.20% at 33,677.27, while the S&P 500 was 0.33% firmer at 4,141.59 and the Nasdaq Composite saw out the session 1.05% stronger at 13,996.10.

The Dow closed 68.13 points lower on Tuesday, extending losses recorded in the previous session, while the S&P 500 closed at another fresh record high.

America's economic recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic was in throughout the session on Tuesday after the FDA's recommendation that J&J's vaccine be paused in order to observe "an abundance of caution" after six reported cases of a rare and severe type of blood clot following the vaccine's administration.

The FDA said it would investigate the cases and until that process is complete, felt it was important to ensure that the health care provider community was aware of the potential for these adverse events and can plan due to the unique treatment required with the particular type of blood clot.