Rolls-Royce, Babcock sell stakes in AirTanker; Ascential buys OneSpace

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Sharecast News | 13 Sep, 2021

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Engine maker Rolls-Royce and defence engineer Babcock said they had sold their stakes in in AirTanker Holdings Limited to Equitix Investment Management.

Rolls-Royce is selling its 23.1% shareholding for £189m and Babcock its 15.4% share for £126m. AirTanker Holdings is an asset joint venture with Airbus, Thales and Rolls-Royce, owning fourteen A330 Voyager aircraft to support air-to-air refuelling, air transport and ancillary services for the UK’s Ministry of Defence.

Specialist information and analytics company Ascential said it has bought OneSpace, a content optimisation business serving brands trading on eCommerce marketplaces, for an undisclosed sum.

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The activist investor calling for a shake-up at Rolls-Royce has upped its stake in WH Smith but insisted it iswas supportive of management at the struggling high street chain. Causeway Capital Management is the retailer’s biggest shareholder and owns 9% after buying shares in the wake of a recent profit alert. Analysts suggested the California-based investor was betting on a recovery in international travel rather than agitating for change. – Guardian

The trade barriers that made the import of Marks & Spencer’s Percy Pig sweets one of the first casualties of Brexit has added an extra £600m in costs to British importers since January, it has emerged. Customs duties paid by UK businesses shot up from £1.6bn in the first half last year to a record £2.2bn in the same period this year, according to an analysis of HMRC data. - Guardian

The UK’s largest lung disease charity has urged shareholders to block a big tobacco takeover of drug maker Vectura ahead of a deadline on Wednesday. Sarah Woolnough, chief executive of Asthma UK and the British Lung Foundation, urged investors to oppose the £1bn swoop by Philip Morris International (PMI) on Vectura, a company that plays a leading role in tackling diseases caused by smoking. - Telegraph

More Europeans are looking for work in Britain since the end of lockdown restrictions, but job searches from the Continent remain far lower than they were before the pandemic. In a promising sign for businesses grappling with staff shortages, searches from inside the European Union for positions in Britain have risen steadily since hitting the floor in April last year, according to Adzuna, a jobs search engine. - The Times

US Close

US stock markets fell on Friday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed down 0.8% at 34,607.72, while the S&P 500 ended down 0.8% at 4,458.58 and the Nasdaq declined 0.9% at 15,115.49.

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