Vodafone to sell Hungary business; Cineworld considers filing for bankruptcy in US

London pre-open

The FTSE 100 was called to open 15 points lower at 7,535.

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Vodafone said it was planning to sell its Hungary business to 4iG and Corvinus, a Hungarian state holding company, for €1.8bn.

Vodafone's shared services business in Hungary - VOIS - is not included in the transaction perimeter and it will continue to provide services to Vodafone's other operating companies, the company said on Monday.

Cineworld confirmed that it is considering filing for bankruptcy in the US as it looks to access near-term liquidity.

Responding to press speculation, the company said: "Any such filing would be expected to allow the Group to access near-term liquidity and support the orderly implementation of a fully funded deleveraging transaction.

"Cineworld would expect to maintain its operations in the ordinary course until and following any filing and ultimately to continue its business over the longer term with no significant impact upon its employees. As previously announced, any deleveraging transaction would, however, result in very significant dilution of existing equity interests in Cineworld."

Newspaper round-up

Chief executives of the UK’s 100 biggest companies have seen their pay jump by 39% to an average of £3.4m, according to research by the High Pay Centre thinktank and the Trades Union Congress (TUC). The median average pay of CEOs of companies in the FTSE 100 index rose to £3.4m in 2021, compared with £2.5m in 2020 during the height of the coronavirus pandemic when many bosses took a voluntary pay cut as they placed millions of employees on furlough. CEO pay has also surpassed the £3.25m median recorded in 2019, before the pandemic. – Guardian

Billionaire Brexiter Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s petrochemicals company Ineos has made an almost £500m profit thanks to soaring energy prices that are hammering struggling households. Ineos UK E&P Holdings, the oil and gas division of Ratcliffe’s empire, reported a profit of £474m in 2021 compared with a loss of £226m in 2020, according to new filings at Companies House. – Guardian

Property developer Nick Candy has sought a worldwide asset freeze against a former business partner in a fraud case at the High Court. The 49-year-old investor is suing Robert Bonnier, a former dot-com multi-millionaire, and a tech company he controls for alleged fraud. r Bonnier is the largest investor in Aaqua, a Dutch social media company which Mr Candy backed last year. – Telegraph

An eight-day strike at the Port of Felixstowe, Britain’s biggest gateway to global trade, could disrupt supplies to the nation’s supermarkets and exports by the country’s biggest industrial groups through to Christmas, experts are warning. There are fears that consumers could face fresh shortages of some goods and even higher prices, on top of the galloping inflation already hobbling the UK. – The Times

The future of Britishvolt, the ambitious plan to build a £3.8 billion electric battery “gigafactory” on the coast of Northumberland, is at a crossroads after a botched management succession plan left it without a permanent chief executive. The company, which has talked of producing batteries to power hundreds of thousands of electric vehicles a year and of creating 3,000 directly employed jobs, has been rocked by the resignation of Orral Nadjari, its chief executive and co-founder. – The Times

US Close

The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed down 0.9%, while the S&P 500 ended 1.3% lower and the Nasdaq closed off 2%.