BUSINESS LIVE: UK wages shoot up; FTSE continues climb; De La Rue takeover; Sports Direct goes to Oz

Everyman Media Group was boosted by the release of the latest Bridget Jones film at the start of the year, the upmarket cinema brand said on Tuesday.

The group told shareholders ‘Mad about the Boy’, which reportedly surpassed £100million on the international box office at the end of February with almost half coming from the UK, was the driver of ‘positive momentum’ in the first quarter.

The best-selling car in the UK has gone electric.

Having topped the new model sales charts for the last two years, Ford has fitted its volume-selling Puma with a battery in a bid to take over the EV registrations leaderboard too.

When Katy Perry first sang Firework 15 years ago, it seemed unlikely that she would ever ‘shoot across the sky’ like the subject of her top-selling hit.

But this week, the 40-year-old singer will fly 62 miles above the earth’s surface on Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin rocket ship, with the Amazon founder’s fiancee Lauren Sanchez, in a flight that will further boost the popularity of ‘space tourism’.

Gabriella Dickens, G7 economist at AXA Investment Managers:

‘This was a soft release and suggests the labour market was deteriorating more rapidly even before the added uncertainty from trade tariffs.

‘Employment rose by a stronger-than-expected 206,000 in the three months to February – markets had anticipated at 170,000 increase – according to the official LFS survey data. This was largely matched by an increase in the size of the workforce, with the unemployment rate remaining unchanged at 4.4%.

‘In any case, there remains a large question mark over the official data, with the ONS now saying the new, improved and trustworthy LFS data won’t be available until at least the back end of next year.

Continued evidence of a softening labour market underpins our expectation that the Bank of England will likely cut rates by 75bps across the remainder of this year (May, August and November) to 3.75% by year-end. This is now 90% priced by November – fully priced by year-end.’

A takeover battle looks set to erupt for the Bank of England’s currency printer after a rival offer reportedly emerged after an earlier bid had already been accepted.

De La Rue revealed on Tuesday morning that it had struck a £263million acquisition deal with the American private equity firm Atlas Holdings.

The 130p per share offer represents a 19 per cent premium to the company’s closing price on 11 December, the last day before the recent offer period began.

But Sky News reported soon afterwards that Pension SuperFund Capital, the investment vehicle of City financier Edi Truell, had told De La Rue’s board of his plans to make a 132.17p per share bid.

Sports Direct will launch in Australia and New Zealand for the first time after Frasers Group agreed a long-term agreement with wholesaler Accent Group.

Frasers’ latest push for international growth will see a 25-year partnership, which plans to open up to 100 Sports Direct stores across the region.

Brands available in the new stores will include Everlast, Slazenger and Karrimor, as well as Nike, Adidas and Under Armour, Frasers said.

Luke Bartholomew, deputy chief economist at Aberdeen:

‘Prior to the tariff news, the UK labour market looks to have been behaving largely as expected, with no signs of any stress in anticipation of the increase in national insurance. Wage growth is slowly moderating from still elevated levels. The big question is whether the increase in the national living wage will stall this process.

‘For now, there is nothing that should put the Bank of England off cutting in May. And with international energy prices having fallen sharply recently, some of the likely increase in headline inflation in coming months will be more muted than previously expected. This should make it easier for the Bank to deliver further cuts later this year.’

City financier Edi Truell has gatecrashed Atlas Holdings’ agreed £263million takeover of De La Rue with a fresh bid, according to Sky News.

Truell’s vehicle, Pension SuperFund Capital, has reportedly written to the board of t the 211-year-old Bank of England currency printer to indicate its willingness to offer 132.17p-a-share.

If formally confirmed, that would trump a recommended 130p-a-share offer from Atlas worth £263m.

The Government passed a bill last year that will bring rail passenger services back into public ownership by appointing a public sector operator when existing contracts expire.

While the timing of nationalisations has not been confirmed, FirstGroup’s South Western Railway, Great Western Railway will see DfT contracts expire in May and June, respectively, while and Avanti West Coast’s contract expires in October next year.

FirstGroup said its open access operations like Lumo and Hull Trains, which manage trains on mainline routes without government funding, had benefited from ‘strong demand, effective yield management and continued high levels of customer satisfaction’.

It has acquired track access rights for two new open access services and signed a £500million agreement to lease 14 new UK-manufactured trains, to facilitate the growth of its open access operations.

Boss Graham Sutherland said First Rail has agreements in place to ‘double the size of our open access operations with potential to go much further’.

FTSE 100 up 0.7%; FTSE 250 adds 0.8%

Richard Hunter, head of markets at Interactive Investors:

‘The premier index looked rather healthier at the open, with a broad markup across the main sectors erasing the FTSE100’s losses and leaving the index currently unchanged in the year to date.

‘The read across from Goldmans in the US edged up the price of Barclays once more where, despite the recent turmoil, the shares have risen by 13% over the last week and by 49% over the last year.

‘At its full-year numbers in February, the group attributed 44% of revenues to its US division, which should augur well for its own first-quarter report at the end of the month.’

BP’s embattled bosses received a much-needed boost yesterday thanks to an oil discovery in the Gulf of Mexico.

As chairman Helge Lund and chief executive Murray Auchincloss brace for a rebellion at its AGM on Thursday, the energy giant reported success at an exploration well 120 miles off the coast of Louisiana.

Halfords has appointed a new chief executive as it reported rising revenues despite a ‘very challenging’ trading environment and rising costs from the October budget.

Henry Birch, former boss of retailer Very Group, takes the post immediately to replace Graham Stapleton, Halfords’ boss of seven years.

The group said like-for-like sales rose 2.3 per cent in the year to 28 March compared with the previous year, while profit will be at the higher end of previous guidance of £32million to £37million.

That is despite making more than £30 million of cost savings across the group in what Stapleton called a ‘very challenging trading environment’.

Birch cautioned that the current ‘challenging consumer and economic outlook appears unlikely to subside in the short term’, but added that Halfords is ‘well-positioned for success in the years ahead’.

Lindsay James, investment strategist at Quilter:

‘The UK GDP data out on Friday was somewhat reassuring, supported by signs that the service economy continues to grow, with recent surveys pointing to an uptick in activity.

‘However, the economy faces significant risks and while the UK has avoided a recession thus far, it is not yet out of the woods.

‘The same surveys have also shown that the outlook for employment remains a weak spot.

‘Rising payroll costs are making job creation increasingly less attractive for employers, particularly as the changes to employer national insurance have now come into play, and the extreme levels of economic uncertainty we are currently facing are also leading to companies holding off on hiring.

‘Additional tax rises in the autumn seem increasingly likely, and the near doubling of GDP forecasted by the OBR for 2026 before ‘Liberation Day’ has fast become a significant challenge in light of a potential slowdown in global trade. With the full economic impact of Trump’s tariffs yet to play out, employers will be even less likely to commit to expansion plans.’

LVMH is looking to boost its manufacturing in the US to cushion the blow of Donald Trump’s tariffs.

Boss Bernard Arnault said in January he was ‘seriously considering’ adding to the French luxury goods giant’s existing facilities across the Atlantic, which includes a Louis Vuitton workshop in Texas and two in California.

Sarah Coles, head of personal finance, Hargreaves Lansdown:

‘This a snapshot taken in the china shop before the tariff bull was let loose. The jobs market was in decent shape, with steady wage growth and a rising employment rate. However, there were some early signs of shakiness as vacancies fell for a 33rd consecutive quarter, and finally dropped below their pre-pandemic levels.

‘On the plus side, we’re still seeing wages rise, and they’re still well ahead of inflation, so workers will be feeling slightly better off with each passing month. The most recent HL Savings & Resilience Barometer shows the average household now has £196 left at the end of the month, which is why people are able to put aside 5.5% of their income for the future.

‘There were some signs of resilience in the jobs market. The inactivity rate was down over the quarter, the unemployment rate steady and the employment rate has risen. However, things looked less positive when it came to vacancies.

‘The looming hike in employers’ taxes in April is very likely to have persuaded employers to hold back on hiring. This is the simplest lever for businesses to pull when they want to slow things down. It’s far cheaper and damaging than letting people go, so may be a sign of things to come. Business investment figures don’t inspire a great deal of hope, down 1.9% at the end of last year.’

The boss of Goldman Sachs warned the firm faces a ‘markedly different operating environment’ despite a bumper start to the year.

The Wall Street banking giant reported a 15 per cent surge in first quarter profits to £3.5billion as market volatility helped it rake in record equity trading revenues.

But while the turmoil unleashed by Donald Trump has been a boom for Goldman’s traders, investment banking fees fell 8 per cent as deal-making dried up.

Sports Direct will launch in Australia and New Zealand after Frasers Group came to an agreement with Australian footwear retailer Accent Group.

Accent Group will launch and operate Sports Direct across the countries, with plans to open 100 stores.

Frasers boss Michael Murray said: ‘Since acquiring a strategic shareholding in Accent, we have developed a robust partnership between Frasers and Accent.

‘Accent has an impressive, well-established platform with various sneaker concepts and a strong distribution of brands.

‘This reaffirms our commitment to drive growth of the Sports Direct brand internationally and marks a significant step forward in our ambition to becoming the leading global sporting goods retailer.’

US private equity firm Atlas Holdings will buy British banknote printer De La Rue for £263million, the companies said on Tuesday.

The 130p per share all-cash deal was at a 16 per cent premium to De La Rue’s closing price on Monday, and has been recommended by the company’s board as ‘fair and reasonable’.

De La Rue, which printed the new King Charles’ currency notes in the UK, received a 125p a share takeover proposal from a consortium of British financier Edi Truell’s companies in January, and launched a formal sale process a few weeks later.

Clive Vacher, De La Rue CEO, said: ‘De La Rue has undergone a fundamental transformation since 2020, in which we have successfully delivered on our Turnaround Plan to create more efficient and agile operations, while enhancing profitability in our industry-leading Currency business as demonstrated by the strength of our order book.

‘Atlas is the right partner to take De La Rue into its next phase of growth. Most importantly, under Atlas’s ownership we can ensure long-term stability for our customers and our people, and best position the business for its next chapter. I look forward to working closely with Atlas and both our teams to deliver on this exciting opportunity for De La Rue.’

Thomas Pugh, economist at RSM UK:

‘The biggest drop in payroll numbers since the pandemic suggests that firms started trimming their workforce in March ahead of the significant increase in employment costs which came into effect in April.

‘More importantly for the Bank of England, private sector wage growth eased off as well. That would have made a rate cut in May more likely even without the economic turmoil unleashed by President Trumps’ tariffs. A rate cut next month now looks like a sure bet.

‘The official measure of employment rose by 206,000 in the three months to February and the unemployment rate remained at 4.4%. However, the official data are so unreliable at the minute that we can take little solace from that. More important was the 78,000 drop in payrolls in March.

‘However, pay growth remains far too strong for the MPC to relax. Indeed, at 5.9% in the three months to February private sector regular pay growth is about double the 3% that the MPC estimates is consistent with 2% inflation.

‘Overall, there are now clear signs that the labour market has weakened and that should feed into slowing wage growth through this year. This, combined with the drag on growth and employment which will inevitably come from the tariff chaos means a rate cut in May is likely and that there will probably be two more cuts after that, leaving rates at 3.75% by the end of the year.’

Weekly UK wages before bonuses grew by 5.9 per cent in the three months to February, slightly behind forecasts of 6 per cent growth, fresh data from the Office for National Statistics shows.

The Bank of England has been keeping a close eye on wage growth and the impact on total inflation as it considers the outlook for interest rates.

Separate ONS data showed an easing of the UK labour market, with the number of vacancies falling below their pre-COVID pandemic level for the first time since the three months to May 2021 in the three months to March.

Provisional data given by employers to the tax authorities showed the number of employees fell by 78,000 in March and February’s figure was revised to show a drop of 8,000 compared with a previous estimate of a 21,000 gain.