Barclays lifts bad loan provisions, Bunzl to acquire Chile's Hospitalia
London open
The is expected to open 11 points higher on Wednesday, having closed up 0.55% on Tuesday at 8,463.46.
Stocks to watch
Barclays Bank lifted bad loan provisions in response to macroeconomic uncertainty in the US as it also reported a better-than-expected 19% rise in pre-tax profit to £2.7bn. Credit impairment charges increased to £643m from £513m a year ago, primarily driven by a £74m adjustment for “elevated US macroeconomic uncertainty” and the impact of the Tesco Bank acquisition.
Bunzl has agreed to acquire Hospitalia, a major healthcare distributor in Chile, marking its entry into the Chilean healthcare sector, it announced on Wednesday, with the deal pending competition authority approval. The FTSE 100 company said Hospitalia generated approximately £21m in revenue in 2024. Separately, Bunzl said it has completed the acquisition of Inpakomed in the Netherlands, a provider of sterile packaging solutions with 2024 revenue of around £2m.
Newspaper round-up
The push for net zero has become “irrational” because people in developed countries are being asked to make “financial sacrifices and changes in lifestyle” that will make little difference, Sir Tony Blair has warned as he called for a “reset” of climate policies. The former prime minister said that a backlash against climate change policies threatened to “derail the whole agenda”, in the latest sign that the mainstream consensus on green policies is collapsing. - The Times
Barclays is to ban trans women from using female lavatories in the wake of this month’s Supreme Court ruling. The bank said it would review its internal policy on the use of bathrooms to ensure that it complied with the law after judges ruled that trans women can now be excluded from single-sex facilities. The Telegraph understands that means a policy of allowing trans women to use whichever lavatory they want will be dropped. - Telegraph
Donald Trump has made a trade deal with the UK a second-order priority, sources have told the Guardian, hampering British attempts to meet their mid-May deadline. US officials have decided to split their negotiations with more than a dozen other countries into three phases, with the UK being placed in either phase two or three, according to people who have been briefed on the talks. - Guardian
President Trump personally called Amazon’s founder Jeff Bezos to complain after reports that the world’s biggest retailer planned to display the surcharge from US tariffs in the price tag of products on its website. Amazon denied having such a plan on Tuesday after the backlash from the White House on the day that Trump marked his first 100 days in office. - The Times
The power cuts that swept across Spain, Portugal and parts of southern France plunged the Iberian peninsula into chaos. But as fresh details emerge, it seems the cause of Europe’s biggest-ever blackout can be traced back to just five crucial seconds. Red Eléctrica de España, which manages the Spanish national grid, says the crisis erupted owing to a rapid sequence of events that unfolded at Monday lunchtime. - Telegraph
US close
Wall Street stocks finished higher for the sixth straight day on the back of reported progress in recent US trade talks, as investors digested a long list of economic data releases and corporate earnings.
The Dow rose 0.8% while the S&P 500 and Nasdaq both gained 0.6%, as markets continued to claw their way back to pre-Liberation Day levels.
US commerce secretary Howard Lutnick said in a CNBC interview that he had reached a deal with an undisclosed country, while treasury secretary Scott Bessent said the administration was making progress on negotiations with India, South Korea and Japan.
Sentiment was also lifted after Trump softened the impact on carmakers from his tariff regime.
The president confirmed that auto tariffs would not stretch to steel and aluminium imports, easing certain sector-specific fears and pushing shares in US-based carmakers mostly higher.