(Alliance News) - The following is a summary of top news stories Thursday.
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COMPANIES
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Entain's net gaming revenue climbed 7% annually in the final quarter of 2020, shaking off closures of its retail estate in the UK and Europe. The 7% climb came amid bumper online growth. Total online net gaming revenue jumped 41% year-on-year in the fourth quarter, as Entain notched its 20th consecutive quarter of online growth. In addition, the company named independent director Jette Nygaard-Andersen as its new chief executive, the Ladbrokes Coral owner's first female CEO and also the first female CEO of any major London-listed bookmaker.
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Sage said it performed in line with expectations in its first quarter, posting a slight increase in revenue. For the three months ended December 31, the Newcastle Upon Tyne-based accounting software firm posted revenue of GBP447 million, up 1.4% from the year prior. Recurring revenue increased 4.7% to GBP408 million, supported by software subscription growth of 11% to GBP303 million. Other revenue - from the SSRS and processing units - fell 24% to GBP39 million, in line with Sage's strategy to transition away from licence sales and professional services revenue.
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IG Group Holdings posted reported a "record" performance in its first half, seeing profit more than double on a year ago as it announced the USD1 billion acquisition of US online brokerage platform tastytrade. The FTSE 250 online trading services provider stated net trading revenue in the six months to November 30 surged 67% to GBP416.9 million from GBP249.9 million and pretax profit jumped to GBP231.3 million from GBP101.2 million a year before. Active clients rose 55% to 238,600. Revenue in the Core Markets units was GBP340.6 million, up from GBP209.9 million the year prior and the Significant Opportunities portfolio recorded revenue of GBP76.3 million, up from GBP40.0 million. "I am delighted to announce an outstanding performance over the first six months of our financial year. We delivered record revenue and profit, made excellent progress against our strategic growth objectives and continued to build a more sustainable and diversified global business. Demand for our products remained high, benefitting from favourable trading conditions," Chief Executive June Felix said.
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Alphabet's Google and French newspapers have signed an agreement aimed at opening the path to digital copyright payments from the online giant after months of heated negotiations. The accord signed with the APIG alliance of French dailies involves "neighbouring rights", which call for payment for showing news content with internet searches, a joint statement said. It said the agreement sets a framework for Google to negotiate individual licence agreements with newspapers on the payments and will give papers access to its new News Showcase programme, which sees it pay publishers for a selection of enriched content.
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MARKETS
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"Wall Street celebrated the inauguration of Joe Biden with a decent day on the markets yesterday and this positive momentum extended across Asia and Europe on Thursday with equities pressing ahead," said Russ Mould, investment director at AJ Bell.
Wall Street is poised to extend gains on Thursday, with the Dow Jones pointed up 0.1%, the S&P 500 up 0.1% and the Nasdaq up 0.4%.
The dollar fell amid Thursday's risk-on environment, helping the pound hit multi-year highs and the euro advance ahead of the European Central Bank's latest policy decision at 1245 GMT. This will be followed by a press conference with President Christine Lagarde at 1330 GMT.
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FTSE 100: up 0.1% at 6,745.70
FTSE 250: up 0.2% at 20,923.22
AIM ALL-SHARE: up 0.8% at 1,196.67
GBP: higher at USD1.3723 (USD1.3631)
EUR: higher at USD1.2138 (USD1.2100)
GOLD: higher at USD1,870.77 per ounce (USD1,865.55)
OIL (Brent): lower at USD55.61 a barrel (USD56.30)
(changes since previous London equities close)
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ECONOMICS AND GENERAL
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More people will lose their lives in the coronavirus outbreak, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson has warned, after the UK saw its deadliest day in the pandemic. Official figures showed that January 12 saw the highest number of deaths take place on a single day – with 1,110 Covid-19 fatalities, surpassing the previous peak of 1,073 on April 8, 2020. The prime minister described the figures as "appalling" and warned "there will be more to come", saying we are seeing the result of the new variant that spread rapidly just before Christmas. A record 1,820 further deaths within 28 days of testing positive for Covid-19 were reported as of Wednesday, although there is a time lag between a patient dying and appearing in the government's official statistics.
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EU leaders will grapple Thursday with the threat of new coronavirus variants as wary countries push for a closure of Europe's internal borders to stop the spread. The chiefs will hold a summit – by videolink to protect themselves from infection – "to raise political awareness on the seriousness of the situation with the new variants," an EU official said. Virus mutations that emerged in Britain, South Africa and Brazil have alarmed EU authorities because of their increased infectivity, prompting bans or restrictions on travellers from those countries. But calls are increasing to shut the intra-EU borders in a coordinated manner and not to repeat the experience in March when several member states panicked and closed off their national borders unilaterally, triggering travel chaos.
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US President Joe Biden signed a series of executive orders to launch his administration Wednesday, including a decision to rejoin the Paris climate accord and a mask mandate for all federal buildings. The orders included keeping the US in the World Health Organization, ending the ban on entries from mostly Muslim-majority countries, bolstering environmental protections and strengthening the fight against Covid-19. Also among the directives was a halt to construction of the wall on the US-Mexico border, and efforts to expand diversity and equality for minority groups in the federal government. The orders were aimed at reversing decisions by his predecessor Donald Trump and setting a clear policy path for Biden's new administration, just hours after he was sworn in as president.
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Biden warned the worst of the pandemic is still to come, as the number of American coronavirus deaths surpassed the country's troop fatalities in World War II. Coronavirus cases have surged pasted 96 million worldwide, fuelled by the emergence of new variants including one that was first detected in Britain and has now spread to more than 60 nations, the World Health Organization said Wednesday. The US remains the worst-hit country, with around a fifth of the two million global Covid-19 deaths, and Biden has made the fight against the pandemic his administration's top priority.
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The Bank of Japan slightly downgraded its economic growth forecast for the current financial year amid the fallout from the coronavirus pandemic, saying the economy would shrink by 5.6%, compared with the 5.5% contraction estimated in October. The central bank expects the economy to bounce back 3.9% in the next financial year starting in April in the post-Covid-19 recovery, revised up from the 3.6% expansion predicted three months ago. The Bank of Japan held its interest rate at minus 0.1%, as expected. The bank also decided on Thursday to maintain its ultra-loose monetary policy as the country is battling with the pandemic.
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