GSK’s consumer health spin-off Haleon has become the largest London listing in more than a decade on its first day of trading, making the owner of Sensodyne toothpaste and Panadol painkillers the world’s biggest standalone consumer health business (The Financial Times £).
Shares in Haleon began trading at 330p, giving the company a market valuation of £30.5bn and making it the largest listing since the £36.7bn initial public offering of the mining group Glencore in 2011 (The Times £).
Shares in GSK’s newly demerged consumer health arm drifted lower on their first day of trading yesterday, valuing the business at around £28bn (The Mail).
The demerger marks GSK’s biggest corporate restructure in two decades and will allow the pharmaceutical firm, which failed to develop its own Covid-19 vaccination during the pandemic, to focus on infectious diseases and vaccines (The Guardian).
The business editorial in The Guardian says Haleon’s debut suggests it may not be the jewel in GSK’s medicine cabinet.
Deliveroo has blamed “increased consumer headwinds” for a cut to its forecasts, as a cost of living crisis leads consumers to spend less on non-essential services such as takeaways (The Financial Times £).
In an unscheduled second-quarter trading update today, the food delivery group sharply reduced its full-year revenue guidance (The Times £).
In a trading update, the food delivery platform said growth in group sales by gross transaction value slowed to just 2% in the second quarter, from 12% in the first (The Mail).
Business commentary in The Times (£) predicts more drama to come for Deliveroo. “It is difficult to see how investors in Deliveroo will fully regain their appetite for the stock.”
Nadhim Zahawi, the new chancellor, will today commit to bringing down inflation and rule out borrowing for tax cuts, in a sign that he will continue with the fiscal policies of his predecessor Rishi Sunak (The Financial Times £).
Freddie’s Flowers has instituted sweeping job cuts, with many affected staff given just a week’s notice and statutory redundancy, according to The Mail.
The price of petrol has fallen from record highs, leading to reductions worth £1.50 per tank, according to the AA motoring group (BBC News).
According to the AA motoring group, average pump prices for petrol have fallen since the start of the month, when prices were 191.53p a litre for petrol and 199.07p a litre for diesel (The Guardian). They are now down to 188.76p for petrol and 196.96p for diesel, a dip attributable to an overall drop in the price of oil.
Staffing shortages and cost pressures are hitting the UK’s almost 40,000 independent pubs hard, forcing them to cut trading hours and putting their future in peril, according to a major industry survey (The Financial Times £).
No comments yet