BUSINESS LIVE: Stocks recover ground; Water firms fined £168m; Travis Perkins profits slump

The cost of millions of mobile phone and broadband deals is set to soar, with the least well-off customers seeing the biggest price hikes of up to 14 per cent.

Mobile phone and internet customers suffered rip-off price increases of up to 7.9 per cent this year as providers passed on the cost of inflation, often with 3.9 per cent on top.

Pub chain Fuller’s has acquired Warwickshire-based Lovely Pubs for £22.5million.

Fuller’s chief executive, Simon Emeny, said: I’m delighted to be announcing the acquisition of Lovely Pubs.

These seven outstanding sites are a perfect fit with our existing estate both in terms of their premium operational style and their geographical location. We are looking forward to welcoming these pubs, and their teams, to the Fuller’s family.

Abrdn hailed ‘encouraging start’ to the year as the FTSE 250 fund manager posted better-than-expected profits and costs for the first half.

The group reported a 1 per cent rise in adjusted operating profits to £128million for the six months to June, beating analyst forecasts by 8 per cent.

A US judge on Monday ruled in a landmark anti-trust case that Google has maintained an illegal monopoly with its dominant search engine.

District Court Judge Amrit Mehta ruled that Google’s search engine has been illegally exploiting its dominance to squash competition and stifle innovation, in a decision against a ‘big tech’ giant that could alter how the sector operates in future.

Stock markets have been plunging and the new Labour chancellor has been painting a dire picture of the economy.

But if the strength of a currency is a measure of a country’s financial fortunes, then the UK is going gang-busters.

Keller Group shares surged on Tuesday as the firm forecast full-year results to surpass market expectations following an ‘outstanding’ first-half performance.

Analysts anticipate the FTSE 250 geotechnical engineering contractor will make between £176million and £179million in underlying operating profits this year.

A petition calling on the Government to rethink plans to scrap the Winter Fuel Payment for most pensioners has racked up nearly a quarter of a million signatures.

Travis Perkins has cut guidance for annual earnings after the group’s profits slumped by a third in the first half of the year.

Britain’s biggest building materials supplier reported a 33 per cent decline in adjusted operating profit to £75million year-to-year for the six months ended 30 June.

Fuel prices remained ‘stubbornly static’ in July as retailers charged inflated figures for both petrol and diesel despite wholesale prices justifying cuts at forecourts, according to new analysis by the RAC.

The average prices of a litre of petrol and diesel at UK forecourts last month remained static at 145p and 150p respectively.

Three English water companies face fines totalling £168million after an investigation found them guilty of sewage discharge failures.

Ofwat is proposing fines of £104million for Thames Water, £47million for Yorkshire Water and £17million for Northumbrian Water after the watchdog’s biggest-ever probe.

Rainy weather saw consumer card spending drop in July, despite the European Championship final delivering a huge boost to the takings of pubs and bars.

Spending on debit and credit cards was down by 0.3 per cent year-on year in July according to the latest Barclays Consumer Spend report.

Tourism bosses have urged Rachel Reeves to bring back VAT-free shopping to boost the Treasury’s coffers.

In a letter to the Chancellor of the Exchequer seen by The Mail on Sunday, they have called for her to scrap what has been dubbed the ‘tourist tax’ to attract more overseas visitors to visit the United Kingdom.

London-listed stocks have regained some groudn this morning, tracking gains across broader markets, a day after recession fears in the US triggered a brutal sell-off across markets, while a slew of positive corporate earnings also helped boost the recovery.

Weaker US data in the last week stoked recession fears in the world’s biggest economy, pushing investors to safe-haven assets amid a sell-off that battered markets globally.

But Monday’s data showing a rebound from four-year lows in US services sector activity in July, alongside comments from Fed policymakers that partially soothed investors and helped scale back some losses.

In London, travel and leisure shares are among the top gainers, rising 1.9 per cent.

InterContinental Hotels Group has advanced 2.8 per cent after the Holiday Inn-owner reported a 3.2 per cent rise in revenue per available room (RevPAR) in the second quarter.

Construction and materials shares have gained 2.4 per cent, lifted by a 13.4 per cnet rise in Keller Group after it reported its half-yearly results. The stock topped the FTSE 250 index.

The US Federal Reserve was last night under pressure to make an emergency interest rate cut to halt panic over a potential recession in the world’s largest economy.

Global markets were in meltdown yesterday as investors were spooked by the prospect of an economic slowdown in America.

Abrdn finance chief Jason Windsor is set to replace Stephen Bird as chief executive.

Windsor has been interim boss since Bird stepped down in May after four tumultuous years in command that included overseeing a controversial rebrand which included a name-change from Standard Life Aberdeen to the vowel-less ‘abrdn’ in 2021.

Holiday Inn-owner InterContinental Hotels Group has raised its interim dividend by 10 per cent after reporting a rise in revenue per available room (RevPAR) in the second quarter despite a slowdown in China.

RevPAR, a key industry gauge of performance for the hotel industry, was up 3.2 per cent for the second-quarter, IHG said.

Domino’s Pizza Group expects its annual profit to be at the lower-end of market expectations, pressured by a slowdown for its products at the start of the year amid a cost-of-living crisis.

Analysts, on average, in a company-compiled consensus forecast annual profit to come in at £147.1million.

The company, which operates and franchises Domino’s stores in the UK and Ireland, raised prices of its products and curbed its marketing spend to focus on the launch of its loyalty programme and other initiatives in an effort to attract customers.

‘We have continued to support the growth of the system through passing on food cost deflation to our franchise partners,’ CEO Andrew Rennie said in a statement.

Seema Shah, chief global strategist at Principal Asset Management:

‘Economic weakness concerns will likely prove overdone, but the depth of the negative narrative now implies that an imminent market turnaround is unlikely.

‘A sustained market recovery needs a catalyst, or likely a combination of catalysts, including stabilization of the Japanese yen, strong earnings numbers, and solid economic data releases.’

Labour’s strategic defence review is set to be sped up amid industry calls for stability, the Mail understands.

The sweeping review, which has raised doubts about the future of Britain’s £12billion fighter jet programme called Tempest, will report back in early February next year.

Societe Generale has dumped its British and Swiss private banking divisions for £770million as bosses continue to slim down the business.

France’s third-biggest listed lender has sold off SG Kleinwort Hambros and Societe Generale Private Banking Suisse to Union Bancaire Privee (UBP).

The divisions have around £21billion of assets under management.

Travis Perkins suffered a 33 per cent slump in first-half profit after the building materials supplier’s bottom-line was hit by subdued activity in the British homes sales market and construction sector.

Companies linked to the health of the housing sector have been under pressure for more than a year, as Britons delay home repair and improvement works due to broader economic woes.

Travis Perkins posted an adjusted operating profit of £75million for the six months ended 30 June, and forecast annual earnings of about £150million.

‘Trading conditions have remained challenging through the first half of the year and we have continued to prioritise delivering for our customers whilst also recognising that a persistently lower volume environment means that we have to deliver a simpler, more efficient business.

‘Whilst market conditions have impacted on our trading margin, we have made good progress on managing our overhead base and generating cash.

‘With a new government quickly setting out its plans to reform planning to deliver more housing and infrastructure, and the expectation of an easing in macroeconomic conditions, the Group is focused on ensuring that it is well placed to maximise the benefits from both a future recovery in demand and the long term requirement for the UK to expand and decarbonise its housing stock.’

Three of Britain’s biggest water firms face a combined £168million fine under Ofwat proposals, after the companies were found to have failed to manage their wastewater treatment works.

After the regualtor’s ‘biggest ever investigation’, Thames Water, Yorkshire Water and Northumbrian Water will be prevented from recovering the money vie customer price hikes, Ofwat said.

Ofwat chief executive David Black said:

‘Ofwat has uncovered a catalogue of failure by Thames Water, Yorkshire Water and Northumbrian Water in how they ran their sewage works and this resulted in excessive spills from storm overflows.

‘Our investigation has shown how they routinely released sewage into our rivers and seas, rather than ensuring that this only happens in exceptional circumstances as the law intends.

‘The level of penalties we intend to impose signals both the severity of the failings and our determination to take action to ensure water companies do more to deliver cleaner rivers and seas.

‘These companies need to move at pace to put things right and meet their obligations to protect customers and the environment. They also need to transform how they look after the environment and to focus on doing better in the future.’

The boss of Serica Energy has warned Labour’s North Sea oil policies could lead to huge job losses and end up being ‘worse for the environment’.

David Latin has hit out at government plans to scrap an investment allowance for oil producers, which allows them to offset tax from cash that is reinvested.

It comes as Labour last week confirmed an increase to the energy profits levy by 3pc to 38pc, starting November 1.

Japanese stocks have rebounded sharply in early trading, clawing back most of the double-digit losses suffered the previous day as US recession fears gripped global equity markets.

The Nikkei’s rally, after the market’s biggest single day rout since the 1987 Black Monday sell-off, came as the yen reversed its gains, indicating the carnage in yen-funded global carry trades too was easing.

The index was up 8 per cent at 5.30am GMT, after plunging 12.4 per cent on Monday. The index was last up 2,623.1 points, having earlier jumped more than 3,000 points to surpass its largest intraday points gain on record.

The broader Topix was up 7.5 per cent at 2,394.33.

Investors had been shaken by last week’s plunge in global stock markets, US recession risks, and worries investments funded by a cheap yen were being unwound, triggering a sell-off in Japanese equities on Monday.

Traders said they now appeared to be reconsidering the severity of their initial response, buying back shares on the dip.