BUSINESS LIVE: UK wages up 5.9%; De La Rue agrees £263m takeover; Sports Direct to launch

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.