🛍️ ASOS taps investors for cash

Markets

• Mixed fortunes for UK markets on Friday, with the large cap FTSE 100 supported by the mining giants who registered gains on the back of higher metals prices, as well as a boost to sentiment from a broker upgrade for Rio Tinto

• On the downside - housebuilders were back in focus as fears over higher mortgage costs continued to weigh on the sector.

Corporate News

Shares in British Airways owner IAG lagged 0.7% after the airline was forced to cancel hundreds of flights just before the bank holiday weekend due to “technical problems” with its IT systems; the timing couldn’t have been worse - Friday was the busiest day for air travel since 2019. (Link)

Markets cheered Astrazeneca as the pharma giant reported positive results from a late-stage trial of its treatments for Endometrial cancer, the sixth most common cancer in women globally; AZ said that when its drugs Imfinzi and Lynparza were paired with chemotherapy, the results showed a “statistically meaningful” improvement in patients. (Link)

Thousands of jobs are potentially at risk at Rolls Royce, after consultants were hired to think through options for combining non-manufacturing departments at each of its units; the engineering giant stressed no decisions had yet been made regarding employee cuts as part of its restructuring. (BBG)

Revolution Beauty’s delayed 2022 (year to Feb) results painted a substantially worse picture than first thought, with EBITDA of around negative £1m, compared to the £22m that was reported in May 2022; the company’s shares have been suspended since September after auditors failed to sign off on annual results. (Link, Revs)

Deals

In a bid to shore up its balance sheet, ASOS announced it had raised £80m in equity from investors and £275m in debt from specialist lender Bantry Bay Capital; the eCommerce retailer said the capital raise gives it the “flexibility” to execute a strategy to return the business to profitability. (Link, ASOS)

London-listed Glencore are reported to be in talks about a multi-billion mega-merger between its agricultural trading business Viterra (which it owns 50% in), and US rival Bunge; Viterra had previously tried to acquire Bunge in 2017 (without success). (Link)

The owners of Village Hotels are reportedly drawing up plans to exit their investment after a decade of ownership; KSL Capital Partners - a US-based private equity fund - acquired the group in 2014 for around £500m. (Link)

The investment arm of the Mormon Church acquired an Amazon warehouse in Wembley for £74m; the church’s investment portfolio has a cool $45bn in assets under management. (Link)

Today’s VC update:

• UrbanChain - a peer-to-peer energy exchange network - raised a £5.3m Series A funding round led by Eurazeo. (Link)

• Trade Ledger - A london-based fintech providing data analysis tools to help banks manage loan portfolios - raised £3m in funding from Barclays, forming part of a strategic partnership between the two (Link)

Economy / General

Chancellor Jeremy Hunt pledged his support to the Bank of England, saying he was comfortable with further rate rises in order to bring inflation down, even if it meant plunging the UK into recession; Hunt said inflation was a “source of instability” and that if we want to grow the economy, we must support the BoE with its “difficult decisions”. (Link)

Official figures from the ONS showed British retail sales recovered from March’s poor weather-driven slowdown, with sales in April growing 0.5% (compared to economists’ expectations of a 0.3% rise); better weather and an increase in government benefits were both thought to have played a part. (Link, ONS)

Retailers hit out at government plans to introduce a price cap on certain basic food items like bread and milk, saying it wouldn’t make a difference; the Government said there were no plans for a mandatory cap, whilst supermarkets were be expected to be able to pick and choose which items to include (on a voluntary basis). (Link)

🌎 Global Snapshot

President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy agreed a last-minute deal on Sunday to avoid a potential default in the US; the two sides will now work to get the deal passed through Congress, which they say is a “bipartisan” agreement. (Link)

Nvidia announced a partnership with London-listed advertising giant WPP to integrate generative AI into the agency’s ad creation; according to WPP, the platform will allow the agency’s creative teams to produce ads “more efficiently and at scale”, integrating content from sources such as Adobe and Getty Images. (Link)

Swedish fintech Klarna posted a narrowing of losses for the first quarter as the business delivered an increase in GMV and revenue, whilst also managing to cut costs and credit losses, according to CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski; losses for Q1 were SEK 1.3bn ($120m), compared to SEK 2.6bn ($240m) a year ago. (Link)

Credit Suisse was ordered to pay almost $1bn to Georgian billionaire (and former prime minister of the country) Bidzina Ivanishvili, after failing to keep his assets safe from Patrice Lescaudron, a former private banker at the Swiss bank who was convicted of fraud. (Link)

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