Bharti Enterprises, an India-based conglomerate headed by billionaire Sunil Bharti Mittal, has agreed to buy a 24.5% stake in BT Group from Patrick Drahi’s Altice. BT’s share price surged as much as 6.4% in early trading.
Bharti said it has entered into a binding agreement with Altice to buy 10% of BT’s shares immediately, with the remainder coming on “receipt of acceptable regulatory clearances”.
Bharti said it supported BT’s executive team and strategy, and did not intend to make an offer for the entire company. It did not say how much it would pay for the stake. At Friday’s closing price, Altice’s 24.5% stake was worth about £3.2bn ($4bn).
Bharti Global said the investment is “a vote of confidence in the UK as an attractive global destination for investment, with a stable business and policy environment attractive for long-term investors”.
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Altice, which is controlled by French-Israeli billionaire Patrick Drahi, had upped its stake in BT in recent years, and had already faced a national security probe in 2022.
Founded by Mittal in 1976, Bharti Global is one of India’s largest conglomerates, with interests in telecoms, media, space and other sectors. Mittal, 66, is the company’s chairman.
Stocks in Adani Enterprises slumped by over 7% after the US short-seller Hindenburg Research alleged that the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) chairperson Madhabi Puri Buch and her husband had undisclosed investments in an offshore fund structure used by Vinod Adani, brother of Adani Group founder Gautam Adani.
The report suggests that SEBI’s lack of action against the Adani Group, despite evidence of fraudulent practices, could be due to Buch’s involvement in these funds.
“Madhabi Buch and her husband had stakes in a multi-layered offshore fund structure with minuscule assets, traversing known high-risk jurisdictions, overseen by a company with reported ties to the Wirecard scandal, in the same entity run by an Adani director and significantly used by Vinod Adani in the alleged Adani cash siphoning scandal,” the report added, according to local media.
Hindenburg Research has called for further investigation into these allegations. The firm has pledged to donate any proceeds derived from the report to causes that support free expression.
SEBI has yet to make public findings from several long-running probes into the Adani Group after India’s Supreme Court in January ordered it to wind up the investigations within three months.
Buch and her husband issued a statement calling Hindenburg’s report as an attack on the credibility of SEBI and attempted “character assassination”.
Adani Energy Solutions (ADANIENSOL.NS) plunged as much as 17% before paring the bulk of the loss, with all but one of the conglomerate’s 10 stocks trading lower.
Shares in the Chinese e-commerce company were slightly higher in Hong Kong ahead of its results, which on Thursday will provide investors with a pulse of China’s economy and consumer confidence.
“The Chinese technology sector’s balance sheet is strong, with many companies accumulating substantial cash reserves in recent years, providing ample scope to boost shareholder returns via buybacks and dividends,” Bloomberg Intelligence analysts Robert Lea and Jasmine Lyu said.
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Analysts anticipate around 7% year-over-year growth in revenue, but profits are expected to decline by over 13%. The consensus for the quarter is an Earning per Share (EPS) of $2.09 with revenue coming in at $34.62bn (£27.11bn).
The stock is up by just 4% this year, while Amazon (AMZN), its American rival, is up by 10%.
Home Depot (HD)
Shares in the home improvement retailer were higher in pre-market trading, with the company set to announce quarterly results on 13 August.
The group is expected to post slight declines in sales and profits from the same time last year, as inflation-weary consumers have pulled back on big-ticket spending for home improvement projects.
Analysts expect Home Depot’s second-quarter sales to come in at $42.57bn, coming down from $42.92bn a year ago. Net income is projected to drop to $4.48bn, compared to $4.66bn in the second quarter of fiscal 2023.
JPMorgan said the retailer could join other companies lowering their guidance this earnings season.
“Given the uneven backdrop and the prospect of the election and shortened holiday season, we expect guidance reductions to broadly continue, in varying degrees,” JPMorgan analysts wrote about the retail industry.
Currently, Home Depot’s stock is roughly flat for the year, signalling a period of stagnation.
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