(Alliance News) - Star Pubs & Bars, part of Dutch brewing group Heineken, was fined GBP2 million for "seriously and repeatedly" breaching the UK pubs code, its adjudicator announced Thursday.
Fiona Dickie said Star committed a total of 12 breaches over the three years from 2016 to July 2019. The breaches related to Star forcing pub tenants that wanted to break free of tie to sell "unreasonable levels of Heineken beers and ciders".
Dickie said Star was given opportunities to become compliant "but intentionally or negligently failed to do so".
"The company must change its mindset and become proactive in its approach to compliance," Dickie said. "I have decided this can best be achieved by the imposition of a sanction that will serve as a deterrent to future non-compliant conduct by Star and other pub-owning businesses."
Here is what you need to know at the London market open:
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MARKETS
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FTSE 100: down 87.28 points, 1.5%, at 5,847.78
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Hang Seng: down 1.5% at 24,290.02
Nikkei 225: closed down 0.5% at 23,507.23
DJIA: closed down 165.81 points, 0.6%, at 28,514.00
S&P 500: closed down 0.7% at 3,488.67
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GBP: down at USD1.2998 (USD1.3029)
EUR: down at USD1.1743 (USD1.1760)
Gold: down at USD1,897.35 per ounce (USD1,909.80)
Oil (Brent): flat at USD43.24 a barrel (USD43.18)
(changes since previous London equities close)
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ECONOMICS AND GENERAL
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Thursday's Key Economic Events still to come
EU Summit opens on Brexit deadline day for free trade deal
0930 BST UK Bank of England credit conditions survey
0930 BST UK BoE quarterly bank liabilities survey
1100 BST Ireland goods exports and imports
0530 EDT US IMF and World Bank annual meeting plenary session
0830 EDT US import and export price indices
0830 EDT US initial jobless claims
1030 EDT US EIA weekly natural gas storage report
1100 EDT US EIA weekly petroleum status report
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Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham is to hold talks with No 10 amid mounting expectation the region will be the next to face the toughest coronavirus controls, PA reports. Burnham has been resisting pressure to follow the Liverpool City Region into the Tier 3 restrictions – which would see bars, gyms and betting shops forced to close – despite soaring infection rates. However following a briefing with the deputy chief medical officer for England, Jenny Harries, on Wednesday, he said he expected to have a further meeting with UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson's team on Thursday. The move came amid reports the UK government's Joint Biosecurity Centre had recommended most of the North West and North East of England, as well as parts of Yorkshire and the Midlands, should be moved into Tier 3.
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New cases of coronavirus infections in Germany have soared to 6,638 in the past 24 hours, official data showed Thursday, reaching a daily level not seen since the start of the pandemic. The alarming jump in numbers came just hours after Chancellor Angela Merkel met with the leaders of Germany's 16 federal states to agree tougher restrictions designed to slow the spread of the contagion. The highest number of new cases previously recorded in one day was 6,294, on March 28, according to figures from the Robert Koch Institute disease control centre.
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BROKER RATING CHANGES
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GOLDMAN SACHS INITIATES ANTOFAGASTA WITH 'NEUTRAL' - TARGET 1150 PENCE
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BARCLAYS CUTS PEARSON TO 'UNDERWEIGHT' ('EQUAL WEIGHT') - PRICE TARGET 520 (570) PENCE
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JEFFERIES RAISES TALKTALK TO 'HOLD' ('UNDERPERFORM') - PRICE TARGET 97 (66) PENCE
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COMPANIES - FTSE 100
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British American Tobacco said Non-Executive Director Luc Jobin will succeed Richard Burrows as chair at the conclusion of the company's annual general meeting in April. Jobin will be appointed as chair-designate in March. Jobin served as CEO of Canadian National Railway Co and of Imperial Tobacco Canada.
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Schroders said assets under management as at September 30 was GBP536.3 billion, up 2.0% from GBP525.8 billion on July 1.
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Miner BHP Group confirmed that Chinese customers have asked for deferrals of their coal orders amid reports Beijing had told state-owned steelmakers and power plants to stop importing Australian coal. Speaking after BHP's annual general meeting in Australia, Chair Ken MacKenzie said BHP had recently received deferment requests and were working with customers in China "to understand the situation more comprehensively". "We understand there may be some new developments relating to how China plans and moderates imports versus their own domestic coal production," MacKenzie told reporters, as cited by local media. Earlier in the week, the Australian government said it was seeking reassurance from Beijing after industry news services cited several unnamed sources claiming the state-owned mills were given verbal notice to stop importing Australian thermal and coking coal with "immediate effect".
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COMPANIES - FTSE 250
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Domino's Pizza said it saw a strong performance in the third quarter and expressed confidence in its full year outlook. For the 13 weeks to September 27, UK & Republic of Ireland system sales were up 19% to GBP342.1 million from GBP288.2 million at the same time last year. Domino's highlighted that the UK value added tax rate was slashed to 5% from 20% in July, and this helped franchisees mitigate costs and enabled savings to be passed onto customers. Since the rate change, VAT has boosted reported UK system sales and like-for-like growth, it said. The pizza chain reported an encouraging UK & ROI delivery performance, with order numbers up 12% and items per order and product mix both "encouraging". Looking ahead, Domino's expects to report full year underlying pretax profit in the range of GBP93 million to GBP98 million, in line with market consensus. The company reported an underlying pretax profit of GBP98.8 million for financial 2019.
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COMPANIES - MAIN MARKET AND AIM
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Ryanair Holdings said forward bookings have "materially" weakened in November and December due to increased flight restrictions imposed by EU governments. It will close its bases in Cork and Shannon in Ireland and in Toulouse in France this winter as Covid-19 continues to hurt the travel sector. In light of the weaker bookings, the Irish carrier further reduced its winter schedule, from November to March - taking capacity down to 40% from 60% of prior year. Ryanair said with the greatly reduced winter capacity and load factors of around 70%, it now expects full year traffic to fall to 38 million passengers. The airline said this guidance could be further revised downwards if EU government continue to "mismanage air travel and impose more lockdowns this winter".
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COMPANIES - GLOBAL
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The US deal with TikTok is still in the works, but users' digital security must be safeguarded, US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said. TikTok's parent firm ByteDance responded to threats of a US ban on the app by making a tentative deal last month to create a US subsidiary, which would be part-owned by the US entities Oracle and Walmart. "The president's determined there's a national security issue. We want to make sure that Americans' information that are on their phones is safe, their personal information. So we negotiated what we think is a very good deal to turn this into an American company," Mnuchin told Fox News. "We're either going to have one of two outcomes. This will either be a safe, American company or it will be shut down," he added.
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Thursday's Shareholder Meetings
BHP Group PLC - AGM
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By Tom Waite; thomaslwaite@alliancenews.com
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