Monday 22 May 2017

Former Royal Bank of Scotland boss Fred Goodwin will come under
scrutiny in court as the lender defends a £700m lawsuit. A civil
action at the High Court, brought by 9,000 individuals and 18
institutional investors, claims RBS misled them about the state of
the lender’s finances when it raised billions of pounds prior to
its taxpayer bailout.

Marks & Spencer will reveal a fresh fall in clothing sales
this week. Despite the high street retailer posting its first
underlying growth in nearly two years over the key festive quarter,
its clothing and homewares sales are expected to have dropped more
than 3% in the first three months of 2017. It will reveal the news
alongside a fall in annual profits. 

The Church of England made a “stunning” 17% return on
investments in 2016, reports The Guardian. Church Commissioners,
which manages the organisation’s investable assets, said it had
surpassed its targets thanks in part to the pound’s weakness after
the EU referendum. The fall in the value of sterling accounts for
about half the gains made on its equity portfolio.

Confidence among Britain’s 50 biggest retailers is at a
five-year low, according to a survey in The Times, with 40% of the
sector pessimistic about the year ahead – a 33% increase from 2016.
Stefano Pessina of Boots said: “Post-June 2016, the economy was not
bad and people said, ‘See, it’s not that bad.’ But what they fail
to recognise is that Brexit has not happened yet.”

British drinkers consumed a third of all the prosecco produced
last year, more than any other country, says The Times. According
to the Consortium for the Protection of Prosecco, production
increased by 44.8% between 2014 and last year, with three-quarters
of the bottles produced in Italy shipped overseas. The US and
Germany follow the UK as the leading export markets.

“As we define what good work is, it is important that there is a
focus on actual workforce experience and that the trap of lazy
generalisations informed by outdated assumptions about the ways
that people want to work are avoided.” The Confederation of
British Industry describes the UK’s flexible labour gig economy as
an “invaluable strength”.

FTSE 100: up +0.46 to 7470.71
Dow Jones: up +0.69 to 20804.84
Dax: up +0.39 to 12638.69
Cac 40: up +0.66 to 5324.40
Nikkei: up +0.40 to 19668.99
Hang Seng: up +1.00 to 25427.50
US dollar: buys €0.89340 and £0.77020
Sterling: buys $1.29870 and €1.15990
Oil: $53.70 up +2.3