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Business - Need to Know

Afternoon Edition

Welcome to the latest of our daily business briefings brought to you by Rebecca Clancy, Breaking News Editor, Business

Standard Chartered has announced an almost complete change of its board, including the replacement of Peter Sands, its chief executive, with Bill Winters, a former investment banker.

Sir John Peace, Standard Chartered’s chairman, will step down next year and Jaspal Bindra, the head of Standard Chartered’s core business in Asia, will leave the bank in April. The scale of the changes will surprise onlookers.

Investors appear to like the changes, with shares in the bank up 2 per cent. Katherine Griffiths, our Banking Editor, has the details here.

Elsewhere in the banking world, the chief executive of Royal Bank of Scotland has conceded it was “outrageous” to pay staff £421 million in bonuses, as the taxpayer-owned bank recorded a loss for the seventh consecutive year. More here.

Production shutdowns in the North Sea as the oil price collapsed caused business investment to slump at its fastest pace in six years at the end of 2014, as the British consumer continued to underpin growth.

Figures from the Office for National Statistics confirmed that GDP expanded by 0.5 per cent in the final quarter and by 2.6 per cent for 2014 as a whole, unrevised from its initial estimate.

Philip Aldrick, our Economics Editor, has the details here.

Further bad news for business as figures from the Bank of England's Funding for Lending scheme showed that, in the final three months of last year, lending to small firms by banks taking part in the scheme fell by £800 million.

Finally, Robert Lea, our Industrial Editor, is live blogging from the annual EEF conference, where speakers include Matthew Hancock, the business minister, and Ed Miliband. You can follow that on our Business Now live blog.

Don’t forget to follow me on Twitter for regular updates throughout the day - @becclancy.

Rebecca Clancy
Breaking News Editor, Business
The Times
rebecca.clancy@thetimes.co.uk

The stock market is treading water, still within spitting distance of its highest on record, while investors chew through a thick slab of company results.

The Footsie is a point higher at 6,936, hindered still by uncertainty about Greece and its bailout and the outlook for American interest rates. Meanwhile, investment in British businesses dropped at its sharpest rate in going on six years.

Mining shares are underpinning London, with copper and gold both dearer after traders in China came back to their desks from a holiday. Antofagasta, a Chilean copper miner, is 26.5p higher at 780.5p.

Gary Parkinson
Markets Reporter

The Federal Communications Commission is expected to vote today on net neutrality rules, which would regulate internet service providers more like traditional telephone companies. The vote is likely to trigger a bout of court appeals from some telecoms companies.

Janet Yellen, chairwoman of the Federal Reserve, indicated this week that she expects inflation to fall further on the back of declining energy costs before it heads back towards the central bank’s 2 per cent target. The consumer price index for January, out today at 1.30pm GMT, is forecast to show a 0.1 per cent rise from a year ago. Excluding food and energy, it's expected to rise 1.6 per cent.

There’s expected to be a small rise the number of new claims for unemployment benefit submitted last week, with the total growing by 7,000 to 290,000, leaving it still below the 300,000 level that starts to look uncomfortable. The data is out at 1.30pm GMT.

The US housing recovery has been patchy, with homes worth more than $1 million seeing the most activity, while lower income families struggle to get on the housing ladder. The Federal Housing Finance Agency house price index is expected to show a 4.9 per cent year-on-year increase when it is published at 2pm GMT.

The latest update on durable goods orders for January, out at 1.30pm GMT, is expected to show a 0.5 per cent increase.

Sears, the department store chain, is expected to post its 11th straight quarterly loss due to sluggish holiday sales. It has been busy selling assets to generate cash. Will it announce more when it reports before the opening bell? Wall Street expects a loss $1.89 a share, less than the $3.37 loss in the same quarter last year, and revenue of $8.3 billion, down from last year’s $10.59 billion.

Gap, the clothing retailer, recently reported a rise in fourth-quarter sales and raised its full-year profit estimate. Investors will look for plans to revive the brand when the company reports after the closing bell. Analysts expect earnings per share of 74 cents, against 68 cents a year ago, on revenue of $4.7 billion.

In the last two months Crocs, the footwear maker, has acquired a new chief executive and a new manager for its Asia, Africa and Middle East business. The company is attempting to drive growth through a plan which includes rationalising its product line and concentrating on international business. But how badly will it be affected by the stronger dollar? Analysts expect Crocs to post a loss of 30 cents per share on revenue of $204.10 million for the quarter, compared with a 20 cent a share loss and $228 million of revenue last year.

Herbalife, the nutritional supplements company which is the subject of repeated allegations (all denied) that it is a pyramid scheme, is expected to report its first quarterly sales decline, year on year, in four years, when it reports after the closing bell. Earnings are expected to come in at $1.22, compared with the $1.28 per share earned in fourth quarter 2013.

Markets: Futures suggest a positive day on Wall Street. The Dow Jones is expected to open up 26 points at 18,220, the S&P to rise 4 points to 2,114.25 and the Nasdaq to grow 10 points to 4,446.75.

Alexandra Frean
US Business Editor
@freanie

Outrageous
Ross McEwan, RBS's chief executive, on the announcement that his bank's staff were to pick up £421 million in bonuses on the day the bank revealed a £3.5 billion annual loss
Today's FTSE 100 risers and fallers
Up (%)
Antofagasta 3.51
Kingfisher 3.23
Persimmon 2.79
Randgold Resources 2.67
Glencore 2.52
* As at noon
Down (%)
easyJet 4.68
Reed Elsevier 4.38
Capita 3.76
RSA Insurance Group 3.73
Royal Bank of Scotland 3.47
* As at noon
The Markets Today
FTSE 100 6,936.01 0.01%
FTSE 250 17,194.55 0.04%
Cac 4,898.47 0.33%
Dax 11,247.39 0.33%
Brent Crude 62.40 0.08%
Gold 1,217.00 1.33%
GBP/USD 1.5513 -0.09%
GBP/euro 1.3667 0.01%
10Y Gilt 109.317 0.28%
* As at noon
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