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The Times & The Sunday Times
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‘Don’t lie, be deferential’

Richard Fletcher
The Times

Good morning: “Don’t lie, be deferential but make sure you stand up for yourself.” That is the advice of Scott Colvin, head of UK public affairs at Finsbury, for anyone appearing in front of MPs or peers.

There are plenty who should heed his words this morning, including Sir Howard Davies and Ross McEwan, chairman and chief executive of Royal Bank of Scotland; Stephen Haddrill, chief executive of Financial Reporting Council; and Mark Carney, governor of the Bank of England. All find themselves in front of MPs and peers on committees investigating everything from RBS’s treatment of small businesses to the collapse of Carillion and (of course) Brexit.

As my colleague Robert Lea noted in his column yesterday, “there is something of the late medieval about the Palace of Westminster of late”, with chief executives and regulators regularly finding themselves “in the metaphorical stocks . . . or subjected to bear-baiting from the House’s attack dogs”

Markets snap

The Nikkei closed down 1.4 per cent at 23,291.97, a one-month low. The FTSE 100 closed at 7,671.53. At 6.59am Brent crude was trading at $68.98 a barrel and the pound was trading at $1.401 against the dollar and at €1.135 against the euro.

After two weeks of talks Informa, the exhibitions and publishing group, has tabled a formal £3.9 billion offer for rival UBM this morning. Both boards are recommending that shareholders accept the offer. Informa announced the takeover approach this month.

There are a few trading updates this morning. Domino’s Pizza is upbeat, reporting a 6.1 per cent rise in like-for-like sales as it sold 28 million pizzas in the fourth quarter — that is more than 12,700 eaten every hour. No wonder we have an obesity problem in the UK.

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We have a trading update from CYBG, owner of Clydesdale Bank and Yorkshire Bank, which says that it is trading “in line with expectations”.

Consumer confidence is rising at the fastest pace in a year, boosted by optimism on household finances and business activity. The monthly consumer confidence index compiled by Yougov and the Centre for Economics and Business Research shows the largest month-on-month jump since January 2017, rising from 107.1 in December to 108.2 this month.

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