Good morning. Profits at Europe’s biggest bank, HSBC, doubled in the first six months of the year as it released $700 million it had set aside to cover bad loans at the height of the coronavirus pandemic.
On the back of the better-than-expected performance the bank resumed dividend payments with an interim payout of seven cents a share. The Bank of England scrapped curbs on payouts last month.
HSBC posted pretax profits of $10.8 billion, up from $4.32 billion over the same period last year, beating analysts forecasts for $9.45 billion of profits.
We’ll have a full story from Ben Martin, our senior City correspondent.
And another bites the dust? US engineer Parker-Hannifin Corporation has tabled a £6.3 billion bid for Meggitt, the aerospace engineer which makes wheels, sensors, brakes for the likes of Boeing and Airbus.
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The 800p-a-share cash offer — which is being recommended by the board — is the latest in a long line of bids for UK engineers. Shares in Meggitt closed at 469.1p on Friday, more than a third below the 700p they touched before the coronavirus brought the travel industry to an abrupt halt.
Parker Hannifin, which already employs 2,100 people in the UK across 18 facilities, has made a number of commitments to the UK business including maintaining a UK headquarters and the existing level of research and development expenditure in the UK.
We’ll have a story shortly on www.thetimes.com/#section-business.
Elsewhere this morning:
•Senior, the engineer which supplies equipment to planemakers including Boeing and Airbus, has reported a £22.3 million profit for the first six months of the year and repeated the upbeat tone of last month’s trading update reporting “clear signs of recovery in our end markets”.
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•Headline operating profit at XP Power, which produces power controllers, rose 29 per cent to a better-than-expected £23.2 million, in the six months to the end of June, up from £18 million over the same period last year.
•The energy company SSE has agreed to sell its entire 33.3 per cent stake in gas distribution operator Scotia Gas Networks for £1.22 billion to a consortium made up of existing SGN shareholder Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan Board and the infrastructure fund of Canadian asset manager Brookfield.
On the economics front we get the manufacturing PMI data at 9.30am. City economists expect a reading of 60.4 in line with last month’s flash reading.
Ahead of that we have had the latest business barometer survey from Lloyds Banking Group, which reveals that companies are stepping up their recruitment plans as the recovery gathers strength. However, Lloyds warned that optimism has now peaked. Philip Aldrick, our economics editor, has a full report here.
Please do keep sending your thoughts, observations (and corrections) to me at richard.fletcher@thetimes.co.uk and don’t forget to follow me on Twitter @fletcherr.
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I’ll be on Times Radio just after 4.30pm today to talk through the day’s market action with John Pienaar. You can also catch me Monday to Thursday at about 7.50am on the breakfast show. Listen online, on DAB radio, your smart speaker or via the Times Radio app.
Richard
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