Shares in the educational publisher Pearson received a bounce in early trade on Friday following the publication of third quarter results. These highlighted a strong sales performance and gave management the confidence to reiterate the full year outlook. Beyond there, the company is on track to continue delivering mid-single digit underlying CAGR plus sustained margin improvement. The Pearson share price was around 4% higher shortly after the open.
The diversified engineering group Smiths issued a note this morning advising that they had agreed the sale of Smiths Interconnect for an enterprise valuation of £1.3bn. That equates to a 15x multiple of headline EBITDA and whilst the exact details won’t be revealed until next month, the intention is to return a large proportion of the proceeds to shareholders. At the start of the year, management committed to unlocking shareholder value and enhance returns. The Smiths Group share price was up around 1% in early trade.
The banking sector in general is struggling this morning following pressure on US regional banks during Thursday’s session. Fears of mounting bad debts are rattling sentiment and the contagion risk is clearly building. Whilst the downside is being seen right across UK lenders, the Barclays share price was one of the heaviest fallers on the FTSE-100, down almost 6% by 9am. The Standard Chartered share price also struggled, down 5% in the first hour.
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