MARKET REPORT: Royal Mail’s owner rises after Kretinsky swoop

Shares in Royal Mail’s owner rose after its largest shareholder increased its stake.

In a show of confidence for the postal group, Daniel Kretinsky’s Vesa Equity Investment increased its stake in International Distributions Services (IDS) from 26.15 percent to 27.58 percent.

The billionaire dubbed the ‘Czech Sphinx’ set up his investment vehicle, which also has a stake in Sainsbury’s, five years ago.

The latest support should provide some much-needed respite to investors in IDS, which last week reported half-year losses had tripled to £169 million.

It came as losses at the Royal Mail arm reached £319 million – more than wiping out profits of £150 million at its international sister arm GLS.

Shares in IDS rose 2.5 percent, or 6.2p, to 252.5p, taking gains for the year to almost 20 percent.

The FTSE 100 rose 0.2 percent, or 14.07 points, to 7,483.58, while the FTSE 250 was virtually flat – up just 0.66 points to 18,480.83.

First Group hit its buffers after the bus and rail company posted a £68.4 million loss in the six months to the end of September, having made a profit of £8.7 million in the same period last year.

It came as the group suffered a one-off charge of around £142 million on its balance sheet when it withdrew from two local authority pension schemes.

The company’s shares fell 4.5 per cent, or 7.9p, to 167.1p.

There was good news for Intertek – up 3.4 percent, or 131p, to 3960p yesterday – as the quality assurance company reported the highest revenue growth in the past decade, amid soaring demand for its services.

Stock Watch – Upwind

Windward rose after the maritime analytics company secured a five-year contract worth £3m from a European national coastguard.

The AIM-listed Israeli company, chaired by former BP boss Lord Browne, uses data and artificial intelligence to solve problems in maritime trade.

Windward’s technology will be used by the European customer to protect against the “increasing sophistication of maritime bad actors.”

Shares rose 9.1 per cent, or 6p, to 72p yesterday.

The City liked what it read in Sage’s annual results on Wednesday, as Barclays, Deutsche Bank and Citigroup all raised their target prices on the accounting software giant’s shares.

The shares, which have risen 52 percent this year, added 0.04 percent, or 0.5p, to 1,130.5p.

PZ Cussons, which is behind brands such as Imperial Leather soap, Carex and St Tropez, expects higher revenues for the first half of the year after improved performance in Nigeria.

Shares rose 3.8 percent, or 5.2p, to 143.2p.

North Sea oil producer Ithaca Energy rose 8.6 percent, or 13.2p, to 166.4p after Goldman Sachs analysts raised its price target to 227p from 215p.

It came a day after the group reiterated its predictions for this year, including a commitment to pay a £319 million dividend by 2023.

Brick manufacturer Michelmersh remained hopeful its full-year results will meet market expectations as resilient trading in the final quarter of this year outweighed a downturn in the construction sector and consumer concerns about the state of the economy.

Shares rose 1.2 percent, or 1p, to 82p.

Mitie fell 1.3 percent, or 1.4 cents, to 105 cents but has its sights set on hitting its recently upgraded forecast of annual profits of at least £190 million after the company, which has engineering, security and provides cleaning services to various public and private sectors. customers, recorded higher turnover and profit in the first half of the year.

Avation flew higher as it said publicly traded aircraft leasing companies like itself are well-placed to benefit from a shortage of “viable” aircraft.

The group said such conditions would be a challenge for its rivals, which are mainly backed by private equity or debt.

Shares rose 3.2 percent, or 4p, to 128p.