BUSINESS LIVE: StanChart faces $850 million impairment charge; CAB Payments appoints CEO; The energy bill will decrease

Japan’s main stock index rose to a new high yesterday, breaking the previous record set 34 years ago.

Tokyo’s Nikkei rose 2.19 percent on Thursday to close at its highest level since the 1980s boom.

The owner of Cadbury has been attacked by MPs for continuing to sell chocolate in Russia two years after the invasion of Ukraine.

Labor’s Alex Sobel, co-chair of an all-party Ukrainian group, has written to Dirk Van de Put, CEO of US food giant Mondelez, which acquired the beloved British chocolate brand Cadbury in 2010.

The FTSE 100 edged higher at the open, supported by financial shares following Standard Chartered’s results, although the index is on course for marginal losses this week as markets digest a series of mixed earnings updates.

Standard Chartered has risen 6.4 percent to the top of the FTSE 100 after the Asia-focused bank rewarded shareholders with dividends and a new $1 billion buyback, while annual profits rose 18%.

The share caused a 1 percent increase among British lenders.

The FTSE 250 is down 0.1 percent, led by a 2 percent drop in Britain’s Domino’s Pizza Group as Barclays downgraded the company from ‘overweight’ to ‘equalweight’.

Meanwhile, UK consumer confidence fell for the first time in four months in February as households took a gloomier view of their recent personal finances and the wider economic outlook, according to a survey.

Chipmaker Nvidia has risen in value by £214 billion, marking the biggest increase in market value of any company in a single trading day in history.

Shares rose 16 percent in New York yesterday. The increase exceeds the £156 billion profit that Facebook owner Meta made in early February.

Matt Britzman, equity analyst, Hargreaves Lansdown:

‘Standard Chartered’s fourth quarter results benefited from lower impairment charges, in line with many of its peers. Pre-tax profit exceeded expectations, largely due to a release of impairment charges to the profit of one of its divisions. Taking that out of the equation, underlying performance was slightly weaker than expected, but the focus will be on guidance.

‘The outlook for 2024 is slightly lower than analysts had priced, but the medium-term expectations until 2026 show promising signs. Volume growth, cost savings and a benefit from the structural hedge are expected to contribute to a return on tangible equity of 12% in 2026 (10% in 2023). If delivered, this should provide significant support to the current valuation.

‘The China story remains central. Standard this quarter made another write-down of its investment in domestic Chinese bank Bohai, bringing its total for the year to $850 million. The large performance gap between onshore and offshore operations in China highlights the challenging domestic environment.”

British fintech company CAB Payments has appointed Neeraj Kapur as its new CEO, just months after the group’s stock went public.

Kapur will succeed Bhairav ​​Trivedi, who will transition to the role of senior advisor to the board.

The company, which went public last year and specializes in business-to-business cross-border payments and foreign exchange in emerging markets, is trying to regain market confidence after a sharp fall in its shares following a profit warning.

Britain’s private sector is growing at its fastest pace in nine months, according to new figures, adding to evidence that the recession is already over.

The Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) showed business activity was accelerating – in stark contrast to data showing a deeper downturn in Germany.

Britain’s GDP contracted for two quarters in a row at the end of last year, meeting the technical definition of a recession, but there are signs it is starting to recover.

Standard Chartered took an $850 million impairment charge last year, mainly on its stake in Chinese lender Bohai Bank. It was the second time the unit’s value has been written down as the lender was hit by a surge in bad loans as growth sputtered in the world’s second-largest economy.

The sharp loss in China, a core objective of StanChart’s strategy, underlines the challenge it faces expanding in the country as policymakers struggle to stem a deepening real estate crisis and revive weak consumer confidence to blow.

A fresh $150 million writedown on its stake in Bohai Bank, after a $700 million hit earlier this year, reduced its value to $700 million from $1.5 billion at the start of the year.

It follows news earlier this week of rival HSBC taking a £2.4bn hit on the value of its stake in China’s Bank of Communications.