BUSINESS LIVE: Currys takeover bid; Hipgnosis makes claim against adviser; Morrisons plots price cuts

UK stocks are treading water this morning as fading hopes of interest rate cuts by global central banks weigh on sentiment.

Market sentiment is down as investors reassessed their rate cut bets, with money markets now pricing in around 65 basis point (bp) cut from the Bank of England (BoE) this year, compared with around 72 bps last week.

BoE chief economist Huw Pill said on Friday that so far he had seen only ‘quite modest and tentative evidence’ that inflation would fall back to and stay at the central bank’s 2 per cent target.

AstraZeneca, however, is up 3 per cent after a combination of the drugmaker’s cancer drug Tagrisso with chemotherapy to treat a type of lung cancer was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Friday

The FTSE 250 has added 0.1 per cent, led by a 31.5 per cent advance in Currys after Chinese e-commerce group JD.com said it is in the ‘very preliminary stages’ of evaluating a possible offer for the British electricals retailer.

Oil and gas bosses will attend crisis talks this week over Labour’s plan to extend the windfall tax.

Industry group Offshore Energies UK (OEUK) said Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer’s policy would be a ‘hammer blow’.

Rolls-Royce is expected to report bumper profits of £1.4billion this week as a turnaround plan led by boss Tufan Erginbilgic continues.

City analysts forecast that the British engineering firm, which makes aircraft engines, will see profit more than double in 2023, compared with the previous year.

Hipgnosis Songs Fund’s ex-CEO Merck Mercuriadis and investment adviser HSM have refused to provide protection against any liability arising from an on-going legal battle with a former business of Mercuriadis.

‘The company is concerned, having been assured by Mr Mercuriadis and the investment adviser that these claims are without merit and that they intend to vigorously defend them, that the request for an indemnity was refused,’ HSF said in a statement.

‘The Company now intends to bring a Part 20 Claim in the High Court against the Investment Adviser in which it will seek a full indemnity.’

The boss of Morrisons has stepped up the supermarket’s price war with Aldi and Lidl to win back customers.

Morrisons lost its status as Britain’s fourth-biggest grocer nearly two years ago because shoppers have been switching to the German discounters.

Last month new chief executive Rami Baitieh pledged to tempt back disillusioned consumers, admitting there was ‘work to do’.

Currys has rejected a 62p per share takeover offer from Elliot Advisors as the electronics retailer’s board dismissed the US activist fund group’s bid as having ‘significantly undervalued the company and its future prospect’.

The bid was at a significant premium to Currys’ closing share price of 42.07p on Friday.