Flights at Luton airport suspended until at least 3pm after fire; Birkenstock to float in New York – business live

Travis Perkins, Britain’s biggest supplier of building materials, has downgraded its annual profit forecast by as much as 27%, as it blamed tough conditions in the new-build housing and home renovation markets. Its share price fell 10% on the news.

The company said it experienced a “notable deterioration in market activity and sentiment” in September.

Nick Roberts, the chief executive, said:

Market conditions remain challenging with continued weakness across new build housing and domestic repair, maintenance and improvements.

However, Travis Perkins, which owns Toolstation, remains confident in the long-term outlook, saying Britain needs more homes while older houses and buildings will need to be revamped to make them net zero.

In financial markets, the FTSE 100 index in London is broadly unchanged at 7,632, up just 4 points.

The other main European bourses are in the red, with Germany’s Dax down 0.3%, France’s CAC losing 0.8% and Italy’s FTSE MiB flat.

Oil prices are pushing higher on concerns that the war between Israel and Hamas and rising tensions in the region could affect the output of major producers. Brent crude hit $89 a barrel on Monday and is trading 0.6% higher at $88.17 a barrel at the moment. US crude is up 0.6% at $86.46 a barrel.

Gas prices have also retreated after yesterday’s spike, when UK gas jumped 15% and European gas soared 16% after the gas pipeline “Baltic Connector” between Finland and Estonia started leaking.

Extensive damage to an undersea gas pipeline and communications cable connecting Finland and Estonia “could not have occurred by accident” and appears to be the result of a “deliberate … external act”, Finnish authorities have said.

UK natural gas for October fell 6.5%, while Dutch natural gas futures for November is down 5.5% this morning.

All flights at Luton airport are suspended until 3pm, the airport said in a statement.

It is Britain’s fifth-busiest airport after Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted and Mancheter, and it handled 13.3 million passengers last year, according to the Civil Aviation Authority.

Sky news correspondent Matthew Thompson tweeted:

The French luxury goods giant LVMH (Moët Hennessy-Louis Vuitton) has reported slower growth, as it has taken a hit from rising inflation and growing global financial instability.

The company, whose brands include Christian Dior, Louis Vuitton and Stella McCartney fashion, alongside TAG Heuer watches and Bulgari and Tiffany jewellery, reported revenue of €20bn (£17.25bn) between July and September – a 9% rise. That compares with a 17% increase in the previous quarter.

Pauline Brown, the former chair of North America at the luxury group, said a number of factors are at play.

The issue we’ve had with inflation is not just that it is here, but that it came on quite suddenly, or quite quickly. And we, as a society, we got used to a few decades of, really, really low inflation. So it’s still hitting us as a bit of a shock.

But geopolitical developments, namely the war between Israel and Hamas, have become a bigger concern, she said.

If I were sitting on the board at LVMH, or any of the other luxury companies would really be rattling me is that geopolitical destabilisation around the world. And let’s just take what happened this last week in Israel. Why is that important here? Number one, because luxury goods and services is a psychological purchase. Nobody needs a glass of champagne. Nobody needs a watch or a diamond necklace. And in order for you to buy for yourself or as a gift, you really have to be in the right mood state. And when we see atrocities happening as we are right now, the appetite to spend on what might be perceived or experienced as frivolous, goes way down

And then on a more pragmatic level, you know, there was still very strong growth in Middle Eastern buyers, whether they were buying it locally, in Dubai and elsewhere in the region, or they were travelling and and the concerns that started in the Middle East are now spreading and changing the social dynamic, even within the Middle Eastern regimes. That’s going to lead to a slowdown in in how people spend and where they spend. And that is not the only corner of the world right now.

One of the worst hit divisions at LVMH is wines and spirits, which posted a 14% decline in sales over the quarter, as sales of cognac declined.

Unlike say champagne, cognac is really an aspirational consumers drink. Most collectors who might buy from Napa Valley or from Bordeaux, are less prone to be collecting cognac. That was hit hard in markets like China and North America. Because that aspirational consumer is just not spending with the same enthusiasm that the high net worth is, and the high net worth are continuing to spend even with some of the macro conditions that we’re all noting.

Good morning, and welcome to our rolling coverage of business, the financial markets and the world economy.

Luton airport closed last night after a large fire, and all flights were suspended. Flights are not expected to resume until mid-afternoon at the earliest.

The fire ripped through a multi-storey car park, causing it to collapse. We’ll keep you posted.

Today Birkenstock, the orthopaedic 250-year-old German shoe brand, is to float on the New York stock market. The sandal maker, once seen as frumpy but now the go-to footwear of hippies willing to sacrifice style for arch support, priced its shares at $46 ahead of its first day of trading, giving the company a market valuation of $8.6bn (£7bn). The shares start trading later today.

Rural homeowners living near new electricity pylons and cables that are being rolled out as part of the UK’s shift to net zero could be offered home insulation, heat pumps and other energy efficiency measures by National Grid, the Daily Telegraph reported.

Ben Wilson, National Grid’s chief strategy officer, said the company wanted people living alongside pylons and cabling to benefit from the infrastructure. He told the paper:

I do think if you’re hosting the infrastructure, you should get a benefit in terms of your cost of energy, maybe help with energy insulation or helping to electrify your home in terms of heat.

He suggested National Grid could also establish training academies to boost employment in the areas most affected by new transmission lines.

Inflation in Germany has eased to an annual rate of 4.3%, the latest official figures show. Ruth Brand, president of the Federal Statistical Office, said:

The rate of inflation has dropped to the lowest level since the start of the war in Ukraine. It remains high, however. Consumers are still clearly feeling the higher food prices.

Also coming up

The annual meetings held by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank in Marrakech, Morocco, are under way. Yesterday, the fund warned that the Bank of England will need to keep interest rates high into 2024 as the UK struggles with a combination of weaker growth and persistent inflation.

In its half-yearly update on the global economy, the IMF said growth had already slowed “fairly sharply” and painted a downbeat picture for the government as it enters what will almost certainly be an election year.

The Agenda

• IMF/World Bank annual meetings in Marrakech

• 1.30pm BST: US producer price index for September

• 7pm BST: US Federal Reserve minutes of last meeting