VW Leads in Worldwide Sales, UK Lowered its Lloyds Stake to 5%

Sarla Buch
30 Jan, 2017
New York City

The U.K. Treasury reduced its stake in Lloyds to less than 5%. Sartorius estimated revenues to soar 18% and net to surge 24%. Volkswagen led the auto industry with 10.3 million unit sales surpassing Toyota. Vodafone is in merger talk with Idea Cellular in India.

[R]4:00 PM Frankfurt – The U.K. Treasury reduced its stake in Lloyds to less than 5%. Sartorius estimated revenues to soar 18% and net to surge 24%. Volkswagen led the auto industry with 10.3 million unit sales surpassing Toyota. Vodafone is in merger talk with Idea Cellular in India.[/R]

In London trading, FTSE 100 index declined 55.98 or 0.8% to 7,128.51 and in Frankfurt the DAX index slumped 97.97 or 0.8% to 11,717.40.

In Paris, CAC 40 index dropped 38.74 or 0.8% to 4,801.24.

Lloyds Banking Group Plc fell 0.6% to 65.49 pence after the U.K.-based financial services provider said the U.K. Treasury had reduced its holding to 3.57 billion shares from 4.24 billion shares.

With the latest sale, the U.K. government lowered its stake to 4.998% and the Treasury recovered about £17.5 billion from £20.5 billion provided the bailout during the financial crisis.

Sartorius AG gained 0.6% to €71.27 after Germany-based pharmaceutical and laboratory equipment supplier said preliminary revenues in the year are estimated to jump 18% to €1.3 billion and net income to soar 23.5% to €132.6 million and diluted earnings per share to increase to €1.93 from €1.57 in the same period a year ago.

The medical testing products provider forecasted group sales in the fiscal 2017 to grow between 8% and 12%.

Volkswagen AG slipped 1.5% to €147.70 and Germany-based automaker led the industry after its worldwide sales increased to 10.3 million surpassing Toyota Motors’ 10.2 million sales

Volkswagen sales continued to rise in China despite the recent emission testing scandal in the U.S. and Europe.

Vodafone Group Plc jumped 2.6% to 198.43 pence after the U.K.-based communication services provider confirmed its Indian unit is in merger talks with the domestic rival Idea Cellular Ltd, a unit of Aditya Birla Group.

After the merger, the cell operator is expected to have 387 million subscribers and 36% of the market in India.

Vodafone said the deal will not include its 42% stake in Indus Towers and the merged entity is expected to have a net debt of about $10.6 billion or 718 billion rupees.

WS Atkins Plc soared 7.4% to 1,503 pence after the Times said U.K.-based engineering consultancy group was approached by the U.S.-based privately held rival CH2M Hill Co, Ltd to acquire the company for about £3.2 billion or $4 billion.