Danske Lowers Outlook Second Time, Delivery Hero Sells German Business

Sarla Buch
21 Dec, 2018
New York City

Danske Bank lowered fiscal profit outlook for the second time this year. Delivery Hero agreed to sell its German Food delivery business to Dutch rival. Vodafone said it will replace its auditor PricewaterhouseCoopers.

[R]4:00 PM Frankfurt – Danske Bank lowered fiscal profit outlook for the second time this year. Delivery Hero agreed to sell its German Food delivery business to Dutch rival. Vodafone said it will replace its auditor PricewaterhouseCoopers.[/R]

In London trading, FTSE 100 index slid 8.09 to 6,703.84 and in Frankfurt the DAX index rose 32.89 or 0.3% to 10,643.99.

In Paris, CAC 40 index edged down 2.25 to 4,690.20.

Danske Bank A/S dropped 1.7% to 127 Danish kornor after Denmark financial services provider lowered fiscal 2018 net income forecast to 15 billion kronor from the earlier estimate of 16 billion kronor to 17 billion kronor and non-core unit was adversely affected by value adjustment of 0.2 billion kronor.

The lender lowered its fiscal forecast for the second time this year after massive money-laundering scandal.

Delivery Hero SE surged 11.1% to €30.68 Germany-based online food-delivery service provider agreed to sell its domestic delivery businesses Lieferheld, Pizza.de and foodora to the Netherlands-based Takeaway.com for about €930 million or $1.1 billion in cash and stock.

Under the terms, Takeaway will pay €508 million in cash and 9.5 million shares, worth €422 million along with stake of 18%.

The transaction is expected to close in the first-half of 2019.

RPC Group Plc slipped 1.4% to 660 pence after the U.K.-based plastic packaging supplier said the prospective takeover suitor Apollo Global Management has extended the deadline to decide for the firm bid to January 18, 2019.

Spie SA jumped 5.5% to €11.41 after France-based multi-technical services provider announced today it had signed an agreement to sell its offshore cabling activities in Germany to Royal Boskalis Westminster N.V.

The transaction is expected to close during the first-quarter of 2019.

Vodafone Group Plc fell 0.7% to 158.80 pence after the U.K.-based telecom conglomerate said its Audit and Risk Committee has decided to launch a tender process for the audit of the year ending on March 31, 2020 after the company decided to replace PricewaterhouseCoopers as auditors on a legal dispute.

Vodafone said the audit tender process is expected to conclude in February 2019.

However, PWC will continue as the statutory auditors for the year ending March 2019.