Europe Movers: Lindt & Spruengli, Rolls Royce, Stratec, UBS, Zalando

Bridgette Randall
26 Jul, 2022
New York City

European markets traded down ahead of the U.S. GDP data and interest rate decision. 

Stocks in Frankfurt edged lower after Russia -controlled Gazprom throttled down natural gas flow to 20% of the capacity of Nord Stream 1 pipeline network. 

The DAX index fell 0.8% to 13,102.31, the CAC-40 index declined 0.4% to 6,210.59, and the FTSE index was nearly unchanged 7,306.28. 

Lindt & Spruengli increased to 107,825 Swiss francs after the chocolate maker released a stock repurchase plan of up to one billion swiss francs. 

For the full-year, the chocolate maker revised its sales growth outlook to between 8% and 10% from the previous estimate between 6% and 8%. 

Organic sales in the first half of 2022 ending in June increased 12.3% to 1.99 billion Swiss francs and operating profit rose 33.4% to 185.2 million Swiss francs.

Rolls Royce gained 1.5% to 93.34 pence after the aerospace and defense company appointed private equity partner and BP executive Tufan Erginbilgic as its chief executive . 

Tufan will take up his new role on January 1, 2023, succeeding Warren East, 

In February, East announced his intention to step down at the end of this year

Net income jumped 36.2% from a year ago to 138.4 million Swiss francs. 

Stratec SE declined 11.9% to 84.60 euros after the maker of in-vitro diagnostics systems maker estimated first-half sales of 137.2 million euros compared to 155.8 million a year ago. 

UBS AG dropped 10.9% to $15.04 after the Swiss bank reported sharply lower-than-expected earnings in its latest quarter. 

Total revenues in the June quarter was essentially flat at $8.9 billion and net income gained 5% to $2.1 billion from $2.01 a year ago. 

Many analysts were looking for earnings to fall between $2.2 billion and $2.45 billion in an informal poll conducted by Ticker.com in the U.S. and Switzerland. 

Diluted earnings per share rose to 61 cents from 55 cents a year ago. 

Fee generating assets in its global wealth management unit, fee-generating assets decreased  by 12% or $169.5 billion to  $1,244 billion, almost entirely driven by market decline and foreign currency effects. 

The earnings were supported by one-time gain of $848 million from the sale of its minority stake in its real estate joint venture in Japan with Mitsubishi. 

Investment banking revenues declined 14% to $2.1 billion and wealth management unit revenues dropped to $4.7 billion from $4.8 billion a year ago. 

UBS said assets under management declined $12 billion, mostly driven by outflows in equities assets.  

Zalando SE declined 9.8% to 25.99 euros on no corporate news. The e-commerce stocks in Europe were under pressure after the Canada-based Shopify announced a plan to layoff 10% or 1,000 employees.