Trending tickers: Anglo American, GameStop, Vodafone, Greggs and Novavax

Anglo American (AAL.L)

Anglo American has announced a group restructuring that includes the sale of several assets to boost its portfolio, a day after rejecting a mega takeover bid from Australian rival BHP (BHP.L).

As part of the split, the miner will divest or demerge its diamond unit De Beers, spin off its platinum-metals subsidiary Anglo American Platinum, and sell its steelmaking coal assets, while exploring options for putting its nickel operation on care and maintenance before divesting it.

The reorganisation will reduce costs by $1.7bn (£1.36bn), it said.

The announcement comes a day after the London-listed miner rejected a sweetened £34bn offer from BHP, saying it continued to significantly undervalue the company and was “highly unattractive” for its shareholders.

“We expect that a radically simpler business will deliver sustainable incremental value creation through a step change in operational performance and cost reduction,” chief executive Duncan Wanblad said.

Read more: FTSE 100 LIVE: European markets cautious as traders look to key inflation data

Investors still believe that BHP will lift its offer again and possibly add cash before 22 May, the deadline under UK rules to return with a binding offer or walk way.

"The language in the release suggests it's not the best and final offer," Todd Warren, a portfolio manager at Tribeca Investment Partners, told Reuters.

GameStop (GME)

Shares in GameStop, the video game retailer whose popularity among pandemic-era traders helped coin the idea of a meme stock, were surging in pre-market trading after a single post by a social media account named “Roaring Kitty”.

The internet persona, whose real name is Keith Gill, posted a picture on X of a video gamer leaning forward on their chair as if to indicate he’s taking the game seriously, making his first post on the platform since 2021.

Read more: Strong UK pay growth puts interest rate cut path at risk

Gill is a day trader whose videos during the meme-stock bubble encouraged millions of others into the market, in turn propelling stocks such as GameStop to record heights.

The tweet was enough to drive a rally in GameStop on Monday which caused losses approaching $1bn for short sellers, according to data from S3 Partners.

With GameStop soaring 74%, short-selling hedge funds suffered a mark-to-market loss of $838m in the brick-and-mortar video game retailer, data firm S3 Partners said.

Vodafone (VOD.L)

Vodafone has reported a 2.2% rise in organic earnings for 2024, meeting market forecasts, after it returned to top-line growth in the final quarter helped by gains in the UK and Germany.

The UK-listed company revealed an 11.3% decline in underlying profits last year to €11bn (£9.5bn) and a 2.5% fall in revenue to €36.7bn (£31.5bn).

It said revenues were hit by the disposals of Vantage Towers, Vodafone Hungary and Vodafone Ghana in the prior financial year and adverse exchange rate movements.

Germany returned to growth with service revenue increasing by 0.2% for the full year and 0.6% for the fourth quarter, the company said, but adjusted core earnings dropped by 5.8% due to higher energy and other inflationary costs.

"Much more still needs to be done in the year ahead," said chief executive Margherita Della Valle.

Read more: Stocks that are trending today

Free cash flow fell from €2.6bn to €1.8bn. Net debt, excluding the sold segments of Spain and Italy, was broadly flat at €33.2bn.

Mark Crouch, analyst at eToro, said: "Vodafone investors may have been bracing themselves for another tumultuous earnings report this morning and while this might not have them jumping for joy, there are signs the business has turned a corner."

Greggs (GRG.L)

Greggs reported sales growth of 7.4% as the bakery chain remains on track to open between 140 and 160 new stores in 2024.

The firm reported a 7.4% rise in like-for-like sales for the first 19 weeks of 2024, with total sales in the period hitting £693m.

Greggs added that its new range of iced drinks was “performing well”, with plans to roll it out further from the current 300 shops to up to 700 in the coming months.

Since the start of the year Greggs has opened 64 stores, and closed 37 — including relocations — giving a total of 2,500 shops trading nationwide.

Novavax (NVAX)

Shares of Novavax jumped as much as 50% as Wall Street cheered a new multibillion-dollar deal with French drugmaker Sanofi (SAN.PA) that kicked off a dramatic turnaround for the struggling vaccine maker.

Novavax signed a $1.2bn licensing agreement with Sanofi that includes commercialising a combined COVID-19 and flu shot.

The pharma company reported a first-quarter 2024 loss of $1.05 cents per share while revenues in the quarter came in at $94m, below expectations of $101m. Still, the top line rose 16% on a year-over-year basis.

It recorded $11.5m of revenues from royalties and adjuvant sales to licensing partners compared with the year-ago quarter’s revenues of $1m.

Watch: This has been a tough day for short sellers in GameStop: Charlie Gasparino

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