FTSE 100 Live: Pound hits two month low after byelection, Flutter shares tumble Markets Good morning and welcome back to the City AM liveblog. We were treated to a whole host of corporate updates yesterday and investors in some of the City’s biggest blue-chips were handed plans for bumper returns. Aerospace giant Rolls-Royce revealed ambitions to dish out up to £9bn to shareholders through from 2026 to 2028. The [...]
LSEG unveils biggest-ever buyback as firm fends off Elliott and AI threat Markets The operator of the London Stock Exchange has unveiled its biggest-ever buyback as the company fends off the dual threats of activist investor pressure and shareholder fears over the rise of AI. LSEG said it would buy back at least £3bn of shares over the next twelve months, adding to the £2.1bn buyback carried out [...]
Rolls-Royce shares rally after unveiling bumper buyback plan Transport & Infrastructure Rolls-Royce has laid out plans to return billions to investors over the next two years after the blue-chip giant’s profit rocketed, leading to an upgrade of targets. The aerospace titan revealed plans for a £7bn to £9bn multi-year share buyback from 2026 to 2028, which comes as the firm wraps up a £1bn buyback from [...]
Standard Chartered hikes investor returns despite profit miss February 24, 2026 Standard Chartered handed out bumper investor returns following its full-year results despite the London-listed bank missing its profit target pencilled in by analysts. The Asian-focused lender recorded a two per cent uptick in pre-tax profit to $814m, falling below analyst expectations of $1.1bn. The miss came as net interest income performed weaker-than-expected, slumping 12 per [...]
Rolls-Royce: FTSE 100 giant set to splash £1bn on shareholders February 23, 2026 City darling Rolls-Royce is gearing up plans to dish out bumper returns to investors this week as the firm delivers its annual results. The FTSE 100 giant is set to launch a buyback worth as much as £1.5bn, which will come on top of the company’s final dividend as the aircraft engineer looks to reinforce [...]
Natwest shares sink after bank unveils £2.7bn wealth deal February 9, 2026 Natwest has beat its banking rivals to snap up wealth manager Evelyn Partners and laid out plans to kick off a new round of shareholder returns. The FTSE 100 banking giant, which returned to privatisation last year, said it had sealed a £2.7bn deal to purchase the firm from its private equity owners Permira and [...]
Starling founder Anne Boden cuts stake in £4bn fintech February 6, 2026 The founder of UK fintech Starling has slashed her stake in the digital bank during a secondary share sale, City AM can reveal. Anne Boden, who launched Starling in 2014 after stints at Allied Irish Banks and Lloyds, cut her holdings in the digital bank to near 2.7 per cent from a previous 4.3 per [...]
Lloyds shares to offer best cash-back rate in Europe, analysts say January 9, 2026 Lloyds shareholders are set for a bumper few years as analysts predict the bank will continue to splash cash on dividends and buybacks. The bank has been tipped to move to a half-year buyback, in a move that will majorly ramp up the money it hands back to investors. In 2025, Lloyds beat out its [...]
How Natwest, Lloyds, Barclays and HSBC fired up the FTSE 100 in 2025 December 9, 2025 If 2025 was supposed to be the year of the AI bubble, nobody told Britain’s banking giants. Amidst the noise of the US tech boom, the UK’s FTSE 100 banking heavyweights, Natwest, Lloyds, Barclays, and HSBC, have staged a formidable, if understated, rally. Lloyds delivered an astonishing 75.8 per cent gain, while Barclays surged 65 [...]
HSBC shares rise as Georges Elhedery’s pivot East beats the noise October 28, 2025 HSBC’s pass through the third quarter was almost identical to the second. Despite another hefty hit to the firm’s bottom line, chief executive Georges Elhedery has quietly and effectively pushed ahead with his bold overhaul of the group. For the three months to September 30, HSBC took a 14 per cent profit beat falling to [...]