By Hugo Lhomedet and Leo Marchandon

(Reuters) -Signify, the world’s biggest maker of lights, on Friday reported a nearly 10% drop in its 2024 core profit and said CEO Eric Rondolat would step down after the annual general meeting in April.

The abrupt leadership change and falling profits could shake investor confidence in the already underperforming company as it braces for the impact of U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs. Signify has much of its production in China.

Rondolat, 58, who oversaw Signify’s 2016 spin-off from Philips, had been appointed for a new four-year term last year. The company gave no reason for his decision to step down.

The Dutch group said the board would consider both internal and external candidates as it seeks a successor for him.

Signify’s adjusted earnings before interest, taxes and amortisation (EBITA) fell 9.6% to 606 million euros ($633 million) in 2024, below analysts’ average forecast of 611 million euros seen in a company-provided consensus.

It reported an adjusted EBITA margin of 9.9%, slightly lower than its forecast for the low end of a 10% to 10.5% range.

But the company said its gross margin was strong as price pressure in some markets was compensated by cost saving measures that included laying off 1,000 people by the end of last year.

Signify said it would increase its cash dividend to 1.56 euros per share for 2024, from 1.55 euros paid for the prior year.

It also unveiled a share repurchase programme of up to 150 million euros starting from the first quarter, and said it planned to buy back between 350 million and 450 million euros worth of shares by the end of 2027.

The company expects its comparable sales to grow in a low single-digit percentage in 2025, with a stable EBITA margin compared to last year’s.

($1 = 0.9568 euros)

STOCKHOLM (Reuters) – Swedish telecom equipment maker Ericsson (BS:ERICAs) reported on Friday a rise in fourth-quarter revenue and adjusted operating profit as its mainstay North American market returned to growth.

Net sales rose 1% to 72.9 billion crowns ($6.66 billion), beating estimates of 72.5 billion. In North America, sales were up 54%.

“We see further signs that the overall RAN (Radio Access Network) market is now stabilizing, with strong growth in North America supporting a return to Networks sales growth in Q4,” CEO Borje Ekholm said in a statement.

Sales in Asia decreased by double digits, mainly in India, where demand fell following a rapid growth in 2023.

Operating profit excluding restructuring costs and impairments stood at 9.8 billion crowns compared with a year-earlier 7.4 billion. The mean EBIT forecast in an LSEG poll of analysts was 10.3 billion.

Ericsson proposed a dividend of 2.85 crowns per share for 2024, up from 2.70 crowns for 2023.

($1 = 10.9536 Swedish crowns)

(This story has been corrected to fix to profit of 9.8 billion crowns, not 10.2 billion; year-ago comparison of 7.4 billion, not 8.2 billion, in paragraph 5)

Investing.com — Rolls-Royce (LON:RR) on Friday said that it has won the biggest defence contract in its history, as the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) awarded the engineering giant a £9 billion deal to oversee the development and support of nuclear reactors for the Royal Navy’s submarine fleet. 

Known as the Unity contract, this eight-year agreement integrates various aspects of the submarine programme, including research, design, manufacturing, and maintenance.

The Unity contract will support not only the Royal Navy’s existing submarine fleet but also the construction and commissioning of the new Dreadnought-class submarines. 

Additionally, it includes the early stages of the SSN-AUKUS programme, a trilateral defence initiative between the UK, the US, and Australia to develop nuclear-powered attack submarines.

This agreement combines several existing and future projects into a single framework. It aims to streamline operations, enhance efficiency, and provide consistent support for the Royal Navy’s submarines.

“The contract is the first of its kind awarded by the UK MoD and is the culmination of years of planning between Rolls-Royce and UK MoD, potentially creating a new way of doing business between Government and industry,” the company said in a statement.

This project will benefit the UK economy by creating 1,000 new jobs within Rolls-Royce Submarines. Most of these jobs will be based in Derby, but new offices in Glasgow and Cardiff will also see growth.

The Unity contract is anticipated to enhance the UK’s nuclear expertise. This is crucial as demand for these skills grows in both defense and civilian sectors. 

“This investment in Britain’s defence will deliver a long-term boost to British business, jobs and national security,” said John Healey, Secretary of State for Defence of the United Kingdom (TADAWUL:4280), in a statement.

Rolls-Royce stressed the importance of developing domestic talent. The contract is expected to strengthen the overall UK nuclear industry and improve long-term resilience.

The contract will benefit the UK supply chain, as most suppliers are located within the country. 

The extended project duration and scope will foster stronger supplier relationships, leading to increased capabilities, competition, and economic advantages.

(Reuters) – Harry Potter publisher Bloomsbury Publishing said on Friday it has reached a new long-term supply agreement with Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN).

The publishing house, also known for publishing ‘romantasy’ novels by American author Sarah J. Maas, reiterated its confidence in the market’s consensus for its full-year outlook.

By Valentina Za

MILAN (Reuters) – Bailed-out lender Monte dei Paschi di Siena (MPS) said on Friday it was launching a 13.3 billion euro ($13.9 billion) all-share buyout offer for Mediobanca (OTC:MDIBY), in the latest surprise twist of a complex Italian banking saga.

Monte dei Paschi (MPS), which for years was the problem child of Italian banking until a 2017 bailout, is offering 23 of its own shares for every 10 Mediobanca shares tendered, equivalent to a 5% premium versus Thursday’s closing price.

Mediobanca has a market value of 12.7 billion euros, compared with Monte dei Paschi’s capitalisation of 8.8 billion.

The buyout offer comes after Italy’s drive to re-privatise the Tuscan bank brought onboard as shareholders in November Delfin, the holding company of late billionaire Leonardo Del Vecchio, and fellow tycoon Francesco Gaetano Caltagirone.

Delfin is the biggest shareholder in Mediobanca with a 19.8% stake while Caltagirone owns 7.8%.

Delfin nearly tripled its initial MPS holding to 9.8% in January.

Mediobanca, Caltagirone and Delfin are all large shareholders in insurer Generali (BIT:GASI), accounting for almost a third of its capital base.

Caltagirone, who had also initially bought 3.5% of Monte dei Paschi, increased it to 5% in November.

MPS has successfully restructured in recent years under CEO Luigi Lovaglio, a veteran UniCredit executive.

Italy, as it gradually reduced its stake to 11.7% from the initial 68%, has been seeking a partner for MPS, which like other mid-sized banks faces long-term challenges due to the need for hefty technology investments and the threat from non-bank players.

Since UniCredit walked away from a deal back in 2021, the Treasury has been working on a potential tie-up with Banco BPM, which became a shareholder in MPS alongside Delfin and Caltagirone in November.

That plan was derailed by UniCredit’s decision late last year to launch a buyout offer for Banco BPM, as CEO Andrea Orcel said his bank could not afford to be sidelined in the consolidation process.

($1 = 0.9568 euros)

(Reuters) – India’s Adani Green has appointed independent law firms to review the U.S. indictment of founder Gautam Adani and top Adani Green executives of paying $265 million in bribes for power contracts, it said late on Thursday.

In November, U.S. authorities indicted Adani, his nephew and Executive Director Sagar Adani and Managing Director Vneet S. Jaain, alleging that they paid bribes to secure Indian power supply contracts, and misleading U.S. investors during fundraises there.

The Adani Group has denied the charges, calling them “baseless.”

Adani Green did not mention the names of the law firms or any other details.

The company has not been named as a defendant in the indictment and civil complaint and confirmed that it had made all appropriate disclosures in the past including in bond offering circulars, it said.

The management of Adani Green continues to assert the company’s compliance of applicable laws and regulations, it added.

Investing.com– TD Cowen reiterated its Buy rating on United Airlines Holdings Inc (NASDAQ:UAL), while also raising its price target on the stock on positive fourth quarter earnings, which further underpinned a strong outlook for 2025. 

TD raised its price target on UAL to $165.0 from $142.0, and reiterated its Buy rating. The new PT represents an upside of 60% from UAL’s Thursday close.

UAL clocked stronger-than-expected earnings for the December quarter, and also presented above-consensus guidance for the current quarter. The airline flagged strong and broad-based demand for travel across all its geographies, and also noted improvement in corporate travel. 

TD analysts said they were impressed by the company’s earnings call, which in turn furthered its status as one of the brokerage’s “best idea(s)” for 2025. 

The brokerage said UAL is “ideally positioned to capitalize on current industry dynamic” with investments in luxury travel, which is becoming a major margin driver for the travel industry. 

TD expects UAL’s benefits from investments to “pick up materially” in 2026 and 2027, both on aircraft and operations. The brokerage also noted UAL’s installation of satellite internet through StarLink across its fleets, as well as its investing in advertising platform Kinective Media as major differentiators for its business. 

UAL has been a standout among airline stocks, as the company capitalized on a post-COVID recovery in travel demand, while leaning more into increasing demand for luxury. 

By Abhirup Roy

PALO ALTO, California (Reuters) – A joint venture between U.S. electric pickup and SUV maker Rivian (NASDAQ:RIVN) and Volkswagen (ETR:VOWG_p) is in talks with other automakers about supplying their software and electrical architecture, a senior Rivian executive said on Thursday.

The German automaker agreed in November to invest $5.8 billion in the joint venture, which will integrate advanced electrical infrastructure and Rivian’s software technology for both companies’ future electric vehicles.

While a joint venture will give Rivian higher volumes to negotiate better supplier deals and reduce costs, seen as critical amid a slowdown in EV demand, Volkswagen and potentially other traditional automakers will get quick and easy access to technology and software they have struggled to build for years.

“I’d say that many other OEMs are knocking on our door,” Rivian Chief Software (ETR:SOWGn) Officer Wassym Bensaid said in an interview, referring to Original Equipment Manufacturers, a phrase used to describe vehicle makers.

Bensaid, who is also co-CEO of the joint venture, declined to provide names of the interested automakers and details on what stage the talks were at.

Rivian’s architecture requires fewer electronic control units and significantly less wiring, reducing vehicle weight and simplifying manufacturing. The technology is core to building cars with software that could be updated over the air like a smartphone – what the industry calls “software-defined vehicles”, an area where established automakers are still running behind.

“There is demand,” said Bensaid, adding that the priority until 2027 was to roll out the R2, Rivian’s smaller, less-expensive SUV and to integrate the technology in other Volkswagen brands. “Obviously other OEMs are talking to us and we’re trying to figure out how to support that in the future.”

“Any other OEM who wants to make a leap from a technology standpoint, the joint venture today becomes one of the key partners with whom they can make that collaboration,” he said.

The venture is likely to become the platform of choice in the Western world apart from Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA), Canaccord Genuity analysts said in a note. The joint venture also helps alleviate “a significant chunk of the capital concern” for Rivian, the analysts said.

By Federico Maccioni, Hadeel Al Sayegh and Andres Gonzalez

DUBAI/LONDON (Reuters) – Etihad Airways and flynas are gearing up to list on local stock markets this year, marking the first IPOs by Gulf carriers in nearly two decades, with Etihad sounding out investors next week ahead of a potential sale of around a 20% stake, two sources said.

Etihad is looking at a listing this quarter, the people with knowledge of its plans said, with one of them saying the airline would target both local and international investors.

It could raise around $1 billion in what would be the first airline IPO in the Gulf since Kuwait’s Jazeera Airways in 2008, one of the two people and a third source said.

Saudi Arabia’s budget carrier flynas, backed by Kingdom (TADAWUL:4280) Holding, the investment company of billionaire Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal, could also list this year, another person familiar with its plans said.

Qatar Airways, one of the region’s biggest carriers, could go public before the decade is out.

The four people declined to be identified because the plans are confidential.

Etihad, and its owner, Abu Dhabi’s sovereign wealth fund ADQ, declined to comment. Flynas did not respond to a request for comment.

Kingdom Holding’s CEO told Saudi state-owned broadcaster Al Arabiya TV on Wednesday that the company was in the final stage of getting approval from the Saudi market regulator to list in Riyadh.

Flynas is worth at least $2 billion, Prince Alwaleed posted on X earlier this month.

Dubai’s Emirates has also previously been flagged as a potential IPO candidate. Its chairman and chief executive Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum told reporters last year that an IPO was not his decision to make and that this would be a Dubai government decision and he would go ahead if asked to do so.

TOURISM

The potential listings are driven in part by the local governments’ efforts to diversify their economies away from oil, betting on sectors like tourism as international travel revives after the pandemic.

The IPOs would allow investors to access a market with significant growth potential, aviation analyst John Strickland said, citing hub capability due to a geographic location between Europe and Asia, plus Dubai’s attractions as a tourist destination.

Dubai is already a major stopover point for long-haul flights after overtaking Heathrow as the world’s busiest airport for international traffic a decade ago.

Etihad has been through a multi-year restructuring and management shake-up after investing billions of dollars to compete more effectively with Gulf peers by buying minority stakes in other carriers.

The launch of a multibillion-dollar new terminal at Abu Dhabi’s Zayed International Airport in 2023 tripled the hub’s annual capacity to 45 million passengers and could help the airline’s growth plans.

Etihad has said it is working to expand destinations to more than 125 airports by 2030 from more than 90 today and boost its fleet under a plan to bolster the role of the UAE capital as a travel hub connecting Asia and Europe.

“Markets are vibrant, valuations (for regional companies) are high,” said Mohamed Ali Yasin, founder and CEO of investment consultancy firm the Oracle (NYSE:ORCL) Financial Consultancy and Investments.

In Saudi Arabia, where tourism is a major pillar of the Vision 2030 economic overhaul, the nearly 20-year-old flynas is planning to expand its fleet to more than 160 aircraft by 2030 from over 60.

Despite local competition from the likes of low-cost player flyadeal, flynas has all the credentials to grow further, Strickland said, citing the size and potential of the Saudi market backed by a young, growing population.

The Middle East, which had a 9.4% share of the global air passenger market in 2023 – calculated as revenue per kilometre – had an 8.7% increase in demand in November 2024 compared to the same month a year earlier, according to IATA.

Other regions still accounted for larger shares of the overall market, with Asia Pacific topping the list with a 31.7% share, according to the data.

BRIGHT SPOT?

The Gulf accounted for the vast majority of the 54 IPOs in the Middle East and North Africa in 2024, which raised $12.2 billion, up 12% from a year earlier, according to LSEG data.

The Gulf listings could become a bright spot for investors in an airline sector that has faced problems in other regions, including Europe, where airlines, such as Lufthansa, have struggled with plane delivery delays, engine troubles, labour disruption and surging costs.

“Coming out of COVID, some of the Gulf carriers were amongst the first ones to really start recovering and get the market going again,” Strickland said.

Europe “is tied up in regulation, climate change focus, even changes, of course, in the political landscape.”

(Reuters) -Swiss fragrance and flavour maker Givaudan reported annual sales slightly above analysts’ expectations on Friday, citing continued strong sales growth across its markets, and said it would most likely exceed the upper end of its growth target for 2021-2025.

Its full-year revenue rose 12.3% on a like-for-like basis to 7.41 billion Swiss francs ($8.19 billion), compared with analysts’ average forecast of 7.39 billion in a poll compiled by the company.

Strong sales growth has boosted Givaudan’s profitability last year, with an exceptionally strong fragrance business leading the way.

“We are very pleased with our financial performance in 2024, driven by a high level of volume related sales growth across all markets, segments and customer groups,” CEO Gilles Andrier said in a statement.

The group, which makes fragrances for perfumes and flavours for food and drinks, said that based on average like-for-like sales growth of 7.2% in the last four years, it expected to exceed the upper end of its 4-5% target for the five-year guidance period.

Givaudan proposed a dividend of 70 francs per share for 2024, 2.9% higher than what was paid last year.

($1 = 0.9051 Swiss francs)