Three developing stories at the UK stock market open.
1. QinetiQ faces short term woes despite ongoing defence market boom
Defence specialists QinetiQ LON:QQ. published a Q4 trading update this morning. Whilst the longer term outlook remains upbeat, challenges faced in terms of securing orders in Q3 persisted, resulting in the following guidance being provided. FY25 revenues up 2%, with 3%-5% growth seen in FY26, whilst underlying margins of 10% are expected improving to 11%-12% in FY26. The current share buyback is to be extended to maintain leverage levels, reflecting the highly cash generative nature of the business.
2. Energean management report issues with planned portfolio sale
Energean LON:ENOG has provided an update on its planned sale of the Egypt, Italy and Croatia portfolio. A series of regulatory obligations need to be met for this to complete and as of now the buyer has failed to obtain some of these. A deadline of 20th March was in the original sale agreement and there’s been no progress in extending this deadline with the buyer, meaning the transaction could fail to complete under the terms of the SPA. Management are committed to closing the deal, promising further updates as they are available.
3. Kraken contracts Beeks for low latency trading
Beeks Financial LON:BKS issued a note this morning advising that they had won their first contract for a cryptocurrency exchange with Kraken, who have engaged the fintech to launch a colocation service for ultra-low latency trading. This extends Beeks’ work with traditional financial market liquidity participants and the partnership is being structured on a revenue share basis. Kraken has some 13 million customers, so there’s confidence from Beeks that the resulting financial impact here will be significant.
