9 March 2021 | 08:01am
StockMarketWire.com - Office operator IWG swung to an annual loss as the nationwide lockdowns owing to the pandemic led to increasingly deteriorating conditions from the second quarter through year-end.
For 2020, pre-tax losses were £650.2 million compared with a profit of £55.0 million year-on-year as revenue fell 6.4% to £2.48 billion.
The company said an improvement in sales had been offset by customer churn and the significant impact the pandemic has had on service revenue.
Occupancy fell to 72.9% from 73.9%.
Looking ahead, the company said that while 2020 was undeniably an extremely difficult time for everybody and these conditions were likely to persist well into 2021.
9 March 2021 | 16:36pm
StockMarketWire.com - The FTSE 100 closed Tuesday with a 0.35% gain to 6,742.96, off its highs for the day but still consolidating Monday s big gains amid improved investor sentiment.
In the US the Nasdaq index bounced back sharply as tech stocks returned to favour following the recent sell-off. By 4.30pm UK time the index was up 3.3% to 13,046.50.
Investment company Standard Life Aberdeen fell 7.5% to 295.1p as it cut its dividend by a third as full year numbers showed falling profit and a shrinking client base.
Telecom group Vodafone was up 1.6% to 128.1p after setting a price range for the initial public offering of its Vantage Towers infrastructure business that would value it at between €11.4 billion and €14.7 billion.