FT : London townhouse linked to Baroness Mone’s husband on sale for £25mn

London townhouse linked to Baroness Mone’s husband on sale for £25mn
Agents seek discreet ‘off market’ deal for six-bedroom property in Belgravia

A townhouse in London’s Belgravia owned by a company linked to the husband of Tory peer Baroness Michelle Mone is on sale for £25mn, weeks after the lingerie tycoon admitted lying over her role regarding a medical equipment company that won more than £200mn of UK state contracts during the pandemic.

The six-bedroom home in one of London’s most expensive residential neighbourhoods is owned by an Isle of Man company that is part of the Knox group of companies, founded and chaired by Mone’s husband, Douglas Barrowman. 

The property at 4 Chester Square was acquired in late 2020 for £9.25mn. Knox group told the Financial Times in December 2022 that it was purchased as an investment and that the company planned to sell the house after a refurbishment. Knox said at the time the acquisition was funded “using group internal resources and external banking facilities”.

The house has now been advertised for sale, with agents seeking a discreet “off market” transaction according to a document seen by the FT and two people familiar with the matter. 

The sales brochure describes the 6,000 sq ft residence as a “meticulously designed and elegant family home . . . one of the most distinguished and desired residences in Belgravia”. Its features include a sauna and steam room, and a purple-carpeted cinema room. 

A spokesperson for Barrowman confirmed to The Times in December that another house in Belgravia had been sold. The newspaper reported it fetched £19mn, less than the original £23mn asking price. Barrowman is preparing to take delivery of a £50mn yacht, the Daily Mail reported, after selling one smaller yacht and putting a third up for sale.

The registered owner of the Chester Square house is Chester Ventures, according to UK land records. Chester Ventures’ beneficial owner is identified in Companies House records as Knox House Trustees (UK) Limited. 

Knox Group and Mone did not reply to requests for comment.

Mone became embroiled in a bitter row with Prime Minister Rishi Sunak last month after she admitted in an interview that she had lied to the media about her involvement with PPE Medpro, which sold personal protective equipment to the government from May 2020.

Mone, who was made a Conservative peer by Lord David Cameron in 2015, told the BBC in December that she approached Michael Gove, then minister for the Cabinet Office, offering PPE Medpro’s services in 2020. The bid was placed in a “high-priority lane” after her intervention.

In the same interview, Mone and Barrowman admitted they both stood to gain from profits of about £60mn made by the company.

Over several years spokespeople and lawyers for Mone denied she had any involvement with PPE Medpro, as did people representing Barrowman. PPE Medpro did not respond to a request for comment.

The UK government launched legal proceedings against PPE Medpro in December 2022, claiming breach of contract over the quality of £122mn worth of protective gowns provided by the company. PPE Medpro has denied that the goods were faulty.

FT : Greek government plans Athens airport IPO to sell 30% stake

Greek government plans Athens airport IPO to sell 30% stake
Announcement comes amid rebound in country’s tourism and economic recovery

The Greek government has announced plans to sell part of its stake in Athens airport through an initial public offering, as the country enjoys a boom in tourism and the privatisation of state assets is expected to gather pace this year.

Athens International Airport on Monday outlined plans for a listing on the Athens Stock Exchange in February, with the Greek state planning to sell a 30 per cent stake in the country’s largest airport, raising about €800mn, according to a person familiar the matter.

Greece has enjoyed a strong rebound in tourism since the end of pandemic border restrictions, and passenger numbers at the airport hit a record 28mn in 2023, up 24 per cent on the year before.  

Greece’s credit rating was lifted to investment-grade status in September for the first time 13 years, underlining the country’s economic recovery. The airport sale is expected to boost the Athens stock market and signal the country’s return to normality after its decade-long debt crisis.

The listing “represents a great opportunity for international and domestic investors to participate in the success story of Greek tourism,” said Dimitris Politis, chief executive of The Hellenic Republic Asset Development Fund (Taiped), the government body charged with privatising state assets. 

Taiped holds a 30 per cent stake in the airport, with German airport investor AviAlliance owning just over 40 per cent and the Greek Copelouzos family has 5 per cent. 

The Greek government would retain a stake in the airport even after the IPO through the Hellenic Corporation of Assets and Participations, a separate government body that owns 25 per cent and holds a significant amount of other Greek public assets. 

The sale would enable foreign institutional investors to gain sizeable exposure to Greek assets, as well as boosting the Athens stock market, according to Greek officials.

“The involvement of a broader group of investors, exposure and ability to tap into capital markets, [ . . . ] will further strengthen Athens International Airport,” said Athens airport chief executive Yiannis Paraschis.

Under the terms of the proposed listing, AviAlliance and the Copelouzos family would have the right to increase their stakes in the airport by 10 per cent and 1 per cent respectively, with AviAlliance potentially becoming the majority shareholder, according to people familiar with the deal.

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WSJ : U.S. Intercepts Cruise Missile Attack on Its Warship in Red Sea

U.S. Intercepts Cruise Missile Attack on Its Warship in Red Sea
Navy destroyer targeted days after American-led strikes on Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen

The U.S. military said its forces shot down a cruise missile fired from Houthi rebel areas toward an American Navy destroyer in the Red Sea, days after the U.S. led air and naval strikes against the Iran-backed militants in Yemen.

The Houthis, who haven’t commented on the Sunday afternoon launch, have vowed to continue their campaign against U.S. and international targets in the region in response to Israel’s actions in Gaza, despite last week’s U.S.-led strikes against dozens of Houthi targets that were designed to prevent further attacks.

The Houthi actions in the Red Sea, initially directed against Israeli-linked vessels, have become increasingly indiscriminate, rattled global markets and upended international shipping routes. As Western powers have retaliated, the Red Sea has become a new flashpoint between the U.S. and Iran-backed allies lined up around the region.

“The American strikes threaten the militarization of the Red Sea,” Abdulmalik Al-Ajri, a member of the Houthi political bureau, told The Wall Street Journal. He warned that the escalation would pose a danger to ships unrelated to the conflict in Israel. The U.S. and its allies say the strikes were intended to reduce the Houthis’ capacity to attack ships transiting the Red Sea.

The Houthis have launched dozens of missile and drone attacks in the Red Sea, mostly against commercial ships, since the Oct. 7 attacks by Hamas and other militants from Gaza that prompted Israel to respond with an air and ground campaign in the Palestinian enclave.

The economic effects of the Houthi attacks are slowly growing and, for now, mainly affecting Europe. Danish shipper A.P. Moller-Maersk has already rerouted its ships and Tesla said Friday it would halt production at its Berlin factory for two weeks as the Red Sea violence has hit its supply chains.

Qatar, which has acted as a mediator for the Houthis in the past, is the latest to pause the use of the Red Sea route for its liquefied-natural-gas exports for fear of being caught in the conflict, according to a Qatari energy official and shipping trackers. Officials in the Qatari Foreign Ministry and at state-run LNG producer Qatar Energy didn’t return requests for comment.

Tanker owners said after the U.S.-led strikes that a number of captains of chartered vessels heading for Europe via the Suez Canal refused to enter the Red Sea, forcing them to sail a lengthy route around Southern Africa. The Singapore ship registry and Intertanko, an industry lobby group, said that the waterway should be avoided.

“The shipping industry involves such a maze of stakeholders it’s difficult to assign a single nationality to a vessel,” said Ami Daniel, chief executive of shipping intelligence provider Windward.

The missile launched toward the USS Laboon on Sunday afternoon was shot down in the vicinity of the coast of Hudaydah by U.S. fighter aircraft, said U.S. Central Command, which oversees U.S. military operations in the Middle East. There were no injuries or damage reported, Centcom said.

The Houthis have said their action will only stop if Israel ends its military campaign in Gaza.

Strikes last week conducted by U.S. and British forces and supported by Australia, Bahrain, Canada and the Netherlands targeted radar and air-defense systems as well as storage and launch sites for the Houthis’ cruise and ballistic missiles, according to Centcom. The Houthis have used their arsenal, with the assistance of Iranian intelligence, to launch successive attacks on Red Sea shipping lanes.

FT : Germany was world’s worst-performing major economy last year

Germany was world’s worst-performing major economy last year
Rising rates and high energy costs contributed to 0.3% contraction that points to fourth-quarter decline in eurozone

German output contracted 0.3 per cent last year as high inflation, rising interest rates and elevated energy costs made Europe’s largest economy one of the weakest performers in the world, according to an initial estimate released on Monday.

The decline of the German economy in 2023 compounds what has been a gloomy start to the year for the country, which has been hit by nationwide train strikes over working hours and disruptive protests by farmers against cuts to fuel subsidies.

“Overall economic development faltered in Germany in 2023 in an environment that continues to be marked by multiple crises,” said Ruth Brand, president of the statistics office.

The federal statistics office said gross domestic product was still above pre-pandemic levels, after last year’s contraction followed two years of rebounding output and left it up 0.7 per cent from 2019. 

Coupled with separate data published on Monday showing eurozone industrial production fell for the third month in a row in November, economists said the German figures pointed to a likely contraction in the wider single currency bloc in the fourth quarter.

Melanie Debono, an economist at consultants Pantheon Macroeconomics, said the risks to her forecast for a 0.1 per cent contraction of the eurozone economy in the final quarter of last year were “squarely to the downside”.

Germany was the worst-performing major economy in the world last year, according to the IMF, which recently forecast that advanced economies would on average grow 1.5 per cent in 2023, while emerging market and developing economies expanded 4 per cent.

A fall in German and Italian factory output contributed to a 0.3 per cent decline in eurozone industrial production in November from a month earlier, according to EU data released on Monday, taking the annual decline to 6.8 per cent.

German GDP declined 0.3 per cent in the final three months of last year from the previous quarter, when output stagnated, the statistical office said. But it added that because “the data basis of this estimate is less complete than that of the regular quarterly calculation, there is a higher degree of uncertainty”.


German retail sales, exports and industrial production all fell last year. Households were hit by the biggest surge in the cost of living for a generation while the country’s sprawling manufacturing sector suffered from high energy costs, weak global demand and rising financing costs.

Household consumption fell 0.8 per cent last year, taking it 1.5 per cent below pre-pandemic levels, the statistics office said. The gross value added of industry, excluding construction, contracted 2 per cent last year. Government spending declined 1.7 per cent as pandemic-related measures were phased out.

Growth in the country is expected to pick up to 0.6 per cent this year, according to the OECD, which would still make it one of the world’s weakest large economies. Several analysts have cut their forecasts since the government slashed spending plans to address a €60bn hole in its budget left by a constitutional court ruling against off-balance sheet funds.

“The recessionary conditions which have been dragging on since the end of 2022 look set to continue this year,” said Andrew Kenningham, an economist at consultants Capital Economics, predicting zero growth for German GDP in 2024.

Economists expect consumer spending to rally in Germany this year as household purchasing power recovers, thanks to continued strong growth in wages and slower rates of inflation.

German inflation fell from above 11 per cent in late 2022 to as low as 2.3 per cent last November. However, consumer prices are still more than 20 per cent higher than they were before the pandemic and inflation picked up to 3.8 per cent in December after the government phased out energy subsidies.

“Despite recent price declines, prices remained high at all stages in the economic process and put a damper on economic growth,” said Brand.

An increase in borrowing costs to their highest level for more than a decade — after the European Central Bank raised its deposit rate to 4 per cent to tackle inflation — has stymied demand for industry and triggered a 10 per cent fall in German house prices.

“Unfavourable financing conditions due to rising interest rates and weaker domestic and foreign demand also took their toll,” Brand said. 

There was better news from eurozone trade data for November, showing exports from the bloc rose 1 per cent from the previous month, while imports dipped 0.6 per cent. However, compared to a year earlier, eurozone exports were still down 4.7 per cent, while imports fell 16.7 per cent, reflecting drops in the price of energy and food imports.

FT : Atos shares tumble as free cash flow expected to miss target

Atos shares tumble as free cash flow expected to miss target
French tech group replaces chief Yves Bernaert after 3 months amid struggle to restructure and cut debt

Shares in indebted French IT group Atos fell as much as 16 per cent on Monday after the company said it expected to miss its target on free cash flow for the year.

Atos said its cash flow situation had deteriorated and free cash flow would come in about €100mn below the previous target, but reaffirmed it would meet its other financial benchmarks amid growing concerns about the group’s liquidity.

It also announced that chief financial officer Paul Saleh had been promoted to chief executive, replacing Yves Bernaert after only three months in the job as the group struggles to restructure and cut its debt.

On Sunday French newspaper Le Figaro reported that Atos had asked a French commercial court to appoint an agent to oversee negotiations with its creditors. The company on Monday said it had not filed a request, but that it could use such legal mechanisms in future. 

Atos shares have lost more than 94 per cent of their value in the past three years as the business has struggled amid a rapid churn of executives and difficulty defining and executing a strategy to improve performance and cut debt. Standard & Poor’s downgraded the company’s credit rating in November citing growing liquidity risks.

The company had previously forecast negative free cash flow of €1bn. Shares fell to slightly more than €4 in early trading.

Recently appointed chair and former UniCredit chief executive Jean Pierre Mustier is working to salvage a deal to split the business while negotiating to secure financing from its creditors ahead of €2.25bn in debt coming due in 2025. 

Under the current plan, Atos is supposed to sell its lossmaking legacy business dubbed Tech Foundations to Czech billionaire Daniel Křetínský. However, that deal proved contentious with shareholders, who thought Křetínský was getting overly favourable terms, as well as with some French politicians due to the militarily sensitive nature of some of Atos’s programmes. 

But talks to renegotiate terms with Křetínský have dragged on longer than expected and “were not guaranteed to end in an agreement”, the company has acknowledged in recent weeks. Atos said it would consider additional asset sales in order to meet its obligations, as well as a back-up measure should the deal with Křetínský fall apart.

Earlier this month, Airbus announced it had entered due diligence for an offer worth up to €1.8bn for Atos’s prized big data and cyber security unit, called BDS. The negotiations to sell BDS mark a change in strategic direction under Mustier, as his predecessor Bertrand Meunier had resisted selling the group off in parts. 

The talks are not yet exclusive and could become competitive, according to people with knowledge of the process. Atos said it had received two expressions of interest for BDS, one of which concerned only part of the division, without disclosing the name of the other party.

French defence electronics group Thales, which has jet-fighter maker Dassault Aviation as a big shareholder, has been interested in BDS in the past as part of its effort to expand its cyber security business. Thales has been considering its options in recent weeks, one person briefed on the situation said.

Thales did not confirm or deny its interest in BDS earlier this month, but said it was focused on strengthening its core business areas of “aerospace, defence, and security and digital identity”.