Before he became a property tycoon, IWG founder Mark Dixon was in the baking business, rustling up bread buns at his companies Dial-a-Snack and The Bread Roll Company.
On Tuesday the veteran entrepreneur, who founded the Regus offices owner in 1989, was reportedly cooking up a spin-off and listing of IWG’s US business in New York.
Such a move would take advantage of booming investor demand for serviced offices after the jumbo valuation attached to WeWork.
IWG declined to comment on the Sky News report but the thinly populated City dealing rooms liked what they saw and drove the shares to a record high, up 21p to 428.4p.
On the main market, the FTSE 100 carried on its downward spiral — the blue-chip index has lost 8% since 1 August — shedding 45.47 points to 7049.51 due to macro-economic concerns.
Asian-focused companies like HSBC, off 5.1p to 581.3p, and Prudential, down 21.5p to 1341p, led the index lower after the embattled leader of Hong Kong, Carrie Lam, said anti-China protests were worsening.
Renold, which makes industrial chains for everything from roller-coasters to chocolate manufacturing conveyor belts, ended an investigation into an accounting fiasco which had overstated profits. The PWC-led internal probe found there was “intentional misreporting of financial information at a local level”.
The company restated last year’s underlying profits, cutting them by £1 million to £15.4 million. The shares rose 3.75%, or 0.9p, to 23.5p but Renold did not say who was responsible or whether there would be further action.
Half-year results from FTSE 100 logistics company Bunzl got the cold shoulder despite hitting estimates.
The shares fell 1.23%, or 23p, to 2008p. Profits of £200.5 million were around 2% ahead of forecasts. But 12-basis points drop in profit margins appeared to spook investors.
Another logistics outfit, Leeds United football club sponsor Clipper Logistics, also disappointed after accounting rules meant it had to book a large contract next year rather than this year.
That means full-year earnings will be £20.2 million, a little lower than the market expected. The shares nudged down 0.89%, or 2p, to 223p.
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