Shares in plumbers and builders merchant Wolseley plunged this morning after the company announced that nine-month profits had slumped by 80%.
Wolseley's stocks fell by more than 16% today, making it the biggest loser in the FTSE 250. The company, which recently squeezed shareholders for £1bn in a desperate attempt to prop up its debt-laden balance sheet, said pretax profit dropped to £72m in the nine months ended 30 April.
Investors now see potential losses at its European units. Sanjay Jha, an analyst at Pali International, said: "The numbers were quite poor. If you assume the US plumbing business made a profit, it seems to me that they probably made a loss in Europe."
Imran Akram, an analyst at Collins Stewart, said: "We believe Wolseley is losing market share; the turmoil of its debt problems and the scale of stock losses have left it poorly placed to navigate the downturn."
Wolseley's results spooked the markets, with shares in other building firms also falling this morning. Barratt and Taylor Wimpey shares were down more than 6%, while Persimmon's fell by more than 5%.
The biggest loser in the FTSE 100 was world's largest hedge fund manager, Man Group, which saw its shares dive 8.7% after the firm said its pre-tax profits fell by almost two-thirds to £743m.
It said that assets under management fell to $44bn by 26 May, from $46.8bn at the end of March.
"The lower level of Man's current funds under management will result in lower management fee income in the coming year," the company said in a statement. "Institutional investor sales have remained muted since year end and redemptions, as announced in March, continued into April."
Carolyn Dorret, an analyst at UBS, said: "The fall in assets under management is probably due to weak investment performance and institutional outflows."
