10.30am: Barclays (LON:BARC) hit with £50mln fine over Qatar deal
The Financial ConductAuthority has hit Barclays PLC with a £50mln fine over a failure to disclose certain arrangements in its £4bn Qatari funding deal in 2008.
The City watchdog said the bank's conduct in the capital raise was "reckless and lacked integrity".
In 2020 three former Barclays bankers were cleared of fraud over their role in the investment.
They had been accused of funnelling £322mln in secret fees to Qatar in exchange for emergency funding at the height of the financial crisis.
Mark Steward at the FCA said: "At the height of the financial crisis in October 2008, Barclays paid hundreds of millions of pounds in fees to certain Qatari investors so that they would contribute new capital."
"Barclays did not inform the market and shareholders about these matters as required."
"Barclays’ failure to disclose these matters was reckless and lacked integrity and followed an earlier failure to disclose fees paid to Qatari investors in June 2008. There was no legitimate reason or excuse for failing to disclose these matters, certainly no basis for doing so because of the financial crisis" he said.
Shares in Barclays were 1.55% lower at 143p.
9.50am: Retailers fall following weak retail sales figures
Retailers saw their share prices fall on Friday following weaker than expected UK retail sales numbers which came on top of a survey showing consumer confidence in the UK remained at historically low levels.
UK retail sales volumes fell by 1.4% in September 2022; making them 1.3% below pre-coronavirus (COVID-19) February 2020 levels according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
The figure was well below City forecasts of a fall of 0.5%.
The weak retail numbers put retail share prices under pressure with ASOS PLC, JD Sports Fashion PLC, Frasers Group PLC (LSE:FRAS) and Next plc (LON:NXT) amongst those in the red after the Office for National Statistics reported retail sales fell 1.4% in September, worse than City forecasts.
Martin Beck, chief economic advisor to the EY ITEM Club, said the “underlying headwinds mean the outlook for retailers is a poor one.”
In a separate report GfK long-running consumer confidence index clawed back two points but continued to languish at an overall score of minus 47, close to historic lows, as consumers react to soaring energy, food and mortgage costs.