Capital & Regional (LON: CAL) have updated shareholders on Monday about their share subscription being completed to finalize a deal with Growthpoint (JSE: GRT).

Capital & Regional plc is a large British manager of property assets – mainly shopping centres – for funds in which it has a significant stake.

Shares in Capital & Regional currently trade at 28p (+0.085%). 9/12/19 11:26BST.

In October, the firm announced that it would be looking to formalize a deal with Growthpoint.

The firm said that the first part of the deal would be or Growthpoint to acquire 219.8 million existing shares in Capital & Regional, which the firm has said has been completed.

The second part was for Growthpoint to subscribe for 311.5 million new Capital & Regional shares, at a price of 25p each to raise £77.9 million before costs for the company.

Johannesburg-listed real estate investment trust Growthpoint said it will invest around £150.4 million for a 51% interest in the UK real estate firm Capital & Regional.

The completion of this two phase deal means that the offer between the two firms is now wholly unconditional.

Capital & Regional Chair Hugh Scott-Barrett said: “The successful completion of this transaction is transformational for the long term growth of Capital & Regional. It provides us with the resources and support to continue the roll out of our community centre asset management strategy, while at the same time allowing us to further reduce the company’s leverage.

“The team at Growthpoint share our conviction that retail centres which focus on daily ‘needs’, rather than the ‘wants’, of the local communities they serve and which have a central role in their local economies, will continue to play an important part in the evolving retail landscape.”

Growthpoint Chair Francois Marais added: “Growthpoint fully intends to support the growth of Capital & Regional’s portfolio both as to quality and profitability.

“Growthpoint looks forward to a productive and profitable ongoing engagement with the management of Capital & Regional to assist Capital & Regional in achieving its strategic objectives.”

The industry has been busy, as rival Intu saw their share price crash after expectations for revenue income have fallen for financial 2019. Intu said that new rent in the nine months to 30 September 2019 hit £19 million, falling from £32 million during the same period last year.

Additionally, NewRiver Reit PLC saw their shares spike in November, after the firm announced the purchase of a Northern Ireland retail park for £40 million.

Deepmatter Group PLC (LON: DMTR) have seen their shares rally on Monday morning after the firm announced a pharmaceutical technology collaboration.

Deepmatter platform transforms chemistry into code. It uses Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) to make better molecules and provide insights never before available.

Digitized chemistry enhances reproducibility and increases productivity. The contextualized data generated by deepmatter provides greater access to high fidelity data and informs and improves better outcomes.

Deepmatter shares rallied after the firm said that it will be collaborating with giant AstraZeneca PLC (LON: AZN) in a digital technology venture, designed to speed up the drug delivery process.

AstraZeneca is a FTSE100 and announced that it had received received marketing authorization from China’s National Medical Products Administration for their Lynparza drug with partner Merck & Co just last week, which won shareholder appetite.

Today Deepmatter, will work with AstraZeneca on their DigitalGlassware platform, which enables chemists to share the details of their experiments from anywhere and in real-time.

Michael Kossenjans, an associate director at Astra’s Discovery Sciences, Research & Development unit, said: “Our goal is to transform drug design using innovative digital technologies in combination with automation and artificial intelligence. To get potential new medicines to patients faster, we need to reduce the cycle time for lead identification and optimisation and look forward to working with DeepMatter to assess the potential of DigitalGlassware to help with this.”

DeepMatter Chief Executive added: “We’ve been impressed with the automated chemistry platforms developed at AstraZeneca sites for autonomous delivery of new lead series. We see an opportunity to draw together knowledge from the DigitalGlassware platform to enable machine learning and artificial intelligence technologies to increase the certainty of producing a high quality and choice of candidate drug molecules.

“We look forward to progressing this exciting collaboration over the coming months as we continue to maximise the potential of the DigitalGlassware platform.”

DeepMatter explained: “Displayed in real time, the data can be interrogated using multiple views, enabling the analysis of reaction runs and the re-playing of syntheses. By capturing in-situ chemical data alongside the experimental intent, observations and outcomes, it is expected that machine learning and artificial algorithms could yield cost and time savings whilst also providing novel insights into chemistry.”

Shares of Deepmatter surged 43.9% to 2p. 9/12/19 11:17BST.

Shareholders of Tullow Oil plc (LON: TLW) have seen their shares crash on Monday morning after the Chief Executive announced his departure within a hectic week of trading for the firm.

Tullow Oil have seen a very volatile few weeks of trading. In November, the firm saw their shares crash after a production warning was issued alerting shareholders.

Tullow had warned production was likely to be between 89,000 barrels and 93,000 barrels, lower than the 90,000 barrels to 98,000 barrels initially guided, which caused shares to sink.

One week ago, The FTSE250 listed firm saw their shares in green following a positive update on their Ugandan operations.

The Ugandan Government had been in lockdown with firms such as Total (EPA: FP) and CNOOC (HKG: 0883) over the taxes assed on Tullow’s plans to sell part of its stakes in Ugandan oil fields, however the governmental disputes seem to have progressed last week.

Today, the firm saw their chief executive and exploration director quit which caused shares to crash.

Shares in Tullow Oil crashed 58.05% to 59p following the announcement. 9/12/19 10:54BST.

Pat McDade, along with exploration director Angus McCoss, said they had quit the firm. The board said it was “disappointed by the performance of Tullow’s business”.

Tullow Oil saw more than £1.05 billion wiped off their market value at 9am this morning, which left the company only valued at £801.7 million.

The firm has suspended its dividend to shareholders, and “now needs time to complete its thorough review of operations”.

Dorothy Thompson, the company’s chair, said: “Despite today’s announcement, the board strongly believes that Tullow has good assets and excellent people capable of delivering value for shareholders.

“We are taking decisive action to restore performance, reduce our cost base and deliver sustainable free cash flow.”

Thompson has temporarily been installed as executive chair, as the firm kicks off its search for a new chief executive.

“The board has, however, been disappointed by the performance of Tullow’s business and now needs time to complete its thorough review of operations,” Executive Chairman Dorothy Thompson said.

The company said it expects full-year net production to average around 87,000 barrels of oil per day, reiterating its guidance from last month’s trading statement.

However, Tullow said that after a review of “production performance issues” this year, and the impact this could have on its fields’ performance in the coming years, it had changed its guidance.

Next year’s production is predicted to average between 70,000 and 80,000 barrels of oil per day (bopd), while over the next three years it expects an average of 70,000 bopd, which may leave a bitter sweet taste in the mouths of shareholders.

Tullow said it had picked out “a number of factors” that have caused the reduction in guidance.

“Whilst financial performance has been solid, production performance has been significantly below expectations from the group’s main producing assets, the TEN and Jubilee fields in Ghana,” it said.

Tesco PLC (LON: TSCO) have seen their shares jump on Monday morning after the firm was considering the sale of its Asian supermarket business.

Shares of Tesco jumped 4.61% to 243p. 9/12/19 10:28BST.

Tesco have seen a mixed trading year, as the firm saw slow sales growth in its first quarter as reported in June.

The FTSE100 listed firm said that like-for-like sales increased 0.4% year-on-year in three month period until 25 May.

At the end of October, Tesco additionally announced that they would be set to trial the ClubCard Plus in an attempt to stimulate business.

Tesco, in similar nature to rivals such as Sainsbury’s have seen their trading hampered by stiff competition from overseas competitors such as Lidl and Aldi, which led to the firm agreeing a wholesale deal with Australian firm Coles.

Also noteworthy, Marks and Spencer reported a slump in their quarterly profits in October, and this led to mass store closures and saw their shares in red.

Today, Tesco the largest UK supermarket chain has considered selling its Asian operations which was reported by the Times.

The Asian grocery business, comprised of operations in Thailand and Malaysia, could be worth up to $9 billion, the Times said.

In a statement, the retailer said it had had received “inbound interest”, but did not name the potential buyer or buyers. Tesco Lotus employs about 60,000 people.

The business boasted revenues of £4.9 million in the year ending in February – making a profit of £286m – about a fifth of Tesco’s total global profits.

Clive Black, an analyst at Shore Capital, said the Asian operation was a “trophy asset”, and was likely to achieve a knock-out price.

A valuation of £6.5 billion to £7.2 billion seemed “fair”, according to Bruno Monteyne, analyst at Bernstein.

If a sale does go ahead it would mean the company would be left with stores in the UK and Ireland, and an unprofitable division in central Europe. That unit covers the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia.

Tesco has been shifting its focus as part of a restructuring plan launched around five years ago.

This change was sparked by an accounting scandal and stiff overseas competition. The firm has lost several businesses across the world in recent times, and another may be heading that way.

It will be interesting to see how Tesco respond to this potential takeover, however shareholders will be pleased as reflected in this morning’s stock price movement.

The firm said in a statement: “Tesco confirms that, following inbound interest, it has commenced a review of the strategic options for its businesses in Thailand and Malaysia, including an evaluation of a possible sale of these businesses.”

It added: “The evaluation of strategic options is at an early stage, no decisions concerning the future of Tesco Thailand or Malaysia have been taken, and there can be no assurance that any transaction will be concluded.”

Berkeley Group Holdings PLC (LON: BKG) have seen their shares in green, despite a poor update to shareholders on Friday morning.

The Berkeley Group Holdings plc is a British property developer based in Cobham, Surrey.

Shares of Berkeley Group trade at 4,560p (+0.24%). 6/12/19 10:26BST.

In September, the housing market saw a bruising from external shocks including Brexit complications. This led to Berkeley having to reassure shareholders about their trading figures ahead of their AGM.

Berkeley announced a dividend of 20.08 pence per share, to be paid on 13 September 2019; the remainder of the £139.2 million return for the six months ending 30 September 2019 has been ‘satisfied’ through share buy-backs.

Today, the FTSE100 listed firm saw a slump in first half pretax profits, as Brexit continued to weigh upon the UK Housing market.

A survey from mortgage lender Nationwide showed last week that home prices rose more than expected in November, suggesting this month’s national election was not putting further pressure on the market which remains sluggish, according to Reuters.

Berkeley sources three quarters of its revenue from London, set a pretax profit aim of £3.3 billion over the six years to 2025.

The firm expected profits to be within the £500 million and £700 million guidance in any one year.

The company, which operates primarily in London, Birmingham and the South of England, said pretax profit fell 31% to 276.7 million pounds ($355.01 million) for the six months ended Oct. 31.

The company delivered 1,389 homes during the period, down from 2,027 last year, while average selling price decreased 13% to 644,000 pounds.

Brexit has continued to cast a gloomy shroud over the UK Housing market and UK business more generally.

Yesterday, MJ Gleeson saw their shares in red despite a confident outlook to shareholders.

The firm said it expects to deliver annual results in line with forecasts backed up by a strong performance by its Home unit, however this did not seem to be enough to spark appetite.

The struggling nature of the UK homebuilding industry is one that has been seen for many firms, however competitors do seem to be making ground.

FTSE250 listed Homeserve saw their shares rally in November. The firm saw a 2% rise in pretax from £19.3 million to £19.7 million, which caught shareholders attention.

Associated British Foods plc (LON: ABF) have seen their shares jump on Friday morning after the firm gave strong expectations in the update.

Associated British Foods plc is a British multinational food processing and retailing company whose headquarters are in London.

Its ingredients division is the world’s second-largest producer of both sugar and baker’s yeast and a major producer of other ingredients including emulsifiers, enzymes and lactose.

The firm has seen a positive few weeks of trading. At the start of November, shares were driven 5.62% by a confident owner outlook.

AB Foods also mentioned the performance of Primark as a main contributor to good results, as overall sales at Primark came in at £7.79 billion – a 4.2% year-on-year uptick at actual exchange rates.

Shares of AB Foods jumped 0.88% to 2,518p. 6/12/19 10:09BST.

Today, the firm updated shareholders by saying that the company will benefit “materially” from the increase in sugar prices and further cost reduction in its current financial year.

Speaking at the company’s annual general meeting, Chair Michael McLintok said the company expects another year of strong profit and margin growth in grocery, with Twinings Ovaltine drink in particular benefiting from a more efficient tea supply chain.

McLintock said fast fashion retailer Primark has a strong pipeline of new sites, with margin to be reduced by “only a small” amount year-on-year, hurt by a weaker pound for purchases being largely offset by lower costs in both the cost of goods and overheads.

“Our businesses have completed all practical preparations for Brexit and contingency plans are in place should our businesses experience some disruption at the time of exit,” McLintock said.

Shareholders will be pleased that the outlook reiterated in the company’s recent annual report has been sustained.

AB Foods will be pleased with the figures that they have generated over the last few weeks, considering the state of the current retail supermarket industry.

Sainsbury’s (LON: SBRY) saw their profits take a bruising at the start of November. said that, for the 28 weeks to 21 September,

The FTSE100 listed firm said underlying profit before tax declined by 15% to £238 million, compared to the £279 million figure recorded for the same period the year prior.

Additionally, rival Marks and Spencer saw their profits plunge last month, as the firm saw a 5.5% decline in clothing sales and the firm announces mass store closures.

AB Foods should remain optimistic, as the insurgence of rival brands such as Aldi and Lidl have put the big 4 up to a stern test.

Shareholders will be confident from the update given today, as spirits remain high entering the busy festive period.