BT Group CEO Philip Jansen will step down from his role within the next 12 months. BT said they have already begun the succession process.

Jansen has overseen the mammoth task of connecting UK homes to Fibre but growth at a group level has stalled under his tenure.

“Philip Jansen had a massive list of problems to fix the second he walked in the door as the new boss of BT in February 2019,” said Russ Mould, investment director at AJ Bell.

“His decisions were logical: cut more of the fat from the business, sharpen the focus on providing faster broadband to households across the country and find alternatives for non-core operations such as putting the sports broadcasting arm into a joint venture.

“Sadly, Jansen is not going to be remembered for being the person who breathed life back into BT. It’s still the slow, creaking juggernaut today that it was before he joined. Earnings are forecast to go into reverse this financial year and show minimal progress over the following two years.

“Shareholders have suffered big time: more than £10 billion has been wiped off the value of the business under Jansen’s leadership, and BT is now nearly one-quarter owned by a French billionaire who has taken advantage of the weak share price to build a strategic stake.”

Helium One shares surged in early trade on Monday after releasing an update on drilling activities at their Tanzanian Helium assets.

Last week, Helium One said they were becoming frustrated with the lack of action taken by SOFORI after signing a letter of intent to provide a rig to enable drilling to start in Q3 2023. At the time, Helium One said they were exploring other avenues to ensure spudding of the drill holes would commence on schedule.

On Monday, Helium One announced they had acquired their own rig and now had full control over the drilling programme and were no longer reliant on third parties.

“I am pleased to note the above significant progress made with our efforts to ensure we drill our exciting Tai Prospect in Rukwa with a recently upgraded P50 Helium resource of 2.8 Bcf,” said Ian Stalker, Chairman, Helium One.

“This is indeed a milestone event for the Company and opens up a range of ancillary options for the Company as well as, most importantly, securing the control of our own drilling programme and any future appraisal and further exploration activities.”

Helium One has acquired an Epiroc Predator 220 drilling rig capable of drilling to depths in excess of 2,000 metres and signed a separate contract with Baker Hughes for wireline, cementing and fluids services.

Helium One shares were 49% higher at 7.6p at the time of writing.

On Friday, investors were issued a mixed US jobs report in which the headline increase in US jobs missed expectations, and the unemployment rate fell.

The US economy added 209,000 jobs in the month of June compared to an economist consensus of 230,000. The unemployment rate fell to 3.6%, as expected.

The immediate market reaction saw global equities jump and bond yields fall. These moves quickly faded, and US equity futures reversed gains – the cash market started Friday’s session in the red. The S&P 500 was down 0.1% at the time of writing.

The FTSE 100 was underperforming other major European equity indices on Friday, with losses of 0.3% compared to a 0.4% gain in the German DAX.

Interest rate outlook

Today’s jobs report had been highly anticipated as markets clamour for hints of the next move in US interest rates. A softening in the US labour market would warrant a slowdown in rate hikes, whereas continued strength gives the Federal Reserve little choice but to hike rates again to tame inflation and wage growth.

Ryan Brandham, Head of Global Capital Markets, North America at Validus Risk Management, feels that today’s Non-Farm Payrolls are unlikely to stop the Federal Reserve from hiking rates at July’s meeting.

“There is some slight weakness starting to appear in the US labour markets, which could see the USD weaken a touch today and rate hike pricing moderate slightly, but it doesn’t feel like this number alone is enough to derail at hike at the FOMC meeting in July,” Brandham said.

FTSE 100 movers

The FTSE 100 was fairly split between rising and falling stocks on Friday, with 54 of the 100 constituents trading negatively at the time of writing.

The index fell as heavy-weight pharmaceutical and consumer companies AstraZeneca, GSK and Unilever dipped. Eight of the top ten FTSE 100 companies by market cap were down, and just two traded positively.

Ocado was the top riser after Exane BNP raised their price target to 580p and Bernstein cut their price target to 1,350p. Exane BNP has a neutral rating, and Bernstein is overweight Ocado.

Alba Mineral Resources shares continued to decline on Friday and dropped beneath yesterday’s placing price.

Yesterday, Alba raised £750,000 by means of a placing at 0.125p. Alba Mineral Resources shares were trading at 0.1175p at the time of writing on Friday.

The company said the funds would be used for continued exploration of the Clogau St David’s Gold Mine in Wales. Earlier this month, Alba announced they had received ecological permits to continue dewatering works at the project and already had a technical team on site conducting preparation work.

Alba Mineral Resources shares have lost 28% of their value over the past year.