Premier African Minerals have received a termination notice from Canmax after failure to deliver the required lithium offtake detailed in their offtake agreement.

Under the terms of the agreement, Premier African Minerals are now required to repay the $34.6m offtake prepayment plus interest within a 90-day period.

However, Premier African Minerals claims the agreement is subject to Force Majeure due to problems with their production plant, and their requirement to repay the prepayment is suspended.

“The Company has been advised that this notice of termination has no force or effect. Premier has repeatedly extended an invitation to Canmax to attempt to resolve this situation as set out in the Agreement, and does so again, now, and publicly,” said George Roach, CEO of Premier African Minerals.

Premier African Minerals shares were up 13% at the time of writing on Thursday but are down 53% over the past five trading sessions.

The FTSE 100 was buoyant on Wednesday as investors enjoyed improving sentiment around the US economy. Many economists are shifting their forecast for US growth, and recession predictions are receding.

The FTSE 100 was 0.6% higher at the time of writing on Wednesday after a strong session in US stocks overnight lifted the mood in Europe. US stocks opened lower on Wednesday.

“Upbeat sentiment about signs of resilience for the mighty American economy is over-riding worries about China’s flagging recovery,” said Susannah Streeter, head of money and markets, Hargreaves Lansdown

“Hopes for resilience in the world’s largest economy are off-setting concerns about China’s lacklustre performance. Chinese industrial profits have slid sharply since the start of the year as the recovery has lost steam.”

Investors were also closely watching the Sintra panel of Central Banks, including the Federal Reserve, ECB, and Bank of England, for hints of the next move in monetary policy. The panel was getting underway at the time this article was published.

Lower-than-expected Eurozone inflation data released this week helped support European equities as investors looked forward to slowing rate hikes.

FTSE 100 movers

The FTSE 100 rally was broad on Wednesday, with only 85 of the 100 constituents trading in positive territory.

Sage was the top riser after being placed on JP Morgan’s ‘analyst focus list’ and was raised to overweight from neutral. JP Morgan has a 1,100p price target for Sage Group, which traded at 916p at the time of writing.

Bargain hunters were out in force and picking up shares recently beaten down by macroeconomics.

UK banks NatWest and Barclays were over 1% higher, while Land Securities and Vodafone rebounded from recent lows.

Innovative Eyewear is ramping up its distribution with a new retail partnership with PRIVATO Duty Free.

The agreement will see Innovative Eyewear’s Lucyd smart eyewear displayed across seven airport-based locations in Lucyd’s new display units.

Innovative Eyewear says the displays will act as an always-on salesperson for their ChatGPT-enabled smart eyewear.

“Lucyd Eyewear makes an excellent product for travelers, since it allows you to hear music, audio content and notifications in an open-ear format, while maintaining full awareness. Additionally, the ability to use ChatGPT through Lucyd Eyewear via the Lucyd app provides powerful AI assistance which many travelers need, including real-time translations and the ability to learn about significant points of interest in any city worldwide,” said Harrison Gross, CEO of Innovative Eyewear.

“Any vacation or business trip can be made a bit more convenient and enjoyable with Lucyd Eyewear, and we are pleased to offer it through our new partner PRIVATO at several leading airports.”

Innovative Eyewear recorded a world-first in integrating a voice interface for ChatGPT in smart eyewear.

“We are always seeking to bring our clients the latest innovations in travel goods and luxury retail. Lucyd smart eyewear is an exciting new product and new category of sunglasses that we think our customers will love to use,” said Marco Arilli, Managing Director of PRIVATO Duty Free.”

BT shares have been nothing but a headache for investors over the past five years – a period in which the BT share price is down over 40%.

Yes, there have been trading opportunities where some would have played the 100p-200p range in the BT share price, but this would have been a successful swing trade, not a long-term investment. BT’s time above 200p has been sporadic and brief since 2019

BT does pay a 6% dividend, but the prospect for capital appreciation from current levels is questionable.

In BT’s annual report, the headline message from the CEO was, “Much done, much more to do.” An understatement, to say the least.

Illusive growth

BT has produced little or no top-line growth over the past five years and isn’t offering much in the way of a plan to do so.

The company has undergone a makeover of their Enterprise and Global Customer Facing Units (CFUs) to paper over the cracks. Combining the Enterprise and Global units to form BT Business joins two underperforming units into one new unit that will share costs to achieve higher efficiencies.

This is arguably an evasive manoeuvre likely made to avoid disappointing performance in the coming periods. The combined revenue for the Global and Business units fell in the 2023 full year. There is little prospect for significant top-line growth and the best BT can do is chip away at costs.

BT Business operates in an increasingly competitive landscape and lacks any clear competitive advantage. The same goes for their Consumer business, where adjusted revenues fell from £9,775m in 2022 to £9,680m, although adjusted EBITDA for the segment rose by around 50%.

Openreach is an attractive business with an undeniable MOAT. The fibre rollout has been a capital-intensive undertaking that will reward shareholders in the future.

Unfortunately, its benefits to the group will be muddied by poor performance elsewhere – as was the case in 2023.

BT gave itself a slap on the back for producing adjusted EBITDA growth for the first time in six years in 2023, but profit before tax and operating profit fell.

Lower cash generation

Investors will be concerned that normalised fee cash flow dropped by 5%. For all the changes in strategy and cost-cutting measures, BT is generating lower amounts of cash. If left unchecked, this will hinder further investment and shareholder distributions.

Yesterday, equity analysts at UBS downgraded BT shares to a sell. It’s hard to disagree. 

The FTSE 100 failed to hold onto early gains on Tuesday as a commodities-driven rally faded as the session progressed.

Optimism around additional Chinese stimulus helped the FTSE 100 trade as much as 0.5% higher in early trade. However, the gains proved unsustainable, and the index swung to a 0.25% loss in the afternoon.

Miners Rio Tinto, Anglo American and Glencore received a boost from reports that Chinese authorities were preparing a fresh wave of stimulus to help a spluttering economic recovery. This boost had disappeared by Tuesday afternoon.

“Beijing’s number two, Premier Li Qiang, pointed to higher growth in the second quarter than the first and said the country would bring through policies to boost domestic demand,” said AJ Bell investment director Russ Mould.

“The pace of China’s Covid recovery has disappointed many but probably reflects the different nature of its pandemic experience.

“Households did not benefit from the same levels of support seen in the West and therefore hopes for a wave of ‘revenge spending’ in China were probably always going to be forlorn with an economic rebound likely to be more gradual.”

FTSE 100 movers

Ocado was the FTSE 100’s top riser a day after a fund chaired by former Chancellor Osborne took a 5% stake in the food technology company. Speculation Amazon were lining up a bid for the company would also be providing support for the price.

JD Sports was at the bottom of the FTSE 100 after saying growth had moderated in recent months. The sportswear group has enjoyed very respectable growth rates despite the economic backdrop. It appears JD Sports is not completely immune from cost pressures and shares were down over 5%.

“Terms like ‘softening in trade’ and ‘moderation in growth’ in JD Sports’ latest update go to show that even the most successful retail businesses can go through bad patches,” said Russ Mould.

“The trainers and athleisure seller recently got the market excited that it expects to exceed £1 billion in pre-tax profit this financial year, and it is sticking with that guidance despite pockets of weakness in its business.”

Telecom Plus shares jumped on Tuesday after the multi-utility company released record profits for the year ended 31st March 2023.

Telecom Plus revenue surged to £2,475.m from £967.4m in the year prior as customers flocked to their fixed-price energy tariffs obtainable through a package of energy, broadband and mobile services. Telecom Plus said they were the cheapest option for fixed-price energy tariffs over the period.

Revenue burgeoned as Telecom Plus customer numbers grew 22% to 886,579, and energy prices charged to customers grew.

Implementing loyalty schemes such as their cash back card helped customer retention and provided customers with additional savings.

Andrew Lindsay & Stuart Burnett, Co-CEOs, commented:

“This has been an outstanding year for the company: the fundamental strengths of our business model have reasserted themselves and delivered a strong outcome for all our stakeholders – particularly for our customers who benefitted from the lowest energy prices in the country throughout the year, saving over £30m on their bills.”

The strong top line drove sharp gains in Adjusted pre-tax profit, which rose 55% to £96.2 million.

Telecom Plus will return its surging profits to customers through an 80p full-year dividend, a welcome increase on the 57p paid last year.

Telecom Plus shares were over 10% when writing on Tuesday.