Daily market update: Diageo, JD Sports, Airtel Money IPO

Oil’s slow but steady retreat below $100 has been welcomed by investors, helping to give European equity markets a lift.

Positive feedback from a meeting between US and Iranian representatives helped to calm markets, even though Donald Trump made more threats regarding military action.

Oil resuming a downward trend is the market’s way of saying it is slowly starting to believe that energy supplies will flow again, and that there is a potential resolution to the conflict in the Middle East. It’s too early to see any radical changes to interest rate expectations, but investors will be hoping central banks soon have fewer reasons to raise the cost of borrowing by a significant amount.

The FTSE 100 nudged 0.3% higher, led by pharma, tobacco and energy stocks.

Diageo

Dave Lewis is getting the old gang back together again. Hiring former colleagues is a classic move in the business world as leaders bring on people they know they can trust to get the job done.

Lewis has poached Joanne Wilson from WPP to be Diageo’s chief financial officer. They used to work together at Tesco and will have no doubt developed a strong working relationship, with many processes that worked before potentially set to be repeated at Diageo.

Lewis has a lot of difficult decisions to make to get Diageo back on top and needs a trusted numbers person at his side. Wilson’s current role at WPP means she has important experience at a big business that has lost its way – precisely the case with Diageo.

Wilson used to be the finance boss of Tesco’s analytics arm, Dunnhumby, and will know the power of data to not only give valuable insight into customer trends, but also to make a business run more efficiently. Any cost saving that can be achieved could add up in a meaningful way – after all, every little helps.

JD Sports

JD Sports’ woes are not a surprise, as it reported sluggish growth, contracting margins and a tough consumer backdrop in its latest update. The company says it has turned in a ‘resilient’ performance, which is a fair observation given that sales have been flat rather than a big collapse.

While business is tough now, it might not always be this way. JD has its eyes on the future, hence why it has strengthened e-commerce capabilities, reorganised part of its store portfolio, and embraced AI to help capture new ways of using the technology to research and buy goods. Geographic expansion into Mexico via a franchise partnership also shows a forward-thinking mindset.

The challenge for the business now is to ensure that sales don’t majorly go into reverse, and that it continues to give customers a reason to visit its stores and websites. The outlook is uncertain given current inflation pressures and interest rates looking like they could stay higher for longer.

Investors should take solace in the fact JD has not found reason to lower its forward guidance. Maintaining profit and cash flow guidance is a positive sign when a company is in a tricky position like JD, but investors only have so much patience. They will want to see progress sooner rather than later.

Airtel Money IPO

Investors will be rejoicing as the UK stock market is finally getting an IPO that isn’t a tiny natural resources company. Airtel Money is set to float in London, offering investors a chance to buy a slice of one of Africa’s largest fintech platforms.

The company made $1.35 billion revenue and $676 million adjusted earnings in the year to June 2026. It has 53 million monthly active users and is seeing solid growth. The company is going to pay dividends which will help it to appeal to a broad base of investors.

While this sounds exciting, it looks like the IPO isn’t as grand as first rumoured. There was speculation it would raise at least $800 million through the stock listing, but now says it will not raise any new money at all. Nevertheless, the IPO is positive for the reputation of the London market and hopefully is the first in a string of decent-sized listings in the months to come.