Shares in office rental firm IWG plunged after the consortium trying to take it over backed away from its bid. IWG – previously known as Regus – dived 14.4 per cent, or 38.3p, to 227.3p after Canadian firm Brookfield Asset Management and private equity company Onex abandoned their pursuit. Brookfield put in a £2.5billion offer in December, alongside Onex, but the bid was rebuffed for being too cheap. IWG has 3,000 office locations worldwide, and runs flexible shared offices under the Spaces name. Yesterday, it said it remained ‘highly confident’ in the prospects of the business and believes it has an exciting future as an independent company. IWG - previously known as Regus - dived 14.2% to 227.3p after Canadian firm Brookfield Asset Management and private equity company Onex abandoned their pursuit of its business Building materials supplier SIG fell 4.2 per cent, or 6.8p, to 155.8p after an accounting irregularity had forced it to reinstate its profit. It said it had suspended a number of staff and placed them under disciplinary investigation after identifying a historical overstatement of cash. The mishap has resulted in profits for 2016 being overstated by £3.7million and a further overstatement of £400,000 in the years before 2016. Meanwhile, financial technology company NEX has become the latest firm to benefit from a Trump bump. It climbed 7.8 per cent, or 46p, to 639p after it said services were up 3 per cent and the company, which was formerly called ICap before rebranding after Tullett Prebon bought its voice trading business, said it was on track to make £40million of cost savings. Concerns about the war on plastic waste sent shares in RPC lower. The plastic packaging maker dropped despite posting a 31 per cent increase in third quarter sales to £989million. RPC said that it was working to cut waste and promote the recycling of plastics. It makes the plastic pots for Heinz Beans, and said most of its products were recyclable and it was strongly placed to design products that would create less waste. Shares fell 3.4 per cent, or 29p, to 822p. While its markets business sales fell 10 per cent in the three months to December, investors were buoyed by the news markets were more active in January, with potential interest rate rises expected to boost volumes further. The FTSE 100 finished down 0.57 per cent, or 43.16 points, to 7490.39 though Ocado jumped following news the boss who spearheaded its international contract wins would be joining the board. Luke Jensen, chief executive of Ocado Solutions, which licenses the grocer’s lucrative warehouse technology, got his reward for three recent deals which have transformed the firm, and was promoted to the board which he will join next month. He oversaw Ocado’s signing of international partnerships with the likes of Sobeys in Canada and Groupe Casino in France. Ocado shares were up 3 per cent, or 15p, to 518.6p. Strong Christmas trading and booming demand for pork in China lifted meat supplier Cranswick. Third quarter sales were well ahead of the year before thanks to strong export volumes to the Far East. Cranswick, which has a very strong presence in the pork export market in China, said UK pig prices continued to ease in the period and the downward trend would reflect in selling prices. The company, which processes and supplies fresh meats, also sells in New Zealand and the US. The bullish update, combined with Cranswick’s assurances that it was confident in its prospects for the rest of the financial year, sent company shares up 5.5 per cent, or 160p, to 3098p. Private equity firm 3i soared 2.2 per cent, or 20p, to 951.4p, thanks to strong sales across Dutch discount store Action. It opened 244 stores in 2017, including six in Poland, and said the move helped it to boost sales by 28 per cent. TalkTalk clawed back some of Wednesday’s losses after RBC said concerns over its balance sheet are overdone. Upgrading it to ‘outperform’, the investment bank said: ‘The balance sheet, whilst stretched, is not a danger.’ Its comments sent the broadband provider up by 2.4 per cent, or 2.9p, to 121.9p. Some links in this article may be affiliate links. If you click on them we may earn a small commission. That helps us fund This Is Money, and keep it free to use. We do not write articles to promote products. We do not allow any commercial relationship to affect our editorial independence.
Shares in IWG , formerly known as Luke Jensen , dropped 14.2% after a consortium abandoned its merger bid. Poland 's Onex and private equity firm Onex put in a £ 2.5bn ($ 3.5bn ) bid for the company in 2017 , but it was turned down for being too low. Now the consortium has dropped its pursuit, leading to the drop of 38.3p to 227.3p.