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Shares in The Beauty Tech Group (TBTG) climbed 9 per cent this morning after the newly listed LED light mask maker said full-year results will come in ahead of market expectations. 

In its first trading update since joining the London market in early October, the company said it now expects to deliver at least £128mn of revenue and £32mn of adjusted Ebitda this year. That compares with current consensus forecasts of £117mn and £29.7mn, respectively. 

Beauty Tech was valued at around £300mn at IPO but has drifted below £250mn. The group had sales of £101mn in 2024, and adjusted Ebitda of £23mn. This came from sales of masks and other devices across the CurrentBody Skin, ZIIP Beauty and Tria Laser brands. 

“There is no doubt that the successful IPO has added to the growing awareness of both The Beauty Tech Group and the At-Home Beauty Device sector in which we operate,” said chief executive Laurence Newman.

WH Smith (SMWH) chief executive Carl Cowling has resigned with immediate effect after an independent review by accountancy firm Deloitte found that revenue in the travel retailer’s North America business had been overstated since 2023.

Cowling, who had been chief executive since November 2019, said he recognised the “seriousness of this situation”. WH Smith’s UK division chief executive Andrew Harrison will take the reins on an interim basis.

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Ocado’s (OCDO) shares plunged to their lowest levels since 2013 on Tuesday, after US partner Kroger (US:KR) dealt a major blow to the company’s tech licensing business.

Kroger – the US’s largest supermarket chain –  said it would close three warehouses that use Ocado distribution technology in January. The closures in Maryland, Wisconsin and Florida are expected to wipe $50mn off Ocado’s fee revenues for this fiscal year.

The news comes after a strategic review at Kroger found the three distribution centres to be underperforming. The original deal between Ocado and Kroger was first signed in 2018, with ambitions for up to 20 tech-enabled warehouses.

Ocado revealed it will receive $250mn in compensation for the move, while operations will continue at five remaining US sites. 

Kroger confirmed it will take a $2.6bn hit on the closures, demonstrating the heavy capital intensity that automated distribution centres demand. The company is shifting its focus towards its relationship with capital-light grocery delivery firm Instacart (US: CART). 

Analysts at Shore Capital warned that Ocado risks being “marginalised” as the economics of its American order fulfillment centres fail to convince, and raise questions about Ocado’s surviving total addressable market in the US. “How many more punches can it take?” they asked.

The FTSE 100 rose slightly this morning as stock market investors look to the Nvidia earnings report later as the sentiment driver. It could be quiet until that is released after the close tonight. Shares in Frankfurt matched London, although in Paris the Cac is down 0.3 per cent. Yesterday, the pace of selling was steady but not disorderly. The Dow Jones fell over 1 per cent, the Nasdaq Composite slipped 1.2 per cent and the S&P 500 retreated 0.82 per cent. The Vix spiked higher again. 

If Nvidia can beat expectations and maybe offer improved margins that it could calm some nerves. Deeply correlated stocks such as Palantir, TSMC, Super Micro, CoreWeave, Nebius, plus the entire industrial-AI complex are on the hook. Look to Meta as the bellwether after having crossed below its 200-day simple moving average and kept cratering.

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Smiths Group’s (SMIN) board has approved a £1bn buyback following the £1.3bn sale of its Smiths Interconnect business to Molex Electronics Technologies.

The engineering group, which is in the midst of hiving off two of its four main divisions following pressure from activist investors, said the buyback would start once its current £500mn programme of repurchases ends in December. It has already bought back £464mn of shares under this, and anticipates that it will take all of next year to complete the £1bn programme.

The company said its three remaining businesses achieved organic growth of 3.5 per cent in the three months to October and reaffirmed its full-year target of growing revenue by 4-6 per cent, “with continuing margin expansion”.

Smiths Group announced its “value creation plan” in January after activist investors argued that the group was being valued at a discount to the sum of its parts. 

Following the sale of the Interconnect arm, the company is planning to sell or demerge its Smiths Detection business, which makes scanning equipment used in airports and at security checkpoints. 

This will leave it with two core units: John Crane, which sells seals and filtration systems; and Flex-Tek, a maker of components used for heating and moving liquids and gases.

Hill & Smith (HILS) has appointed former Spirax (SPX) chief executive, Nick Anderson, as its next chair. He will replace Alan Giddins, who has spent the past six years as chair but will retire at next year’s annual meeting in May.

The group also described trading for the four months ending in October remained “positive”, with a strong performance in its US Engineered Solutions business offsetting weakness in the UK and India. It remains on track to meet analysts’ expectations of generating an underlying operating profit of £148.5mn for the full year.