International business briefs: Swiss consumer prices decline in May

MJ Gleeson expects annual profit to miss forecasts

Bengaluru — Britain’s MJ Gleeson said on Tuesday its low-cost house building unit Gleeson Homes will report annual operating profit about 15%-20% below expectations, citing higher build costs, flat selling prices and a failed land disposal deal.

MJ Gleeson — which specialises in affordable housing — operates two divisions, Gleeson Homes and Gleeson Land. The former accounted for 95% of the company’s total revenue in 2024.

“The pace of the housing market recovery has not been sufficient to offset the cumulative impact on Gleeson Homes’ gross margin of a number of headwinds through the year,” the company said in a statement. Reuters

Switzerland inflation returns to negative territory

Zurich — Swiss inflation turned negative in May, marking the first decline in consumer prices for more than four years and adding pressure on the Swiss National Bank (SNB) to cut its interest rate steeply later this month. Consumer prices fell by 0.1% in May compared with a year earlier, according to data from the Federal Statistics Office on Tuesday, the lowest reading since March 2021 when the Swiss economy was hit by the Covid-19 crisis.

An interest rate cut by the SNB at its next meeting on June 19 is seen as a certainty by the market, which gives a 69% probability the central bank will cut rates from 0.25% to 0%.

Markets now give a 31% probability the SNB will cut its key interest rate to minus 0.25%, returning Switzerland to an era of negative interest rates which were in place from late 2014 to 2022. Reuters

Consortium bids for Ireland hotel group Dalata

Bengaluru — A consortium consisting of property owners Pandox and Eiendomsspar have proposed to buy Ireland's largest hotel group Dalata for €1.3bn.

The proposal comprises a cash offer of €6.05 per ordinary share of Dalata, representing a premium of about 5% to the Irish firm’s closing price on Monday.

Eiendomsspar holds about 8.8% of Dalata’s issued ordinary shares, making it the second largest shareholder in the Irish hotel group.

The offer comes after Dalata, launched a strategic review in March to explore options for enhancing shareholder value, including a potential sale. Reuters

Telefonica investigates security breach in Peru

Madrid — Spain’s Telefonica said on Tuesday it was looking into a potential cyberattack after data allegedly belonging to 1-million customers in Peru was released on an internet forum.

“We are investigating an alleged security breach. The sample released by the actor, which comprises 1-million records, seems to correspond to customers in Peru,” a Telefonica spokesperson said.

According to a post on X by HackManac — an account tracking cyberattacks around the world — a group calling itself “Dedale” was offering a database containing information on about 22-million Telefonica customers.

The self-declared hackers have released a sample of 1-million records it said belonged to Telefonica customers in Peru as proof, though the Spanish company has exited the South American country two months ago. Reuters

KKR pulls out of Thames Water investment plan

London — Britain’s Thames Water said US private equity firm KKR had pulled out from a plan to invest billions of pounds into the embattled utility, putting its fight to avoid financial collapse back into focus.

The company, which is Britain’s biggest water supplier with 16-million customers, has been struggling with huge debts, and was banking on KKR investing more than £3bn of new equity to keep it operating.

“KKR has indicated that it will not be in a position to proceed,” Thames Water said in a statement on Tuesday.

Chair Adrian Montague said the development was “disappointing” and that the company would now proceed with discussions with senior creditors, who have put forward their own plan for the company. Reuters

SoftBank helps fund Nomupay’s expansion in

Asia

Stockholm — Irish fintech Nomupay said on Tuesday it had received a $40m investment from an unit of SoftBank Corporation at a valuation of $290m to help it expand in Asian countries such as Japan.

Nomupay started operations in 2021 after buying licences from payments company Wirecard, which collapsed a year earlier in Germany’s biggest post-war fraud scandal.

Nomupay has since raised $120m, with the last round of $37m in January valuing it at $200m.

“We will integrate the Japanese payment methods that are provided by SoftBank, which means the rest of the world can now access Japan, and then we will jointly expand into other markets,” Nomupay CEO Peter Burridge said. Reuters

Exxon-led consortium’s profit in Guyana rockets 

Georgetown — An oil-producing consortium in Guyana comprising ExxonMobil, Hess and CNOOC posted a 64% surge in 2024 profit to $10.4bn, Exxon said on Tuesday, as facility updates allowed sustained output growth. 

Due to fast production expansion and low government royalties and taxes, Guyana has become a profitable operation for the group’s members, which control all oil and gas output in the South American country.

Exxon in January posted total adjusted earnings of $33.46bn in 2024, with $4.7bn coming from Guyana, it said in a report on its operations there. Reuters