European markets nudge lower as investors assess U.S. jobs data; L’Oreal down 4%

Telecom Italia and French media holding company Vivendi were up 5.3% and 4.2%, respectively after Reuters reported Friday that private equity giant CVC Capital Partners has approached Italian government officials about its potential plan to buy Vivendi’s stake in Italy’s biggest telecoms services provider.

Vivendi holds a 23.7% shareholding in Telecom Italia, and the Italian government has the power to investigate any significant investment in the domestically-important company.

Reuters cited people familiar with the matter in its report. CVC declined to comment to CNBC. Italian government departments have also been approached for comment.

In December, Vivendi spun off divisions including broadcaster Canal+, advertising firm Havas and publisher Louis Hachette Group in a bid to boost the value of each asset.

— Jenni Reid

Turkey’s central bank lifted its inflation forecast for the end of the year from 21% to 24%, while warning that recent consecutive rate cuts will not necessarily continue.

The central bank issued rate cuts in December and January but said it is “not on autopilot,” its Governor Fatih Karahan told press Friday, as reported by Reuters.

“We can pause or change the size of policy rate moves … Rate cuts are made in line with data,” Karahan said.

The year-end outlook is still dramatically lower than Turkey’s current annual inflation, which came in at 42.12% for January, after topping 75% in May last year.

The raised year-end inflation forecast follows a higher-than-expected monthly inflation increase for January to 5.03%, after a hike in the country’s minimum wage.

— Natasha Turak

Shares of French cosmetics giant L’Oreal were down 3.8% at 9:53 a.m. London time, following a weaker-than-expected earnings report that came after Thursday’s closing bell.

The world’s largest beauty brand posted sales of 11.08 billion euros ($11.49 billion) in the three months to December, up 2.5% on a like-for-like basis and just shy of the 11.1 billion euros estimated by analysts in an LSEG poll.

The firm cited weakness in the Chinese beauty market and a slowdown in demand in the U.S.

L’Oreal CEO Nicolas Hieronimus said in an earnings call Friday that he was bullish on the U.S., according to news agency Reuters. However, he reportedly added that he expected challenges to persist in travel retail, while anticipating a “flattish” Chinese market.  

— Karen Gilchrist and Chloe Taylor

Shares of luxury carmaker Porsche were down 3.8% at 9:11 a.m. London time, after updates from Porsche SE — the firm’s holding company — and the carmaker itself.

Porsche AG, the carmaker, said Thursday it anticipated profit margins of 10% to 12% in 2025, below its medium-term target of 17% to 19%, with restructuring costs expected to amount to 800 million euros ($831.6 million).

Porsche has faced various challenges in recent years, including supply shortages, wavering demand in China and launching vehicles in tough economic conditions.

“We see this as [Porsche’s] last shot to prove they can turn around this business before losing more trust of long-term shareholders,” Deutsche Bank analysts said in a note to clients on Friday.

Separately on Thursday, Porsche SE said it expects writedowns on its Porsche holding to fall in the range of 2.5 billion euros to 3.5 billion euros this year. It had previously expected an impairment of 1 billion to 2 billion euros.

— Chloe Taylor

Milan-listed shares of BPER Banca lost 4.73% by 8:48 a.m. London time, shortly after market open, after the lender joined the wave of consolidation attempts engulfing its native Italy with a $4.3 billion euro ($4.47 billion) offer for Banca Popolare di Sondrio (BPSO).

BPSO stock was up 6.85%.

Under the bid terms, BPER said it will issue 29 ordinary shares for every 20 of Lombardy-based BPSO, which it assessed would imply a 6.6% premium over Thursday’s prices.

BPER is aiming to acquire at least 35% plus one share of BPSO, which would make it the largest single shareholder of its domestic peer — above the 19.7% of Italian insurer Unipol, which also holds the largest single stake of BPER at 19.8%.

— Ruxandra Iordache

Spain’s fourth-largest lender Banco Sabadell on Friday posted a quarterly profit beat and increased shareholder returns, as its CEO slammed the odds of a hostile takeover from domestic peer BBVA (Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria).

Amid an all-time high annual contribution from British unit TSB, Sabadell reported fourth-quarter net profit of 532 million euros ($552 million), up 5.7% quarter-on-quarter and beating analyst expectations of near 436 million euros, in a Reuters-cited poll.

Annual net profit jumped 37.1% year-on-year to 1.83 billion euros in 2024, with return on tangible equity — a measure of profitability — hitting 14.9% over the full-year stretch, compared with 11.5% in 2023.  

The bank said it would hike its shareholder returns to 3.3 billion euros, compared with a previous 2.9 billion-euro estimate, and announced a 1 billion-euro share buyback.

It remains steadfastly opposed to last spring’s merger offer from BBVA, which the Spanish government has also questioned on competition grounds, Sabadell CEO César González-Bueno told CNBC Friday.

“We are Spain’s fourth largest bank, but we are key for the SME [small and medium-sized enterprise] business. If we disappeared that competition would suffer. And that is creating this phenomenal execution risk because it is the result of a social reaction to something that Spain does not want. And of course, as I said in the beginning, on top of that, they are not paying the price,” he said on “Squawk Box Europe.”

Expressing doubts that the deal would progress in the absence of an improved offer, he stressed: “With everything that it’s on the table, the answer is a very, very clear ‘No.'”

 — Ruxandra Iordache

Investors have piled into actively managed funds at a much faster pace relative to their passive peers, with their assets under management surpassing $1 trillion for the first time in 2024, data from Morningstar showed.

Here are the top 10 ETFs by AUM as of early February:

The average house price in Britain rose 0.7% month on month in January, lender Halifax said on Friday, bringing it to £299,138 ($372, 013) — a new record high. On an annual basis, average house prices were up 3%, according to Halifax’s House Price Index.  

The January move followed a monthly price decline of 0.2% in December.

Property prices in London rose 2.8% year on year to reach an average £548,288 in January.

— Chloe Taylor

London’s FTSE 100 is expected to open 24 points lower at 8,712 points, according to IG data. The German Dax index is slated to open 17 points lower at 21,896, the data suggests, while the French CAC 40 is expected to shed 22 points to 8,000 at the market open.

— Chloe Taylor