Trending tickers: Intel, Rightmove, HSBC, Commerzbank and Wizz Air

Vicky McKeever

Chipmaker Intel closed Friday's session more than 3% higher, following reports that rival Qualcomm (QCOM) had approached the company about a possible takeover.

“This would be the biggest deal in the history of the semiconductor industry, ever,” Futurum Group chief market strategist Cory Johnson told Yahoo Finance.

He said that while Intel was once the largest semiconductor company in the world, that was no longer the case and that the company was "still very much wedded to selling chips into PCs because their business is selling chips into the data center has just not worked out."

"They've missed so many product cycles with Nvidia (NVDA) cleaning their clocks in the data center, and that shows no sign of any immediate change," Johnson added.

In addition, Bloomberg reported on Sunday that Apollo Global Management — the parent company of Yahoo — has offered to invest as much as $5bn (£3.8bn) in Intel.

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Intel has faced challenges this year, having announced in August that it planned to layoff 15,000 employees. The chipmaker also missed second-quarter estimates on sales, gross profit margins and earnings, citing challenging market conditions and higher-than-expected costs to increase production of its AI chips.

However, shares ticked higher last week, after Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger announced in a memo to staff that it had agreed a deal to make custom chips for Amazon's (AMZN) web services business.

Rupert Murdoch-backed property firm REA Group (REA.AX) has made a third offer to buy UK housing portal Rightmove, upping its bid to £6.1bn.

In a statement on the London Stock Exchange on Monday, Rightmove said its board would "carefully consider" this increased offer.

Rightmove chair Andrew Fisher said: "Based on the implied value and structure of REA's first and second indicative non-binding proposals, we considered these proposals to be uncertain, highly opportunistic and unattractive. Accordingly, the Board unanimously rejected them."

He said the company's board would "respond to the most recent proposal in due course."

Owen Wilson, CEO of REA, said in a statement on the Australian Securities Exchange that the company's increased offer "provides a combination of immediate value certainty in cash and at the same time gives Rightmove shareholders an increasing opportunity in core digital property and adjacencies where we have much expertise."

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"We are genuinely disappointed at the lack of engagement by Rightmove's board and we strongly encourage the Rightmove board to engage," he added.

Rightmove shares were up nearly 3% on Monday morning, while REA closed its session on the Australian market nearly 3% lower.

Susannah Streeter, head of money and markets at Hargreaves Lansdown, said: "While this will certainly be very encouraging for some [Rightmove] investors, who had seen the value of their holdings plummet from highs reached in January 2022, there is likely to be a push among others to hold out for an even better deal."

French lender BNP Paribas (BNP.PA) announced on Monday that it had signed an agreement to buy HSBC's private banking arm in Germany.

BNP said it expected this deal to close during the second quarter of 2025 and that it would bring the bank's assets under management to more than €40bn (£33.4m).

HSBC shares were up more than 1% on Monday morning, while BNP Paribas was down nearly 3%.

Meanwhile, the Financial Times reported on Sunday that HSBC's exposure to defaulted commercial property loans in Hong Kong had risen by nearly six times in the first half of this year to more than $3.2bn.

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The report highlighted how the downturn in commercial property in Hong Kong was starting to impact banks.

A spokesperson for HSBC had not replied to Yahoo Finance UK's request for a response at the time of writing.

The German government announced on Friday it would keep its 12% stake in the bank. Germany's Finance Agency said the government would not sell any more shares in Commerzbank "for the time being".

"Commerzbank is a stable and profitable institute. The bank’s strategy is geared towards independence. The Federal government will accompany this until further notice by maintaining its shareholding," it said.

Reuters reported that the move would likely keep a takeover by UniCredit (UCG.MI) on hold. It came after the Italian lender said earlier this month that it had increased its share in Commerzbank to 9% and was looking to "explore value creating opportunities for all stakeholders in both banks."

Shares in Commerzbank were trading nearly 5% lower on Monday morning, while UniCredit was down close to 2%.

Shares in London-listed budget airline Wizz Air dipped more than 1% on Monday morning, after Bloomberg reported that the stock was being targeted by short sellers.

Dhares out on loan, which acts a gauge of short-selling interest, accounted for 13% of Wizz Air's stock available for trading, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence data.

By comparison, that stood at just 1% for rival airlines EasyJet (EZJ.L) and Ryanair RYA.IR (RYA.IR).

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Shares in Wizz Air are down 42% year-to-date, with the airline having warned on profits in August.

Sathish Sivakumar, an analyst at Citigroup, told Bloomberg: “There’s a lot of uncertainty about Wizz’s ability to meet full-year guidance."

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