Trending tickers: Rightmove, Alibaba, Infosys and New World Development

Vicky McKeever

Shares in the UK's largest online property portal Rightmove have surged after Australian real estate website REA Group said it was considering buying the British firm.

Rightmove's shares were up 24% on Monday morning, taking its market value up to £5.42bn ($7.1bn). Meanwhile, shares in REA Group (RPGRY) dipped 5%.

REA, which is majority-owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp, is Australia's largest property website. The firm said in a statement on Monday that it saw "clear similarities" between the two businesses and believed that an enlarged group would represent a "highly attractive investment opportunity" for shareholders.

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Richard Hunter, head of markets at Interactive Investor, said that the UK had become "something of a hunting ground" for mergers and acquisitions, given cheap valuations on historical basis and compared to many other developed markets.

Chinese e-commerce company Alibaba was down 2% on Monday morning, easing back after rising on Friday on the back of news that it had completed a three-year regulatory process.

China's State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR) said Alibaba had completed three years of "rectification," after having fined the business a record $2.75bn in 2021 for monopolistic practices.

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The market regulator said it would continue to "guide" Alibaba to "regulate its operations and improve its compliance and quality," according to Reuters.

Alibaba shares have continued to slide since China published draft anti-monopoly rules for internet platforms back in 2020.

India's Infosys announced an expansion of its collaboration with chip giant Nvidia (NVDA) for telecommunications solutions powered by artificial intelligence (AI) last week.

Anand Swaminathan, executive vice president and global industry leader, communications, media and technology at Infosys, said that through the collaboration, the company was "poised to unlock cutting-edge enterprise AI capabilities, helping global organizations improve business efficiency."

More broadly, India's Nifty 50 (^NSEI) index climbed for the twelfth consecutive session on Friday, its longest ever rally, buoyed by hopes of interest rate cuts in the US.

Shares in Hong Kong property developer New World Development dropped 13%, after the company said that it estimated a loss of as much as $2.6bn for the financial year ending in June. This would represent its first annual loss in two decades.

New World Development said on Friday that it expected to report a core operating profit of HK$6.5bn (£635m) and HK$6.9bn, representing a fall of between 18% and 23%.

The company said that the expected drop in core operating profits was "owing to the lack of revenue recognition of major projects completed."

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New World Development said in its update on 2024 performance that in addition to that lack of revenue recognition, its impairment loss on investment and development properties, as well as a loss from the disposal of its shares in NWS Holdings Limited (0659.HK), "together with the continuous interest rate hikes experienced during the year as well as the depreciation of Renminbi, the Group expects to record a loss."

In addition to the difficulties faced by mainland China's property market, Hong Kong is also experiencing a slowdown. Residential prices in Hong Kong have fallen to an eight-year low, according to a Bloomberg report.

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