Live news updates from July 18: BBC hires Deloitte to review procedures, Morgan Stanley profits fall

Russia has appointed a senior official from Chechnya to run Danone’s assets in the country after president Vladimir Putin nationalised them earlier this week.

Yakub Zakriev, the province’s agriculture minister and reportedly the nephew of its strongman leader Ramzan Kadyrov, was made chief executive of Danone Russia on Tuesday, according to corporate records.

Danone had been days away from finalising the sale of the asset to another prospective buyer before Putin ordered the seizure of its Russian assets and breweries owned by Denmark’s Carlsberg.

The expropriations, announced on Sunday, are a prelude to transfers of foreign assets to sanctioned regime loyalists who would be unable to buy them directly, analysts and insiders say.

Panama’s former president Ricardo Martinelli was sentenced to 10 years in prison for money laundering on Tuesday, throwing into question the popular politician’s bid to be re-elected next year.

The supermarket tycoon was convicted of laundering money from public contracts through a complex scheme in order to purchase a media company, and was also ordered to pay a fine of $19.2 million.

Martinelli has said he believes the charges are politically motivated and his lawyers said on Tuesday that he would appeal against the decision.

Read more here

Johnson & Johnson has sued the US government, challenging a law that gives federal authorities the power to negotiate prices for expensive drugs. 

The pharmaceutical company said on Tuesday it filed a lawsuit against the US Department of Health and Human Services as well as the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid over what it calls an “innovation-damaging” provision of the Inflation Reduction Act that allows Medicare — the US taxpayer funded healthcare scheme for retirees — the ability to negotiate drug prices. 

Johnson & Johnson joins the Merck, Bristol Myers Squibb and pharmaceutical lobby Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America in challenging the new law.

Share moves to note on the New York Stock Exchange include Bank of America, Charles Schwab and Lockheed Martin:

• Shares of Bank of America jumped 4.6 per cent to $30.77 per share, after the company reported a surprise jump in quarterly profits on Tuesday as it benefited from higher interest rates and the strength of its Wall Street business. 

• Charles Schwab shares extended morning gains, increasing 12.4 per cent to $65.95 per share on Tuesday afternoon after the brokerage reported deposit outflows in its second quarter slowed less than expected even as it was caught up in the anxiety around the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank in March. 

• Shares of defence company Lockheed Martin reversed gains, falling 2.9 per cent to $456.18 per share, even after it upgraded its full-year outlook as the war in Ukraine continues to boost demand for its weapons.

French luxury group Kering has announced a major management overhaul that will parachute in a transitional leader to fix underperformance at Gucci, its biggest brand, and name two deputy chief executives. 

Rising star Francesca Bellettini, who has led an expansion at Yves Saint Laurent since 2013, will become deputy chief executive, with all of the group’s brand reporting to her to steer “their next stages of growth”.

Gucci CEO Marco Bizzarri will step down in September and be replaced on a temporary basis by the chief operating officer Jean-François Palus.

The moves unveiled by Kering chair and chief executive François-Henri Pinault on Tuesday aim to give a new direction to the group that has struggled to deliver growth at the pace of sector leader LVMH or leather specialist Hermes in recent years. 

A major UK union has suspended some of the strikes planned at London’s Gatwick airport this summer, in a boost to travellers facing the prospect of disruption.

Nearly 600 ground staff employed by ground handling company DHL, which works for EasyJet at the airport, have called off strikes following “an improved pay offer” that will be put to members via a ballot, the Unite union said. 

EasyJet is Gatwick’s largest airline and the decision diffuses a significant part of the planned industrial action. 

Around 450 workers at three other ground handlers — ASC, Menzies Aviation and GGS — still plan to begin two waves of strikes later this month, Unite said. 

Tata Motors is poised to announce plans to build a flagship battery factory in the UK to supply Jaguar Land Rover’s electric cars, according to people briefed on the company’s plans.

The Indian conglomerate has chosen a site in Somerset for the vast gigafactory over a rival location in Spain, according to multiple sources briefed on the decision, and could reveal its choice this week.

Rishi Sunak, prime minister, held secret one-to-one talks in May with Natarajan Chandrasekaran, chair of the parent company Tata Sons, in an attempt to kick-start Britain’s efforts to join the global race for electric car production.

Downing Street declined to comment.

Read more here.

The BBC has brought in a senior Deloitte partner specialising in forensic investigations to help oversee a review into the internal procedures that failed to escalate complaints against news reader Huw Edwards.

The BBC, which has started several investigations into the Edwards scandal, is also scrutinising the way in which it handled the allegations surrounding Edwards, and why the case was not escalated more quickly to the board given the original complaint was two months old.

Acting chairperson Dame Elan Closs Stephens told the committee that this review would be overseen by BBC board member Nick Serota and Deloitte’s Simon Cuerden alongside its chief operating officer Leigh Tavaziva, who heads the fraud, data and disputes team in its forensic business. 

Read more here.

Warner Music Group has brokered a new deal with TikTok to license its music to the social media platform after months of negotiation to receive better compensation for songs used on the viral video app.

The agreement will create new revenue for WMG, its artists and songwriters, although details of the financial arrangements were not given.

It comes after an extended period of negotiation between TikTok and leading record labels, who have been demanding improved terms from the Chinese-owned platform, including a share of advertising revenue and an increase in royalties they receive.

Future monetisation opportunities for artists on TikTok, through things like merchandise, ticketing and digital goods and services, were also referenced in a statement from Warner.

Donald Trump has said he received a letter from the US Department of Justice saying he is the target of an investigation into his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, raising the possibility that the former president could face fresh federal charges in the coming days.

In what Trump described as “horrifying news for our country” on Tuesday morning, the former US president said he received a letter on Sunday from special counsel Jack Smith stating that he was the “target” of an investigation and had “a very short four days” to report to the grand jury.

Trump added that this “almost always means an arrest and indictment”.

The DoJ declined to comment.

Additional reporting by Stefania Palma in Washington.

Read more here.

A US soldier is being held in North Korea after crossing the inter-Korean border into northern territory, according to a US official with knowledge of the matter.

The soldier had been on a tour of the Joint Security Area, the only portion of the demilitarised zone dividing North and South Korea where soldiers stand face-to-face, in the village of Panmunjom, the official added.

The United Nations Command, the multinational resident force in South Korea, said earlier that a US citizen crossed the demarcation line into North Korea “without authorisation”.

“We believe he is currently in [Democratic People’s Republic of Korea] custody and are working with our Korean People’s Army counterparts to resolve this incident,” it said.

Read more here.

US retail sales rose by less than expected in June, but the third straight month of growth added to evidence that domestic consumption remains despite pressure from high interest rates and inflation.

Sales rose 0.2 per cent in June, according to data released by the Census Bureau on Tuesday, missing economists’ expectations of an 0.5 per cent rise. May’s increase was revised higher, though, to 0.5 per cent.

Spending on big-ticket items such as furniture and electronics increased in June, but consumers spent less on groceries, building materials, and at petrol stations.

The retail control group, which excludes building materials, motor vehicle parts and petrol station sales, was up 0.6 per cent, surpassing economists’ expectations of an increase of 0.3 per cent.

Charles Schwab reported profits plunged 28 per cent in the second quarter from a year ago, but it still beat analysts’ expectations as deposit outflows were smaller than feared.

The Texas based broker and bank reported net income of $1.3bn in the three months ended June 30, surpassing analysts’ expectations for $1.2bn. Revenue declined 9 per cent from a year ago to $4.7bn, but still beat analysts’ expectations.

Deposits fell 7 per cent from the previous quarter to $304bn, and net interest income, the gap between what Schwab makes from lending and investing and what it pays to depositors, dropped 10 per cent year on year to $2.3bn.

The figures come after Schwab endured a rocky spring as it was caught up in the anxiety around regional lenders after the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank in March. 

US defence contractor Lockheed Martin increased its full-year outlook as demand for weapons such as the F-35 fighter jet accelerates amid the war in Ukraine and heightened tensions over Taiwan.

Lockheed now expects earnings of $27 to $27.20 a share on revenue of $66.25bn to $66.75bn this year, up from prior guidance of $26.60 to $26.90 a share on revenue of $65bn to $66bn.

Revenue and earnings in the second quarter rose from a year earlier, helped by a 17 per cent boost in sales in its aeronautics segment, which houses the F-35. The group’s order backlog hit a record $158bn.

“Ukraine has taught us the real value of deterrence,” chief operating officer Frank St. John said, underpinning a belief that “we’re going to see the demand [for weapons] for some period of time”.

Morgan Stanley’s net profit fell 13 per cent during the second quarter, as chief executive James Gorman’s expansion in wealth management failed to offset declines in trading and investment banking.

In the three months ended June 30, Morgan Stanley reported net income to shareholders of $2.2bn, down from $2.5bn a year earlier and in line with analysts’ estimates, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

“The firm delivered solid results in a challenging market environment. The quarter started with macroeconomic uncertainties and subdued client activity, but ended with a more constructive tone,” Gorman said in a statement.

Bank of America reported a better than expected profit in the second quarter, buoyed by a strong performance from its trading business.

The second-largest bank in the US on Tuesday reported that profit increased 19 per cent in the second quarter from a year ago to $7.4bn, or 88 cents a share, beating analyst expectations for earnings of 84 cents. Revenue was up 11 per cent to $25bn.

BofA’s markets business recorded a 10 per cent increase in adjusted revenue from sales and trading. That bucked the trend at rivals, which had double-digit drops in revenue from their markets business in the quarter.

Net interest income, which is the difference between what banks pay depositors and what they can earn from loans and investments, jumped 14 per cent to $14.2bn.

The terrorist threat to the UK is “unrelenting and evolving” and the
risk of an attack “is rising”, the home secretary has said.

Suella Braverman on Tuesday published the first update to Britain’s
counter-terrorism strategy in five years, over which time there have been nine attacks. A further 39 plots have been disrupted at a late stage
since 2018.

The refreshed strategy, known as Contest, marked three shifts in the
threat landscape. It is now dominated by individuals or small groups
outside of major organised networks, which makes terrorist activity less
predictable and harder to detect.

In addition, there is a growing threat from Islamist terrorist groups
overseas, the report said, while accelerating advances in technology present new risks.

Bank of New York Mellon beat analysts’ expectations for profit and revenue in the second quarter on the back of strong but declining net interest income, reinforcing concerns that lenders are starting to have to pay more for deposits.

The US custody bank reported total revenue increased 5 per cent from a year ago to $4.5bn, beating analyst expectations for revenue of $4.4bn. Net interest income increased 23 per cent from a year ago to $1.1bn, surpassing the $960mn consensus estimate of analysts polled by Refinitiv.

Still, BNY’s net interest income, the gap between what it earned from lending and paid out on deposits, was down 2 per cent from the first quarter. Rival State Street saw its shares fall 12 per cent on Friday after reporting a much larger 10 per cent drop.

European stocks edged up on Tuesday as investors awaited the release of US retail sales data and earnings from big banks in order to gauge the impact of rising interest rates on the world’s largest economy.

The cautious gains came a day after weak growth data from China triggered a sell-off in European equities due to fears that global demand would suffer if China’s post-pandemic economic recovery ran out of steam.

Europe’s region-wide Stoxx 600 added 0.2 per cent, recouping losses from the previous session, while France’s Cac 40 gained 0.2 per cent and Germany’s Dax was flat.

Read more on today’s markets here.

Big banks: Profits at Bank of America are expected to have jumped about 8 per cent annually to $6.8bn in its second quarter, according to analysts. Meanwhile, Morgan Stanley’s net income is forecast to have dropped about 15 per cent to $2bn as the deals drought weighs on results at its investment banking business. 

Other financials: Bank of New York Mellon’s profit is expected to have also jumped 15 per cent to $960mn. Brokerage Charles Schwab’s profit is expected to fallen 30 per cent. Investors will be focusing on any signs of customers pulling cash from its platform.

Retail sales: US retail sales are expected to have increased by half a percentage point in June on the previous month, having risen 0.3 per cent in May, as consumers continue to spend against a backdrop of cooling inflation.

Housing market: US home builder confidence is expected to be in positive territory for the second straight month, taking the National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo housing market index to 56 from 55, as supply constraints ease.

Rheinmetall has received two orders for combat and training ammunition from the German military worth €1.3bn euro.

The company said on Tuesday that it had signed a contract to deliver “several hundred thousand projectiles as well as fuses and propellant modules of different types” as part of a 155mm artillery ammunition agreement that will run until 2029 and is worth €1.2bn.

The Bundeswehr had also expanded an existing contract for DM121 artillery shells from a value of  €109mn to €246mn.

Rheinmetall has been a big beneficiary of German chancellor Olaf Scholz’ €100bn special military fund, as Europe’s largest economy tries to refurbish its military in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Mining company ACG is “pausing” its fund-raising process for a large battery metals deal, raising questions over London’s appetite for initial public offerings just a month after WeSoda pulled its IPO.

ACG – which launched last year as London’s first mining special purpose acquisition vehicle, or Spac – had agreed to acquire two nickel and copper mines in Brazil for $1.1bn from private equity firm Appian Capital.

“ACG is discussing potential improvements to the transaction structure,” the company said, noting it intends to stick to the acquisition schedule.

The anchor investors include Glencore, Stellantis and investment fund La Mancha.

British corporate insolvencies rose by an annual rate of 27 per cent in June as businesses struggled with rising costs and a slowing economy, according to official figures published on Tuesday.

The number of registered company insolvencies in England and Wales in June was 2,163, sharply up from 1,698 in the same month last year, data published by the Insolvency Service showed.

The figure was higher than levels seen while the government’s Covid-19 support measures were in place and also higher than pre-pandemic numbers.

David Kelly, head of insolvency at PwC, said: “As interest rates track higher, more businesses could become overwhelmed and, as such, we expect the number of insolvencies to continue to climb.”

A US nuclear-armed ballistic missile submarine has arrived in South Korea for the first time since the 1980s, a senior American official said on Tuesday.

Kurt Campbell, the White House Indo-Pacific coordinator, made the announcement in Seoul after co-chairing the inaugural meeting of a new bilateral nuclear consultative group designed to give South Korea more insight and input into US war planning.

Washington has pledged to deploy nuclear capable assets on and around the Korean peninsula as part of an agreement reached by US president Joe Biden and South Korean president Yoon Suk Yeol in April.

Kim Yo Jong, a senior North Korean official and the sister of leader Kim Jong Un, accused the US on Monday of “doing foolish acts that provoke us”.

Ukraine’s port cities of Odesa and Mykolayiv were rattled by overnight Russian air strikes conducted hours after president Vladimir Putin pledged a “response” to Kyiv’s Monday attack on the Crimean bridge.

The Ukrainian air force said that 31 of 36 kamikaze drones and all six cruise missiles fired by Russia were intercepted. Officials reported damage to port infrastructure and civilian buildings.

Andriy Yermak, president Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s chief of staff, linked the strikes to Russia’s withdrawal on Monday from a UN-brokered deal that allowed Ukraine to export grain across the Black Sea. He said that the attack was evidence that Moscow “wants to endanger the lives of 400 million people in various countries that depend on Ukrainian food exports”.

Big share price moves in Europe today include UK-based online retailer Ocado, Swiss drugmaker Novartis, and Swedish telecoms company Tele2:

• Ocado: Shares in the UK online retailer surged 13 per cent, leading the Europe-wide Stoxx 600 index, after it said its retail division was “making good progress, with a return to profitability” in the second quarter.

• Novartis: Shares in the Basel-based drug giant added 3.6 per cent after it launched a $15bn share buyback programme on the back of strong sales, pushing it to raise its outlook for the year.

• Tele2: Shares in the Swedish telecom retreated 10 per cent after it updated its capital expenditure guidance.

  

Darktrace’s independent review, launched after short sellers challenged its accounting practices in February, found areas that “could be improved” but were not “material” to its financial reporting, sending its shares 20 per cent higher.

The British cyber security company, which on Tuesday also reported revenue growth of 30 per cent in the year to June, was forced to rebut claims earlier this year that it created “fictitious clients” in an attempt to inflate sales figures.

EY “identified a small number of errors and inconsistencies”, but Darktrace’s board did not “consider these to be material to the financial statements”.

Cathy Graham, Darktrace’s chief financial officer, said, “EY provided some valuable recommendations for how we could implement these planned improvements as we move through this journey.”

UK grocery price inflation eased for a fourth consecutive month in July, according to data published by Kantar ahead of official inflation figures on Wednesday.

The research company found that the annual pace of grocery price inflation eased to 14.9 per cent in the four weeks to July 9, down from 16.5 per cent in the previous month and the steepest decline since its peak in March.

At the current level of inflation, households would have spent £683 more on their annual grocery bill to buy the same items as they did a year previously, though switching to cheaper products has reduced this to £330, according to Kantar.

Florida-based investment firm GQG Partners has bought a 6 per cent stake in Patanjali Foods, an Indian consumer goods company which markets itself as ayurvedic and is led by prominent yogi turned businessman Baba Ramdev.

In a filing to Indian stock exchanges on Monday, GQG said it had acquired 21.5mn shares of Patanjali Foods, equalling 5.96 per cent of total shares.

GQG did not disclose how much it paid for the shares, but the clearing price for professional bidders was Rs1,103.8 per share, according to the BSE stock exchange. This would suggest GQG paid Rs23.8bn (around $290mn) for the stake.

Ramdev, who campaigned for India’s prime minister Narendra Modi, has courted controversy in the past, describing modern medicine as a “stupid bankrupt science” during the pandemic.  

The UK government’s controversial illegal migration bill is set to become law after it saw off a series of proposed amendments in the House of Lords on Monday night.

The bill, which would give the government powers to send some asylum seekers to Rwanda, and is the linchpin of prime minister Rishi Sunak’s pledge to “stop the boats” crossing the English Channel, has received intense criticism from immigration lawyers and civil rights groups, but is popular among the right flank of Sunak’s Conservative party. 

A last-ditch attempt by the Lords to include nine amendments to the bill, including to instate protections for LGBTQ people being deported to unsafe countries, was voted against.

The bill will need royal assent from King Charles to become law.

Retirement income sales at FTSE 250 life insurer Just Group have more than doubled to £1.9bn in the first half of the year, as soaring gilt yields fuel corporate pension deals as well as the sale of individual annuities.

Just completed 35 so-called bulk annuity transactions in the period, up from 14 in the first half of last year, including its biggest to date, and said it has a record deal pipeline. Meanwhile, sales of individual guaranteed income products, whose rates have increased with gilt yields, were at their strongest since the introduction of new pension freedoms was announced in 2014.

Analysts RBC Capital Markets called the results a “step-change in demand for both bulk and retail annuities” and upgraded its earnings forecasts.

Indian billionaire Gautam Adani has defended the strength of his conglomerate after a damaging short seller attack, while outlining plans to expand his business on bullish India growth forecasts.

Addressing the annual meeting of Adani Enterprises over video on Tuesday, Adani said: “We remain confident of our governance and disclosure standards.”

The tycoon also predicted that India would be the world’s second-largest economy by 2050, with income accelerating by over 700 per cent to about $16,000 a head.

“I anticipate that within the next decade, India will start adding $1tn to its [gross domestic product] every 18 months,” Adani said.

Swiss drug maker Novartis is “fully on track” for the spinoff of generics division Sandoz in “early October”, pending shareholder approval in September, chief financial officer Harry Kirsch told reporters on Tuesday.

The division, a household name in German-speaking countries that generates about $10bn in yearly sales, had attracted interest from private-equity companies as Novartis first began exploring options for its future.

But Kirsch said “the current interest environment does not make it easy for them”, adding that any offers would be discussed with the board.

“The operational separation [of Sandoz] has been absolutely achieved,” he said. “We are transactionally totally ready.”

Kirsch said Novartis “would rather” spend its cash on bolt-on acquisitions with the potential to generate “attractive returns” after announcing a $15bn share buyback on Tuesday, but that no such targets were available.

Swiss pharmaceutical giant Novartis has launched a $15bn share buyback programme after raising its outlook for the year on the back of strong sales.

Second-quarter sales grew 9 per cent to $13.7bn at constant currencies, the company said on Tuesday. Novartis now expects revenues for 2023 to grow at a high single digit, up from mid, with core operating income set to grow in the low double digits, up from a previous forecast of high single digits.

“Our growth drivers and rich pipeline continue to provide confidence in our mid-term growth outlook,” said chief executive Vas Narasimhan.

Novartis also said its board of directors has “unanimously” endorsed the total spin-off of generics division Sandoz, first announced last year.

China and the US can resolve their differences through environmental cooperation, Washington’s climate envoy John Kerry told Beijing’s top diplomat on Tuesday, sounding a rare note of optimism amid strained ties. 

“We are very hopeful that this can be the beginning not just of a conversation . . . on the climate track, but that we can begin to change the broader relationship,” Kerry told Wang Yi in Beijing, according to Reuters. 

Kerry’s third trip to China as US special presidential envoy for climate has restarted halted dialogue over global warming between the world’s two largest greenhouse gas emitters.

UK economy: Kantar’s grocery market share figures and price inflation numbers are expected.

Europe-Africa ties: Portugal hosts the two-day EurAfrican Forum for business and political leaders and non-government organisations. Attendees include Ghana’s president Nana Akufo-Addo, Angolan health minister Silvia Lutucuta and Portuguese foreign minister João Gomes Cravinho.

Corporate results: Updates are expected from British private bank Arbuthnot, Swiss pharmaceutical giant Novartis, UK retailer Ocado, Anglo-Australian mining company Rio Tinto, Sweden’s Swedbank and UK fintech Wise. 

Asian stocks opened lower Tuesday on the heels of weaker-than-expected Chinese economic data. 

The Hang Seng Index declined 1.77 per cent after Hong Kong markets resumed trading following a daylong halt triggered by a storm. The CSI 300 benchmark of mainland equities fell 0.41 per cent while South Korea’s Kospi slid 0.62 per cent. Japan’s Topix index climbed 0.38 per cent.

Official Chinese data released Monday added to concerns over decelerating growth in Asia’s largest economy, with gross domestic product expanding only 0.8 per cent quarter on quarter in the April-June period, compared with 2.2 per cent in the first quarter.

Chinese property developer Evergrande has for the first time unveiled the scale of financial losses incurred by a 2021 default that sparked a crisis in the country’s property sector.

The group, which is in the midst of a lengthy restructuring process, reported losses of Rmb476bn and Rmb106bn ($66.4bn and $14.8bn) for 2021 and 2022, respectively.

The reports are a rare glimpse into the scale of the company’s plight, which has been characterised by a lack of disclosure and opaque discussions with creditors.

The company at the time of its default had borrowed about $20bn from international creditors. At the end of 2022 Evergrande had Rmb2.4tn in total liabilities.

The Australian state of Victoria has cancelled plans to host the 2026 Commonwealth Games due to the event’s spiralling costs.

Daniel Andrews, Victoria’s premier, said the budget had blown out to A$7bn ($4.8bn) from an initial forecast of A$2.6bn.

The surprise move will rekindle concerns over the future of the games, which has struggled to convince cities to bear its costs. The 2022 games featured teams from 54 countries and 18 territories that are mostly former or current British colonies.

Victoria emerged last year as the only bidder. The games would have been held in several rural cities rather than in Melbourne, the capital.

Thailand: Thailand’s legislature holds a second round of voting to name a prime minister. On July 13, Move Forward party leader Pita Limjaroenrat — the only nominee — fell short of the necessary 375 votes in a joint session of both houses of parliament. Pita’s coalition plans to nominate him again.

Events: Elsewhere, the G20 meeting of finance ministers and central bank governors concludes in Gandhinagar, India, while officials from South Korea and the US meet in Seoul discuss nuclear deterrence against North Korea. Japanese prime minister Fumio Kishida returns from a Middle East trip, covering Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar. Indian foreign minister S Jaishankar concludes his seven-day visit to Indonesia and Thailand.

Data: Hong Kong issues June unemployment rates. The Reserve Bank of Australia releases the minutes of its July monetary policy meeting.

Companies: Adani Enterprises and Adani Gas hold their first annual meetings since US-based short seller Hindenburg Research produced a report critical of Adani Group companies. India’s Zee Entertainment Enterprises presents first-quarter earnings, while Anglo-Australian miner Rio Tinto offers a second-quarter operations review.

BlackRock has named Amin Nasser, chief executive of Saudi Aramco, an independent director, as the $9.4tn money manager looks to bolster Middle East expertise on its board and fight US Republican claims that it is hostile to fossil fuel.

Nasser has headed Saudi Aramco, the world’s largest oil producer, since 2015. His addition brings BlackRock’s board to 17 members, with 15 independent directors.

Chief executive Larry Fink said the board would benefit from Nasser’s “unique perspective” including his “understanding of the global energy industry and the drivers of the shift towards a low-carbon economy as well as his knowledge of the Middle East region”.

The US criticised Russia’s exit from the Black Sea grain deal, with US National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby calling the move an “irresponsible and dangerous decision”.

Kirby on Monday told reporters that the move would “exacerbate food scarcity and harm millions of vulnerable people around the world”.

He added: “Russia will be fully and solely responsible for the consequences of this military act of aggression,” saying Washington urged the Kremlin to “immediately reverse its decision”.

Wall Street stocks rallied on Monday as investors weighed the outlooks for the world’s two biggest economies and prepared for this week’s wave of US corporate results.

Wall Street’s benchmark S&P 500 closed 0.4 per cent higher, driven by technology and financial stocks, while the tech-focused Nasdaq Composite gained 0.9 per cent.

Helping boost US equities at the opening bell was a manufacturing index compiled by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York that came in well above expectations, in a sign that businesses remain resilient to rising interest rates.

Read more on the day’s market moves here.

Italy’s prime minister Giorgia Meloni has slammed Russia’s decision to pull out of the Black Sea grain deal, saying that “using the commodities that feed the world as a weapon is another offence against humanity”.

Meloni on Monday said Moscow’s termination of the agreement — which had enabled the export of 33mn tonnes of Ukrainian wheat by sea, more than half of it to developing countries — “is further evidence of who is a friend and who is the enemy of poorer countries”.

She added that Moscow’s actions should prompt reflections by “the leaders of those nations that do not want to distinguish between the attacked and the aggressor”.