The West End Is Creeping Back to Life: The London Rush

(Bloomberg) -- Here's the key business news from London-listed companies this morning:

Shaftesbury Plc: The owner of 16 acres of the West End is seeing more people making their return to the central London district after omicron-related restrictions were eased.

Vacancy levels are heading toward where they were before the pandemic, while rent collection is starting to improve

SSP Group Plc: The company, which operates food and drink outlets in travel hubs, still doesn't expect to return to pre-pandemic levels of trading until 2024.

The omicron variant heavily impacted people's travel plans, leading to sales for the eight weeks to January 30 that were just 57% of 2019 levels

Windward Ltd: The maritime tech company warned its earnings loss will be slightly worse than expectations as wages in the technology sector soar.

The company, which uses big data and AI to create predictive intelligence for the maritime industry, listed on London's AIM exchange at the end of last year

Outside The City

Prime Minister Boris Johnson's Downing Street operation was plunged into further disarray last night after four key aides quit.

Meanwhile, Amazon.com Inc could post the largest single-day gain in value in U.S. stock market history today after it said it would hike the price of its prime subscription. That's a day after Meta Platforms Inc broke the opposite record with a $251 billion plunge in market capitalization.

In Case You Missed It

Bloomberg's exclusive report revealed how DAZN, the so-called “Netflix of Sports,” won then lost its bid for BT Sport. So confident was DAZN in their success, an executive was spotted playing a farming simulation game in a meeting with BT Plc. In the end, BT lost confidence in DAZN's bid, according to people familiar with the matter. And yesterday BT revealed it would pursue a joint venture with rival bidder Discovery Inc.

Looking Ahead

Earnings season continues next week with updates from health care and consumer companies. Oil-giant BP Plc reports on Tuesday, following peer Shell Plc whose results were boosted by high commodity prices. Also on Tuesday, Ocado Group Plc's results might give us an insight into how online grocery shopping demand has held up as omicron measures ease.