STOCKS TO WATCH

ITV has agreed to sell its media and entertainment business to Comcast-owned Sky for up to £1.6bn. Following Comcast's planned separation, Sky and ITV's M&E business are expected to form part of NBCUniversal upon completion of both transactions, ITV said.

EasyJet and Castlelake said they had reached an agreement in principle on a takeover of the budget airline after the private equity group tabled a fifth offer at £6.90 a share.

High-performance computing firm Raspberry Pi has tapped Tim Powell to take over as chief financial officer, succeeding Richard Boult with effect from 16 October. Raspberry Pi said Powell brings over 20 years' leadership experience across public companies. Most recently, he was CFO of Alpha Group, where he managed the company's move from AIM onto the Main Market of the London Stock Exchange and into the FTSE 250 and its subsequent sale to Corpay.

NEWSPAPER ROUND-UP

Half of all affordable housing supply in rural England could be under threat under plans being considered by ministers to relax regulations for private housing developers, according to analysis. The government has proposed ending affordable housing quotas - known as section 106 agreements - for new developments of between 10 and 49 houses in an effort to jumpstart sluggish housebuilding rates. Ministers are due to make a final decision within weeks on whether developers should be allowed to make cash payments to local authorities instead. – Guardian

British holidaymakers watching online videos while they sit on a European beach this summer are likely to be pleasantly surprised: the signal should be better than at home. Mobile coverage in the UK is worse than in any of the 27 EU member countries, and every other member of the G7 group of large economies, according to analysis by consumer group Which? of data from Opensignal. – Guardian

As political turbulence buffets No 10, the expansion plans of one of Britain's biggest manufacturing businesses are at growing risk of being blown off course. Rolls-Royce, the £120bn aerospace giant, fears that Labour's leadership turmoil will ground its £3bn bid to build engines for the best-selling short-haul passenger jets made by Boeing and Airbus. – Telegraph

Tens of thousands of 11-year-olds are on track to become unemployed when they leave education because of failings in the schooling system, a new report warns. On Sunday, the Centre for Social Justice said up to 40,000 pupils currently in Year Six will spend at least one year not in employment, education or training between the ages of 16 and 24. – Telegraph

Companies are being "taxed out of existence", leading to the lowest appetite to spend money on big projects since the end of the Covid-19 crisis, according to one of the UK's largest business lobby groups. Researchers at the British Chambers of Commerce said on Monday that the proportion of businesses that planned to raise investment had dipped to 17% in the past three months, down from 21% in the previous three months. – The Times

US CLOSE

Wall Street trading was close on Friday in observance of the Fourth of July holiday.

Reporting by Iain Gilbert at Sharecast.com