British Equities Fall From Record High; Great Portland Estates Climbs

12:04 PM EST, 01/07/2026 (MT Newswires) -- London's FTSE 100 closed 0.74% in the red on Wednesday, coming down from a record high and a three-day winning streak, as the slump in the British construction sector persisted in the final month of 2025. The UK's construction sector remained in contraction for the 12th consecutive month in December 2025, amid steep declines in housing, commercial, and civil engineering activity levels, S&P Global said Wednesday. The S&P Global UK Construction PMI stood at 40.1, the second-lowest level since May 2020, after 39.4 in November 2025. "UK construction companies once again reported challenging business conditions and falling workloads in December, but the speed of the downturn moderated from the five-and-a-half-year record seen in November," said S&P Global Market Intelligence Economics Director Tim Moore. "Many firms cited subdued demand and fragile client confidence. Despite a lifting of Budget-related uncertainty, delayed spending decisions were still cited as contributing to weak sales pipelines at the close of the year." In corporate news, GSK (GSK.L), up 0.11%, said the two late-stage studies evaluating its drug candidate bepirovirsen for the treatment of chronic hepatitis B met their respective primary endpoints. The pharmaceutical group plans to submit full results of the trials at an upcoming scientific congress and also commence global regulatory filings with health authorities from the first quarter. "Bepirovirsen has the potential to transform treatment goals for people living with CHB by achieving significant functional cure rates - a first for the disease," said GSK Chief Scientific Officer Tony Wood. "Today's result supports our plans to progress bepirovirsen as a treatment and also continue its development as a backbone in future sequential therapies." Real estate company Great Portland Estates (GPE.L) jumped 3.48% after purchasing a leasehold interest spanning 155 years in the 10 South Crescent, WC1 building in the UK from the City of London Corp. for 51 million pounds sterling.