28th Sep 2015 07:29
LONDON (Alliance News) - Vodafone confirmed Monday that its talks with US cable company Liberty Global about a possible asset exchange have terminated, sending the stock down 3.3%.
However, Glencore is the biggest blue-chip faller in a generally soft early market, down 4.5%, having set a new record low on Friday. AIM-listed Horizonte Minerals said it has struck a deal to acquire Glencore's Araguaia nickel project in Brazil to enlarge its existing nearby project.
Here is what you need to know at the London market open:
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MARKETS
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FTSE 100: down 0.7% at 6,067.09
FTSE 250: down 0.3% at 16,750.04
AIM ALL-SHARE: down 0.2% at 731.55
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Hang Seng: market closed for holiday.
Nikkei 225: closed down 1.3% at 17,645.11
DJIA: closed up 0.7% at 16,314.67
S&P 500: closed down 0.1% at 1,931.34
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GBP: up at USD1.5190
EUR: down at USD1.1173
GOLD: down at USD1,137.97 per ounce
OIL (Brent): down at USD48.06 a barrel
(changes since end of previous GMT day)
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ECONOMICS AND GENERAL
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Monday's Key Economic Events still to come
(all times in BST)
08:30 Ireland Retail Sales
09:00 Italy Consumer and Business Confidence
13:30 US Personal Income and Spending
15:00 US Pending Home Sales
15:30 US Dallas Fed Manufacturing Business Index
18:30 US Fed's Evans Speech
22:00 US FOMC Member Williams speech
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A coalition of separatists who promised independence for the Spanish region of Catalonia emerged as victors in parliamentary elections Sunday. With 99% of the votes counted, the separatist alliance led by Catalan leader Artur Mas captured 72 seats of the 135 seats up for grabs in Catalonia's parliament. But while the alliance won an absolute majority in parliament, it did not win the majority of votes cast, taking 47.8%.
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FIFA president Joseph Blatter and European supremo Michel Platini are under investigation by the ruling body's ethics committee over a payment from 2011 revealed in a Swiss criminal investigation, dpa learnt on Sunday. The committee is looking into a "disloyal payment" of CHF2 million Platini received from FIFA in 2011 for work done between 1999 and 2002. The issue was revealed in a statement from Switzerland's Attorney General on Friday in which the start of a criminal investigation against Blatter was announced. Apart from the payment, the probe involves a contract, likely on TV rights, with the Caribbean football union from 2005.
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The European Commission said the Russian Federation and Ukraine have agreed on the terms of gas deliveries to Ukraine for the upcoming winter period from October 1 until the end of March 2016. The agreement follows several rounds of trilateral and bilateral negotiations over the past several months.
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US President Barack Obama urged global mobilization to meet a set of UN development goals, saying "cynicism is our enemy," at the ongoing UN summit on development Sunday. Obama and other leaders spoke at the United Nations on the third and final day of the summit discussing a set of global development goals that were officially adopted on Friday and are to be met over the next 15 years. Obama vowed to work towards meeting the goals in the US and abroad during his time in office and beyond.
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Belgian brewer Anheuser-Busch InBev NV could bid GBP70 billion for SABMiller PLC this week, the Sunday Times reported. Over recent days the world's two biggest brewers have begun "friendly" talks. The discussions continued into Saturday, with AB InBev expected to make a firm opening offer within days - possibly as soon as Monday morning.
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US Speaker of the House of Representatives John Boehner said he will step down to avoid a looming challenge from conservative members of his caucus that could damage his Republican Party and the US Congress. Boehner said that he would resign from Congress on October 30 to prevent "prolonged leadership turmoil." Boehner, who will also vacate his House seat, said he had long been considering retirement and was not quitting out of fear of losing a leadership fight.
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Japan's leading index declined slightly less than estimated in July, final data from the Cabinet Office showed. The leading index dropped to a four-month low of 105.0 in July from 106.7 in June. The initial estimate for July was 104.9. It signals the trend in future economic activity.
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China's industrial profits declined in August as product prices continued to decrease, the National Bureau of Statistics reported. Industrial profits fell 8.8% in August from a year ago, following a 2.9% drop in July. Falling product prices as well, as lower return on investment, weighed on industrial profits. During January to August, industrial profits decreased 1.9% from the corresponding period of last year.
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BROKER RATING CHANGES
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SOCGEN RAISES SABMILLER TO 'BUY' ('HOLD') - TARGET 4300 (3500) PENCE
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BERNSTEIN RAISES MORRISON TO 'MARKET-PERFORM' ('UNDERPERFORM')
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COMPANIES - FTSE 100
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Royal Dutch Shell said it has plugged and abandoned the Burger J exploration well in the Chukchi Sea in Alaska and said it will stop further exploration activity in the Alaska region for the foreseeable future. The oil and gas major said the well was drilled to a total depth of 6,800 feet over the summer within a basin which had demonstrated a number of the key features of a major petroleum basin and which is substantially under-explored. But Shell said that while it found indications of oil and gas in the Burger J Well, these were not sufficient to pursue further exploration activity at the prospect and, therefore, the well has been plugged and abandoned. Shell said it will now cease further exploration activity in offshore Alaska for the foreseeable future, given the result from the Burger J well, the high costs associated with the project and the "unpredictable federal regulatory environment in offshore Alaska."
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Vodafone Group said its talks with US cable company Liberty Global have terminated. The mobile phone company had confirmed talks with Liberty Global in early June over a potential exchange of some assets between the two. Earlier this month Bloomberg reported that Liberty Global's owner John Malone indicated that a deal between his company and Vodafone looked unlikely, saying that there had not yet been a structure proposed for a deal that he would take to his shareholders.
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The Swiss competition regulator confirmed it has opened an investigation into the possible manipulation of precious metals markets by several major banks, Reuters reported. The WEKO watchdog is understood to have opened probes into possible collusion by UBS, Julius Baer Group, Deutsche Bank, HSBC Holdings, Barclays, Morgan Stanley and Mitsui Group.
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The Royal Bank of Scotland Group is facing a probe by regulators into whether it falsified customer records, The Times reported. The bank has been accused of editing customer emails, call transcripts, and how it presented its "central file" record of correspondence, which may have resulted in it breaching data protection laws, according to the newspaper.
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Tesco is close to scrapping a deal to sell its Dunnhumby customer data business and is now shifting its attention to the sale of its operations in central and eastern Europe, The Sunday Times reported. Senior City sources told the newspaper that WPP, the advertising and marketing group and the last bidder left in the troubled auction of Dunnhumby, is struggling to agree a price for the business. The Sunday Times, citing other sources, said Tesco has held preliminary talks with private equity houses about the sale of its Polish, Hungarian, Czech and Slovakian business, which could be worth around GBP3 billion.
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Barclays is in preliminary talks with potential buyers of its Brazilian business as part of a wider restructuring, Sky News reported citing people familiar with the matter. The report indicated that Barclays executives have sanctioned a process to explore an exit from parts of its remaining investment banking operations in the stuttering Latin American economy. Barclays has in recent weeks struck a deal to offload retail banking operations in Portugal, and is exploring a similar exit in Italy.
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COMPANIES - FTSE 250
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Pennon Group said it is on track to hit its targets for the full year and is well-positioned for the future as its recycling and waste management business establishes its new energy recovery business. The utility infrastructure company's waste management business, Viridor, is establishing energy recovery facilities business which aims to transform waste into a resource.
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Office rental company Regus said it has appointed Dominik de Daniel as its chief financial officer and chief operating officer, effective from November 1. The company said he will take over from Dominique Yates in the CFO role, who will step down on the same date. De Daniel currently is the chief financial officer of Adecco Group, the Swiss staffing giant.
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COMPANIES - LONDON MAIN MARKET AND AIM
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Quindell is understood to have missed out on a contract with roadside assistance and insurance company AA, a blow for the company as it works to recovery after a turbulent 18 months, The Daily Mail reported. Quindell now focuses almost exclusively on telematics, or processing data from black boxes installed on vehicles by insurance companies. The group formerly held a contract with AA rival RAC to install the black boxes in customers' cars and was hoping to replace this deal with one from the AA, but this is now set to be handed to Insurethebox, a Japanese rival of Quindell's.
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Horizonte Minerals said it has struck a deal to acquire Glencore's Araguaia nickel project in Brazil to enlarge its existing nearby project. Buying Glencore's Araguaia project will enlarge Araguaia's own nickel project in Brazil to create "one of the largest saprolite nickel projects in the world," said Horizonte. Horizonte will pay USD2.0 million once the deal is completed, which will be satisfied through the issuance of 2.0 million shares, and the total acquisition cost is USD8.0 million.
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Amerisur Resources said it swung to a pretax loss in the first half of 2015 from the substantial profit made a year earlier as production came in lower than expected and because of lower oil prices. The South American focused oil and gas company reported a USD5.8 million pretax loss in the first six months of 2015, swinging from the USD50.8 million profit a year earlier as revenue plummeted to only USD40.3 million from USD114.1 million. It resulted from lower oil prices and lower-than-anticipated production of 4,524 barrels of oil per day, achieving a price of USD49 per barrel.
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Regeneration and strategic land company MJ Gleeson said its pretax profit and revenue both rose in the year to the end of June, boosted by land sales and a robust housing market, and said it will raise its dividend as its current financial year looks set to push towards the upper end of expectations. The company said its pretax profit for the year to June 30 was GBP17.3 million, up from GBP12.2 million a year earlier. The company will pay a final dividend of 7.3 pence per share, a big hike on the 4.9p it paid out a year earlier, bringing its total dividend for the year up to 10.0p from 6.0p, a 67% rise.
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Tools, equipment and plant hire company Speedy Hire issued a profit warning, saying the resolution of its legacy issues is taking longer than anticipated and adding that the actions taken to cut costs in the business will flow through in the second half. The company's first half ends on Wednesday. Speedy said that due to issues in dealing with legacy issues in the business and with its core hire revenue in the UK and Ireland set to be around 10% lower year-on-year, its results will be heavily weighted to the second half and will be materially below current market expectations.
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Filtronic reported a widened pretax loss for its most recently ended financial year, which it called "disappointing and unsatisfactory". However, it said it had made a "good start" on its turnaround actions. Filtronic designs and manufactures microwave electronics products for the wireless telecoms infrastructure market. For the year to end-May the company reported a pretax loss of GP11.0 million, widened from a pretax loss of GBP3.7 million a year before, as revenue fell to GBP17.5 million from GBP39.9 million.
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Chinese marine foods and seafood processor Aquatic Foods Group said it has secured a USD15.4 million one-year sales deal with Yihe International. Yihe, a seafood wholesaler and processor, which supplies premium seafood products to the US market, will take 11 separate seafood products from Aquatic over the course of the year contract.
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COMPANIES - INTERNATIONAL
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Volkswagen officials were warned four years ago about illegal software installed in diesel-powered cars that allows emissions to be masked, according to a German media report. A Volkswagen technician alerted the company in 2011 about the software, which enables vehicles to pump out more pollutants than allowed by regulators, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung reported. The newspaper said the disclosure was included in a VW internal report that was given to the company's supervisory board on Friday, the day the automaker appointed Porsche head Matthias Mueller to take over for Martin Winterkorn as chief executive. In a separate report on the same inquiry, German tabloid Bild am Sonntag said that automotive parts supplier Bosch cautioned VW in 2007 not to use its emissions software illegally.
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Metro, Germany's largest retailer, abandoned talks to acquire the country's biggest specialty market and supplier of fine foods from Dr. August Oetker KG, Bloomberg reported citing a person familiar with the matter. The report said that Metro and Oetker failed to agree on a price for FrischeParadies, German for fresh paradise. Oetker, a closely held German company with interests ranging from frozen pizza to brewing and shipping, was seeking about EUR80 million.
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Monday's Scheduled AGMs/EGMs
Clipper Logistics
Private Equity Investor
Pinewood Group
Anglesey Mining
Max Petroleum
Optimal Payments
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By Tom Waite; [email protected]; @thomaslwaite
Copyright 2015 Alliance News Limited. All Rights Reserved.
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