18th Mar 2015 11:26
LONDON (Alliance News) - The following is a summary of top news stories Wednesday.
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COMPANIES
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Smiths Group reported a slight drop in pretax profit in the first half of its financial year, as the strength of the pound weighed on translated overseas revenue and its detection business continued to struggle, but the company expects to report an improved performance excluding foreign exchange movements in the second half of the year. The engineering company reported a pretax profit of GBP131 million for the six months to January 31, down from GBP132 million a year earlier, as revenue slipped to GBP1.42 billion from GBP1.44 billion due to the strength of sterling. It raised its interim dividend to 13.00 pence from 12.75p a year earlier, which it said reflected the strong cash conversion.
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Engineering company IMI said Robert Haldane Smith, Lord Smith of Kelvin, is to become its new chairman, effective after its annual general meeting on May 7. As a result of the appointment, Smith will step down as chairman of FTSE 100 power company SSE following that company's annual general meeting on July 23. SSE said he was stepping down earlier than originally intended.
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BG Group said it has produced its first oil from the Knarr field in the North Sea offshore Norway. In a statement, the oil and gas producer said the Petrojarl Knarr floating production, storage and offloading vessel had started production from the Knarr oil field in the North Sea, offshore Norway. The vessel has a production capacity of 63 000 barrels of oil equivalent per day and a storage capacity of 800 000 barrels. BG Group is the operator of the field with a 45% working interest.
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AstraZeneca said it had received positive top-line results from Phase III studies into investigative drug PT003 for the treatment of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease. The two 24-week studies looked at whether the treatment improved lung function in patients with the disease. PT003 is a twice-daily fixed-dose combination of glycopyrronium, a long-acting muscarinic antagonist, and formoterol fumarate, a long-acting beta-2 agonist. The treatment is delivered using a pressurised metered dose inhaler developed by Pearl Therapeutics, which was acquired by AstraZeneca in 2013.
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Royal Bank of Scotland Group said it will de-list its shares from Euronext Amsterdam due to the low trading volumes in its stock on that exchange. In a statement, the London-listed bank said it expects the cancellation of the listing to be April 17, meaning the last trading day will be the day before. RBS will retain its London listing and its American Depository Receipts on the New York Stock Exchange.
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British Land Co said it will undertake a GBP50 million internal refurbishment of the Meadowhall shopping centre near Sheffield, as the centre celebrates its 25th birthday in 2015, and it is hoping the refurbished centre will appeal to more premium and lifestyle retailers.
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Phoenix Group Holdings reported a jump in a key measure of operating profit in 2014, bolstered by the performance of the part of the group responsible for managing its life funds. The closed life fund consolidator said it made a GBP483 million operating profit in 2014, compared with GBP438 million in the prior year, as higher operating profit within Phoenix Life more than offset a fall in that reported by the Ignis operations sold to Standard Life PLC last year.
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Galliford Try said it has been appointed to the public sector construction frameworks for the south and north west of England. Galliford said it has been selected as one of six contractors on all three lots of the Southern Construction Framework, which will cover the South West, South East and London. On Tuesday, Kier Group and Morgan Sindall Group said they also were named on all three lots. In addition, Galliford has been appointed as one of the 11 contractors on the medium-value lot of the North West Construction Hub, which is worth up to GBP400 million over four years.
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Imagination Technologies Group lowered its expectations for licence revenue growth, saying it now expects to post full-year licence revenue in line with the previous year, with the potential for single digit growth if remaining deals close on time, as licensing activity has been "a little muted" in its second half to date. In the previous year to end-April 2014, Imagination posted licensing revenue of GBP38.3 million. At the time of its interim results in December the company was targeting 10% growth in licensing revenue. Imagination Technologies is set to rejoin the FTSE 250 from next Monday.
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MARKETS
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London shares are trading higher, with Standard Chartered shares leading the FTSE 100 after being upgraded by Barclays and Bernstein.
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FTSE 100: up 0.6% at 6,880.68
FTSE 250: up 0.4% at 17,262.05
AIM ALL-SHARE: up 0.1% at 716.37
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With no clear indication of a UK interest rate hike on the horizon, the pound fell a five-year low against the dollar at USD1.4656.
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GBP-USD: down at USD1.4682
EUR-USD: down at USD1.0622
GOLD: up at USD1150.52 per ounce
OIL (Brent): down at USD52.89 a barrel
(changes since end of previous GMT day)
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ECONOMICS AND GENERAL
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British Chancellor George Osborne is expected to unveil tax concessions and other sweeteners in his government's final budget at 1230 GMT before a general election in May. Osborne had insisted there would be "no gimmicks, no giveaways" in the budget but analysts said he was likely to include several measures designed to bolster electoral support for his Conservative party. Osborne was believed to have some GBP6 billion that could be used to fund new initiatives after recent low inflation reduced the cost of government debt.
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Bank of England policymakers unanimously decided to keep the monetary policy unchanged at the meeting held on March 4 and 5, the minutes showed. The monetary policy committee voted 9-0 to retain the benchmark rate at a historic low of 0.50% and quantitative easing at GBP 375 billion. All members agreed that it was appropriate to leave the stance of monetary policy unchanged, although two members regarded this month's decision as finely balanced. There was a range of views over the most likely path of Bank Rate in future, but all members agreed that it was more likely than not that the Bank Rate would increase over the next three years, the minutes said.
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The UK jobless rate declined in three months to January and the employment rate hit the highest since 1971, data from the Office for National Statistics showed. The ILO jobless rate fell to 5.7% in three months to January from 6.0% in the quarter ending October. In the same period of last year, the unemployment rate was 7.2%. The expected rate was 5.6%. During three months to January, there were 1.86 million unemployed people, down 102,000 from October.
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Eurozone construction output increased for the second straight month in January, at a faster pace, data from Eurostat showed. Output in the construction sector climbed 1.9% month-on-month in January, much faster than December's 0.2% increase, which was revised from a 0.8% decline. In November, production had fallen 0.4%. Output in the building sector grew 2.3% in January from the previous month and civil engineering sector registered an increase of 0.2%.
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Home prices in majority of the Chinese cities continued to fall in February on weak demand, the National Bureau of Statistics said. On a monthly basis, home prices declined in 66 out of 70 cities surveyed by the government. In January, prices of new houses decreased in 64 cities. Compared with the same period of last year, house prices fell in 69 cities and remained unchanged in Xiamen.
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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud party was set to emerge as the big winner in national elections with almost all of the ballots counted early Wednesday. Likud was projected to take 29 seats while the centre-left Zionist Camp list was to take 24 seats, Israel Radio reported. The Joint List, a grouping of largely Arab parties, was expected to be the third biggest with 14 seats.
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The Ukrainian parliament passed an amendment stipulating that the separatist-held territories in the country's east will get political autonomy only after conducting local elections under Ukrainian law. Separatist leaders condemned the move, which was backed by 265 of 347 lawmakers, saying that it undermines last month's peace agreements. "The amendment represents a point of no return to the Minsk agreements," Denis Pushilin of the "Donetsk People's Republic" said according to the rebel-run Donetsk News Agency.
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Opposition Republicans in the US Congress proposed a budget that would balance the budget within nine years while repealing President Barack Obama's signature health-care programme. The proposal sets up a looming clash between Obama, a left-leaning Democrat, and conservative Republicans, who have majorities in both chambers of Congress, over spending for the 2016 budget year, which begins October 1. The budget debate follows Monday's reimposition of the statutory government debt limit. The cap had been temporarily suspended under February 2014 budget legislation, which has now expired with the national debt at USD18.1 trillion. The US Treasury expects to be able to keep up with government spending for several months before requiring congressional authorization to borrow money.
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