20th Jan 2014 11:04
LONDON (Alliance News) - The following is a summary of top news stories Monday.
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COMPANIES
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Royal Dutch Shell PLC said it has agreed to sell its interests in the Australian Wheatstone projects. The major energy company, which issued a profit warning on Friday, said it will sell its 8% equity interest in the Wheatstone-Lago joint venture and 6.4% interest in the 8.9 million tonnes per year Wheatstone liquefied natural gas project in Western Australia for a cash consideration of USD1.14 billion. The company said it is selling the interests to the Kuwait Foreign Petroleum Exploration Co, which is an existing Wheatstone joint-venture partner.
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Lonmin PLC said the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union in South Africa had given it notice that it will start a strike on Thursday, after wage talks between the two sides broke down. In a statement, the miner said it had met with the union at an arbitration panel on December 10, but had failed to find a resolution to disagreements over wage demands.
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Vodafone Group PLC and British Sky Broadcasting Group PLC have held high-level talks aimed at curbing BT Group PLC’s growing power in the broadband market, The Sunday Times reported, quoting "senior" sources. Sky and Vodafone have discussed striking deals on Sky’s sports and movie channels and collaborating on a high-speed broadband service, the paper said, adding that senior sources said it was unlikely they would build a nationwide fibre network, which would cost several billion pounds. Sky and Vodafone declined to comment to the paper.
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Tesco PLC is weighing a surprise swoop on Mothercare PLC, the troubled baby products chain, as part of its wider campaign to reinvigorate its British hypermarkets, The Sunday Times reported, citing sources in London's financial district. Tesco examined a bid six months ago, retail sources told the paper, but put the plan on hold. Mothercare’s shares have since collapsed, with a Christmas trading warning taking it from 420 pence to close last week at 272p, giving a market value of GBP241 million. City insiders said the fall could rekindle Tesco’s interest. The sources said it had made no approach. Tesco declined to comment to The Times.
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The UK Serious Fraud Office has been given extra funding by the UK Treasury in order to pursue its criminal investigation into alleged bribery by Rolls-Royce Holding PLC in Indonesia and China, the Financial Times reported late Sunday. The FT said the Treasury has agreed to so-called blockbuster funding "in the low millions" of pounds, citing "people familiar with the arrangement". The move is rare, the FT said, but also was used for the SFO's investigations into alleged Libor rigging and in Barclays PLC's funding arrangements with Qatar.
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Paul Coyle, group treasurer of Wm Morrison Supermarkets PLC, was arrested in December after an insider-trading investigation by the UK Financial Conduct Authority, The Telegraph reported. The newspaper said Coyle, who also is Morrison's head of tax, was arrested on suspicion of buying shares in Ocado Group PLC before the two company's online partnership was announced in March. Coyle, 49, has not returned to work since the arrest, the Telegraph said, and has yet to be charged.
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Shares in Deutsche Bank slumped by more than 4% after Germany's biggest bank announced a surprise fourth-quarter loss because of hefty legal and restructuring costs. The Frankfurt-based bank posted a pretax loss of EUR1.15 billion in the final three months of 2013 after it was forced to set aside EUR528 million for legal costs - bringing the total bill for the year to EUR2.5 billion.
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MARKETS
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UK stocks are trading mixed, with UK banks suffering a read across from Deutsche Bank's loss.
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FTSE 100: up 3.77 at 6,833.07
FTSE 250: up 18.06 at 16,205.15
AIM ALL-SHARE: down 0.83 at 883.82
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Sterling is rising on a reported upgrade to the IMF's economic forecast for the UK. Gold is adding to recent gains, while oil is lower on slowing Chinese production.
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GBP-USD: up at USD1.6448
EUR-USD: up at USD1.3555
GOLD: up at USD1,254.50 per ounce
OIL (Brent): down at USD106.27 a barrel
(changes since end of previous GMT day)
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ECONOMICS AND GENERAL
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The International Monetary Fund is on the brink of upgrading its growth forecast for the UK more than any other major economy, Sky News reported without saying where it got the information. The fund is poised to increase its projection for UK growth in 2014 from 1.9% to 2.4%, Sky News said it has learned. Although the fund will also lift its forecasts for world economic growth, the UK upgrade is significantly stronger, Sky News said.
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House prices in the UK increased for the first time in three months in January, marking the biggest ever increase for the month, a survey by Rightmove showed. Average asking prices of a property increased 1% month-on-month to GBP 243,861 in January. This followed a 1.9% fall in December and 2.4% decline in November. Year-on-year, prices increased 6.3%, the sharpest rise since November 2007, Rightmove said.
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China's economic growth eased in the fourth quarter amid slower gains in industrial production, investment and retail sales, suggesting that the recovery is yet to attain a firm footing, data released by the National Bureau of Statistics showed. In the whole year of 2013, the GDP grew 7.7%, the same pace as in 2012, which was the slowest since 1999. The gross domestic product grew 7.7% year-on-year in the fourth quarter of 2013, following a 7.8% gain in the third quarter. This was slightly better than the 7.6% growth expected.
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Separately, the statistical office reported that China's industrial production grew 9.7% year-on-year in December compared with an expected 9.8% gain and slower than a 10% growth reported in November.
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Germany's producer prices declined for the fifth consecutive month in December, Destatis reported. Producer prices dropped 0.5% from the preceding year, which was slower than the 0.8% fall seen in November and 0.6% decline forecast by economists.
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New orders received by Italy's industrial sector increased in November compared with the previous month, data released by statistical office Istat showed. The seasonally adjusted new orders index rose 2.3% month-on-month in November. Domestic orders rose 4.1% from October, while export orders fell 0.4%.
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Japan's industrial production fell 0.1% in November from October, instead of a 0.1% increase estimated previously, final data from the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry showed. In October, production was up 1%.
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More than 200 people, roughly half them protesters, have been injured in violent clashes with police during the last 24 hours in the Ukrainian capital of Kiev, health officials and the Interior Ministry said. The city health department said that 103 protesters were treated for injuries, 42 of whom were hospitalized, the Interfax news agency reported. According to the Interior Ministry, about 100 police officers were injured, 61 of whom were hospitalized. The worst violence since mass anti-government protests broke out in November was triggered by last week's passage of new laws that protesters and human rights groups said are designed to stifle dissent.
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Iran has taken the first steps to limit its nuclear programme under a deal with world powers, according to two Western diplomats who saw the International Atomic Energy Agency's verification report. The report is a requirement for the EU and US to suspend some of their sanctions against Iran later Monday. Iran has taken the actions that are required to start the so-called Geneva deal, including a halt to enriching uranium to higher levels and starting to blend down such higher-grade material, one of the diplomats said.
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A new interim president is expected to be selected in the Central African Republic as EU ministers are set to approve a European military intervention to provide backup to peacekeepers already in the strife-torn country. The African country's transitional council is to elect a new leader after interim president Michel Djotodia and interim prime minister Nicolas Tiangaye resigned January 10 under pressure from regional leaders. Djotodia and Tiangaye had been unable to stop violence between Christians and Muslims that has killed hundreds and displaced a million people.
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The United Nations has invited Iran to attend international peace talks on the Syrian conflict this week in Switzerland, Secretary General Ban Ki-moon announced late Sunday. The participation of Tehran, a close ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, has been a sticking point in the long-delayed peace conference. The Geneva II conference, scheduled to start Wednesday, will bring Syrian officials and the opposition to the negotiating table for the first time since the war began in March 2011.
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Dozens of major international clothing brands expressed "grave concern" to Cambodia over the shooting deaths of five striking garment workers during a protest this month. The brands including Puma, Walmart, Gap, Levi and H&M sent a joint letter to Prime Minister Hun Sen urging an investigation.
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Explosions at an anti-government protest site on Sunday injured at least 28 people, four seriously, adding to a growing list of victims in the country's political stand-off. The blasts, believed to have been caused by grenades, occurred at the Victory Monument, one of seven sites that have been occupied by the Bangkok shutdown campaign.
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