8th Jul 2015 10:02
LONDON (Alliance News) - The following is a summary of top news stories Wednesday.
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COMPANIES
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Barclays said its board has taken the decision to replace Chief Executive Antony Jenkins, with John McFarlane, the newly appointed chairman, to act in an executive capacity until a successor is found, as the banking group looks to accelerate its restructuring and improve returns to shareholders. According to the statement, the non-executive directors led by Michael Rake, who is deputy chairman and senior independent director, concluded that new leadership is required to "accelerate the pace of execution going forward". Despite ousting Jenkins, Barclays said the news isn't indicative of "any major change" in the group's strategy, which has been focused on cutting non-core assets and reducing its reliance on its investment bank.
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Rio Tinto said it is in the process of preparing its first shipments of metal from its Kitimate aluminium smelter in Canada following modernisation work carried out on the facility. The miner said the modernisation work on the smelter will increase its production capacity by 48% and will result in it becoming one of the lowest-cost smelters in the world. The company is now focusing on ramping up production towards it target annual rate of 420,000 tonnes.
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Brewer SABMiller said it has appointed Domenic de Lorenzo as its permanent chief financial officer and an executive director, with effect from the conclusion of its annual general meeting on July 23. De Lorenzo is currently the director of group strategy and corporate development and a member of the SABMiller executive committee. He has been interim chief financial officer since February.
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The UK Financial Reporting Council launched a formal investigation into individuals involved in the auditing of RSA Insurance Group's Irish accounts, 18 months after the insurer revealed accounting problems in the unit had left it with a GBP200 million black hole. In a short statement published on its website, the UK accounting watchdog said it has "decided to investigate the conduct of certain individual members in connection with financial irregularities at RSA Insurance Ireland Ltd in respect of the year ended December 31, 2012 and relevant prior periods as a result of the identification of issues within the claims and accounting functions" of the FTSE 100-listed insurer at the end of 2013. The FRC had already been examining the role of RSA's former auditor, Deloitte, in the Irish unit problems, but has now expanded this to focus on individual accountants and actuaries who worked for the insurer.
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Capita said it has struck a deal to acquire property consultancy GL Hearn for up to GBP30 million. The outsourcer will pay an initial cash consideration of GBP25 million for the company, plus a further deferred consideration of GBP5 million based on it meeting growth targets.
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Nomad Foods said it has placed up to 15.4 million shares in the company through an accelerated bookbuilding process, in order to fund potential future acquisition opportunities. The packaged foods company, which floated in London only in June, said that the price per placing share will be determined at the end of the bookbuild, which commenced at the time of the announcement. Shares in Nomad were untraded on Wednesday, last quoted at USD21.525. At that price, the placing is worth USD331.5 million. The company floated at USD10.50 per share and doubled on its first day of trading, giving it a market capitalisation of USD3.32 billion.
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Galliford Try said it expects its pretax profit to come in at the top end of market expectations for the financial year to the end of June, following a robust performance in both its housebuilding and construction divisions. According to Morningstar, brokers had expected the FTSE 250 company to report pretax profit of GBP115.9 million for the year.
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Booker Group reported a rise in sales in the first quarter of its financial year and said it remains on course to meet expectations for the full year. The convenience store chain operator said that total group sales in the 12 weeks to June 19 grew 0.2% on the same period the year before, and 0.4% on a like-for-like basis including British wholesaler Makro which it acquired in 2012.
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Micro Focus International said its pretax profit fell in its 2014 financial year thanks to costs associated with the acquisition of The Attachmate Group Inc, but the same deal also helped to nearly double its revenue in the year as it said the integration of the business is ahead of plan.
The software company said its pretax profit for the year to the end of April was USD91.4 million, down from USD147.8 million, after it booked a USD99.1 million one-off cost related to the USD2.4 billion acquisition of Attachmate, which completed in November. Micro Focus said it would increase its final dividend by 10% to 33 cents per share, meaning its total dividend also rises by 10% to 48.4 cents.
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MARKETS
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UK stock indices are seeing mixed trading mid-morning, with the heavy fall in the Hong Kong and Shanghai stock markets affecting Asia-exposed stocks in London and also commodities prices.
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FTSE 100: up 0.5% at 6,461.76
FTSE 250: down 0.1% at 17,204.19
AIM ALL-SHARE: down 0.5% at 746.66
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The pound is down ahead of the UK budget scheduled for 1230 BST.
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GBP: down at USD1.5404
EUR: up at USD1.1039
GOLD: down at USD1153.69 per ounce
OIL (Brent): down at USD57.06 a barrel
(changes since end of previous GMT day)
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ECONOMICS AND GENERAL
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Greece is committed to implementing reforms and its proposals will not further burden European taxpayers, Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras said. "The proposals by the Greek government for the funding of its obligations and for the restructuring of its debt are not designed to provide an extra burden for European taxpayers," Tsipras told the European Parliament while also warning that there cannot be "any taboo subjects" in Greece's talks with its creditors. Tsipras said Athens is working to flesh out a proposal submitted Tuesday at a eurozone summit. He expressed confidence that "in the next few days, we will be able to meet the obligations of this crucial time in the best interest of Greece and also of the eurozone," pointing to Athens' promise to "bring forward concrete proposals in detail".
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Eurozone leaders have set Sunday to be the final deadline for Greece to submit a new plan for financial assistance. At a press conference, European Council President Donald Tusk said the final deadline for Greece will end this week. "The stark reality is that we have only five days left." "Until now, I have avoided talking about deadlines. But tonight I have to say loud and clear that the final deadline ends this week," Tusk added.
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UK house prices grew at the fastest pace in nine months in June, data from Lloyds Banking Group's Halifax division showed. House prices advanced 9.6% year-on-year in three months to June, a similar rate of growth was last seen in September 2014. Economists had forecast the rate to ease to 8.3% from 8.6% in three months to May.
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Shop prices in the UK were down 1.3% on year in June, the British Retail Consortium said - following the 1.9% decline in May. Food prices eased 0.4% in June, the data showed, while non-food prices dropped almost 2.0%. Heavy discounting by furniture and food retailers kept the decline largely in check.
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Permanent job placements in the UK increased at the slowest pace in over two years in June, the Report on Jobs compiled by the Recruitment and Employment Confederation and KPMG showed. The number of people placed in permanent jobs rose again in June, but the rate of expansion eased to the slowest in 25 months. The rate of growth in temporary and contract staff billings also moderated to an eight-month low in June, although remained marked overall.
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The People's Bank of China will support the stable development of the stock market and actively assist China Securities Finance to provide liquidity, a central bank spokesman said in a statement. The PBoC will help the financial institution through borrowing and issuing financial bonds, mortgage financing, loan refinancing and other means to get sufficient liquidity. In addition, the central bank will pay close attention to market trends, continue to assist the institution to maintain stability in the stock market through multiple channels and guard against systemic and regional financial risk. The statement comes as Chinese stock markets have been falling sharply in recent weeks.
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High Representative of the EU for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Federica Mogherini said talks between the West and Iran have entered the most difficult and the most real part of the negotiations. Mogherini said: "We have started to discuss at the highest political level the last difficult political issues that we have to solve. We knew it would have been difficult, challenging and sometimes hard. On some things it gets tense, on some others we make progress." The negotiations are expected to continue for the next couple of days, she added.
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Russia is set on Wednesday to host summits for the BRICS emerging economies and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, a Eurasian economic and military alliance. The dual-summit event gives Russian President Vladimir Putin an opportunity to reassert Moscow's presence on the world stage in the face of floundering ties with the West. Putin is expected to meet with the leaders of China and Iran during the event, which runs until Saturday in the Russian city of Ufa, about 1,200 kilometres east of Moscow. One of the event's highlights is the expected launch of a BRICS bank, seen as a challenge to Western financial dominance.
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By Arvind Bhunjun; [email protected]; @ArvindBhunjun
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