18th Jan 2016 11:12
LONDON (Alliance News) - The following is a summary of top news stories Monday.
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COMPANIES
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Building materials company Wolseley said its chief executive will step down in August and will be replaced by its chief financial officer. Ian Meakins will retire on August 31, having been at the helm since July 2009. He will be replaced by John Martin, the current chief financial officer who has been in that role since 2010. Wolseley said Simon Nicholls will replace Martin as chief financial officer. He joins from the same role at Cobham, the FTSE 250 defence and aerospace group. Cobham said the search to replace Nicholls is underway and an announcement will made in due course.
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ITV Chairman Archie Norman is set to step down in the first shake-up of the management team at the broadcaster in six years, the Financial Times reported. The ITV board will start a search to replace Norman in coming weeks as it prepares for the future departure of Adam Crozier, the current chief executive who is expected to remain in place for another two years, the FT said, citing people familiar with the situation.
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Two large Canadian pension fund investors are considering plans to partner on the bid for the gas distribution assets National Grid, the UK's power grid operator, is set to sell, The Sunday Telegraph reported. Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan and Borealis, the infrastructure investment arm of the Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System, are understood to have held early talks to team up to bid for the assets, which have been valued at around GBP11 billion. National Grid announced plans to sell the assets in November and the two Canadian bidders are considered natural suitors, having bought other distribution assets from National Grid back in 2004.
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Home Retail Group confirmed it has struck a deal to sell its Homebase DIY and garden centre chain to Australian conglomerate Wesfarmers for GBP340.0 million and said it will return a chunk of the cash to shareholders. Home Retail will sell the business to Wesfarmers for GBP340.0 million, having disclosed it was holding advanced talks with the buyer last week. Wesfarmers owns Australian DIY chain Bunnings and intends to rebrand Homebase stores under that name, with an investment of GBP500.0 million to be made in the business over the next three to five years. Home Retail said it will return about GBP200.0 million of the proceeds to shareholders, after deducting GBP50 million in pension contributions and GBP75 million in deal and restructuring costs.
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Engineering services group Amec Foster Wheeler said Chief Executive Samir Brikho has stepped down and been replaced by its finance chief. Ian McHoul will become interim chief executive with immediate effect and hold the position until a permanent replacement for Brikho is appointed. Amec said it will consider internal and external candidates for the role, but said McHoul has decided not to apply. Amec briefly added that its trading results for 2015 were in line with its expectations.
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Ibstock said trading was in line with its expectations in 2015, with good revenue growth continuing through the year, leaving it on target to hit market forecasts. Ibstock, which listed in London in October, said it expects its adjusted earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation for the year to the end of December will be in line with market expectations. That will strip out the cost of the company acquiring its operating businesses in February ahead of its stock-market listing, plus the costs of the float. Group revenue for the year rose 9.0% year-on-year, though this slowed to 7.0% in the second half.
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MARKETS
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UK indices were trading mixed with pharmaceutical firm Shire leading the gainers after Exane BNP upgraded the stock to Outperform. Brent oil fell to its lowest level since 2003 at USD27.69 a barrel after Iran resumed exporting oil. US markets are closed for the Martin Luther King's Birthday holiday.
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FTSE 100: up 0.5% at 5,830.11
FTSE 250: down 0.7% at 16,055.74
AIM ALL-SHARE: down 0.8% at 692.74
GBP: flat at USD1.4287 (USD1.4292)
EUR: down at USD1.0891 (USD1.0946)
GOLD: down at USD1,090.00 per ounce (USD1,088.24)
OIL (Brent): down at USD28.66 a barrel (USD29.39)
(changes since previous London equities close)
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ECONOMICS AND GENERAL
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The EU and the US lifted sanctions targeting Iran on Saturday, settling the dispute over the regional power's nuclear programme and ending Tehran's international isolation. EU chief diplomat Federica Mogherini and US Secretary of State John Kerry made the announcements in Vienna after the International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed that Iran had kept its side of last year's agreement with six major powers by significantly scaling down its nuclear programme. The IAEA confirmed that Iran had dismantled thousands of uranium enrichment centrifuges, shipped most of its enriched uranium to Russia and poured concrete into its plutonium-producing Arak reactor, Kerry said.
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British house prices climbed at the start of the year, after declining in the previous two months, the latest house price balance from property tracking website Rightmove showed. The house price index rose slightly by 0.5% month-over-month in January, in contrast to a 1.1% decrease in December. On an annual basis, house prices house prices grew at a slower pace of 6.5% in January, following a 7.4% surge in the prior month.
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The Bank of England is unlikely to raise the base rates until November as the bank will continue to 'look through' low inflation and focus on the outlook for 2017, EY Item Club said in its Winter forecast. The extended delay in raising interest rates and unwinding quantitative easing could also leave the Monetary Policy Committee short of ammunition to deal with an adverse shock, the think-tank said.
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China's central bank added one more step to contain the downward pressure on yuan and manage cross-border fund flows. The People's Bank of China is set to raise the reserve requirement ratio on yuan deposits of offshore banks, effective January 25. The ratio will be lifted from its current zero to "normal levels", the bank said.
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The leader of Taiwan's opposition Democratic Progressive Party, Tsai Ing-wen, promised to uphold her country's sovereignty after winning the island nation's presidential election on Saturday. Her election success was "a great achievement for Taiwan," Tsai told more than 30,000 cheering supporters in front of the DPP headquarters in Taipei City. Tsai, a law professor, is set to become the first female president of Taiwan when she replaces incumbent Ma Ying-jeou on May 20. Her pro-independence position is likely to cause tensions in relations with Beijing, as the Communist Party in China consider Taiwan as a separatist province and have threatened its recapture.
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Burkina Faso security forces freed 126 people, who were held hostages, early Saturday from a hotel seized by al-Qaida-linked fighters in the West African state's capital, Ouagadougou. Security forces, assisted by around 30 French special forces and an American soldier, stormed the Splendid Hotel in Ouagadougou to rescue the hostages trapped inside the Splendid Hotel in Ouagadougou. The attack was opened by the gunmen late Friday, firing the Splendid Hotel, as well as the Cappuccino café and another hotel nearby. At least 23 people, belonging to 18 nationalities, were dead in the attacks. Around four attackers were also killed, which includes two women. It is not sure whether their deaths were included in the 23.
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EU Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom said in an interview with dpa that she believes a controversial trade deal with the US could be finalized before a change in leadership in Washington. She said the EU was aiming to reach an agreement on the transatlantic free-trade agreement before the US elections in November. "It is still too early to say if we will do it, but it is possible," she said.
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Polish President Andrzej Duda reached out to his European partners before arriving for talks in Brussels, amid a dispute triggered by concerns that reforms by Warsaw may be in breach of the bloc's fundamental values. Poland's new conservative government, which took office in November, has come under fire for a string of measures that critics say aim to strengthen its grip on the judiciary and the media. The EU launched an investigation last week into the compatibility of the reforms with the bloc's basic democratic values. On Tuesday, the issue will be debated in the European Parliament, in the presence of Polish Prime Minister Beata Szydlo.
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One of the six men hospitalized after participating in a clinical drug trial in north-western France died Sunday, the university hospital where he was being treated said in a statement. The man was admitted to the University Hospital Center of Rennes on January 10, three days after the launch of a clinical drug trial to test an oral medication developed by Portuguese firm Bial. He was declared to be medically brain dead. The five other men hospitalized, aged 28 to 49 years old, remain in stable condition, the hospital said.
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By Arvind Bhunjun; [email protected]; @ArvindBhunjun
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