7th Mar 2016 11:09
LONDON (Alliance News) - The following is a summary of top news stories Monday.
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COMPANIES
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UK retail and business bank Metro Bank's shares rose Monday, its first day of trading on the London Stock Exchange's Main Market. Metro Bank had cut the size of its planned initial offering back in February following a sell-off of shares in the wider banking sector at the beginning of the year. Shares were at 2,164.00p, an 8.2% increase from its 2,000.00p IPO price. The lender confirmed on Friday the IPO price was down from its originally planned 2,400.00p, reducing the amount it would raise to GBP400 million from GBP500 million. However, at the 2,000.00p price, the company still has a market capitalisation of around GBP1.60 billion, making it the largest IPO of the year so far in London, eclipsing CYBG, owner of the Clydesdale and Yorkshire retail banks, which had a market cap of GBP1.58 billion.
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Old Mutual said "all options" are being considered for its strategic review but no decision has yet been made, in response to a report from Sky News that the company is planning a break up of its operations. Sky News reported the Anglo-South African financial services group is planning to split into four standalone units. This would comprise its stake in South African lender Nedbank, its UK-focused wealth management unit, its South Africa-based emerging markets operation, and its institutional asset management business. Old Mutual noted the press speculation and reiterated that when its new Chief Executive Bruce Hemphill joined at the beginning of November, it had said it would be conducting a strategic review. It will provide an update on this review with its 2015 results, which it will release Friday.
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GlaxoSmithKline said results from its long-term safety study of Advair Diskus for the treatment of adults and adolescents with asthma were published in the New England Journal of Medicine. The study, which reported results in October, compared Advair Diskus to a monotherapy of fluticasone propionate. The results were simultaneously presented at the American Academy of Asthma, Allergy and Immunology Congress in Los Angeles, California. The company is also conducting a second long-term safety study in children with asthma between four and eleven years of age. This study is set to report results at the end of the first quarter of 2016.
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Clarkson said it will increase its dividend once again after it achieved a 26% rise in profit and a 27% lift in revenue during 2015. The shipping services group said its pretax profit rose to GBP31.8 million in 2015 from GBP25.2 million in 2014, as revenue climbed to GBP301.8 million from GBP237.9 million. That prompted to the company to increase its dividend for the full year by 3.3% to 62.0 pence from 60.0 pence in 2014, meaning the company has progressively increased its dividend every year since 2002, it said.
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MARKETS
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UK's main indices were lower with miners weighing on the FTSE 100. Brent hit its highest level this year of USD39.47 a barrel earlier in the session. Wall Street was pointed to a lower open.
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FTSE 100: down 0.8% at 6,150.72
FTSE 250: down 0.4% at 16,869.25
AIM ALL-SHARE: up 0.3% at 704.33
GBP: down at USD1.4137 (USD1.4220)
EUR: down at USD1.0954 (USD1.1007)
GOLD: down at USD1,267.40 per ounce (USD1,272.30)
OIL (Brent): up at USD39.13 a barrel (USD38.22)
(changes since previous London equities close)
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ECONOMICS AND GENERAL
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China is expecting weakened economic growth for at least the next five years, Premier Li Keqiang announced at Saturday's opening session of the nominal parliament, the National People's Congress. Li's speech outlined a government report on budget and key economic policies for the coming year, projecting gross domestic product growth of 6.5%. "The larger the economy grows, the greater the difficulty of achieving growth," Li said on stage, with sweat on his brow. "Every percentage point of GDP growth today is equivalent to 1.5 percentage points of growth five years ago or 2.5 percentage points of growth 10 years ago," Li told delegates in the Great Hall of the People. His report stressed the importance of making supply-side structural reform, to address overcapacity in the steel and coal industries, cut government red tape and encourage business startups.
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The UK manufacturing sector's slide into negative territory might be coming to an end, a quarterly EEF manufacturing outlook survey suggested. Nonetheless, the manufacturers' organization downgraded its GDP outlook and manufacturing growth forecast. Manufacturing output edged up after hitting its weakest point in six years in the final quarter of 2015, the survey showed.
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The leader of one of the UK's biggest business groups has resigned after expressing his support for a British exit from the European Union. John Longworth quit as director-general of the British Chambers of Commerce following the controversy over his suggestion the UK could have a "brighter" future outside the EU. Downing Street has strenuously denied claims by Brexit campaigners that it put pressure on the BCC to act following Mr Longworth's comments at the group's annual conference on Thursday.
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UK Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne has been urged to give savers a guarantee that there will be no changes to pensions tax relief until at least 2020. The Chancellor abandoned plans for a raid on tax relief in this month's budget following stark warnings from experts and resistance from Tory MPs. But analysts fear Osborne has only postponed the changes and called for a period of stability before any further reforms are made. The Chancellor had been reportedly considering unveiling plans to make pensions more like Isas in the Budget on March 16.
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Northern Ireland police said they found a "significant terrorist hide" containing bomb-making components and explosives Sunday, one day after they reported finding two "viable devices" in Belfast. "Police uncover significant terrorist hide containing bomb-making components and explosives at Carnfunnock Country Park, near Larne," the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) said on Twitter. The country park is some 30 kilometres north of Belfast, where police found bombs in two residential streets in the west of the city on Saturday after investigating reports of "suspicious objects." Northern Ireland has been on high alert since a bomb exploded Friday as a van driven by a prison officer drove over it, injuring him and a passenger.
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A humanitarian crisis is unfolding among the refugees massed at Greece's border with Macedonia, warned a representative of the UN refugee agency, saying the situation there cannot persist for long. At least 13,000 people hoping to claim asylum in Western Europe are massed at the border, but unable to move on because Macedonia is only letting through about 250 people a day. The situation is rapidly deteriorating, with more people arriving daily, say observers.
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A new monetary policy committee that will set policy interest rates in India will likely start functioning by the third quarter, a PTI report quoted a top finance ministry official as saying. The six-member panel, which will include RBI Governor and the government nominees, will set interest rates to bring consumer price inflation to pre-set targets notified in official Gazette.
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North Korea threatened a nuclear first strike, as it railed against tougher international sanctions and the start of spring manoeuvres by the US and South Korea. In a statement through the state news agency, Pyongyang vowed a "pre-emptive and offensive nuclear strike" against the "undisguised nuclear war drills aimed to infringe upon the sovereignty" of North Korea.
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Candidates trailing in the Republican and Democratic presidential races scored victories Sunday, keeping their hopes alive in their respective nomination battles within the two major US parties. Senator Marco Rubio, who has fallen behind frontrunner Donald Trump and rival Senator Ted Cruz in the Republican race, easily won in the conservative party's primary vote in Puerto Rico, while Senator Bernie Sanders captured the Democratic Party's Maine presidential caucus.
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Former US first lady Nancy Reagan died Sunday at 94, the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Library said. Family spokeswoman Joanne Drake said Reagan died at her Los Angeles home due to congestive heart failure. Born Anne Frances Robbins in 1921, she had a successful career in Hollywood under the name Nancy Davis before marrying fellow actor Ronald Reagan in 1952. Supporting her husband's political career, she became the first lady of California in 1967 and then of the US during his two-term presidency in 1981-89.
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There is evidence that Brazilian ex-president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva received assets from the Petrobas network, the federal prosecution said Friday amid deepening investigations into corruption and money laundering at the state-owned oil company. Brazilian police raided Lula's home earlier in Sao Bernardo do Campo near Sao Paolo, taking him for questioning. The assets included a three-storey apartment in Guaruja and a farm in Atibaia as well as luxury furniture for the properties, according to prosecutors.
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By Arvind Bhunjun; [email protected]; @ArvindBhunjun
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