Barclays Share News (BARC)

LONDON (Alliance News) - The following is a summary of top news stories Tuesday.
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COMPANIES
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The Barclays board has chosen Crawford Gillies as successor to John Sunderland as chairman of its remuneration committee. Gillies, who has been on the board of Standard Life since 2007, where he has chaired the life insurer's remuneration committee, and of Mitie Group since 2012, will become a member of the Barclays' Remuneration Committee from May 1 and succeed Sunderland at a later date. The move comes after the bank faced heavy criticism from investors after it recently increased its bonus pool despite reporting a slide in its pretax profit.
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Debenhams reported a drop in pretax profit for the first half of its financial year as it again had to heavily discount to pull shoppers into its stores. Its revenue held up as it recorded a slight increase in the value of transactions, but its margin was hit by the discounting. Its shares rose as analysts had feared the update could be worse. Debenhams pledged to do fewer small promotional sales, and focus just on its bigger events.
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British supermarket chain Tesco will open the first franchise stores for clothing brand F&F in the US this year, just under a year after it had to leave the country with its Fresh & Easy grocery business. F&F, which launched in the UK and Ireland in 2001, will be opening seven stores on the east coast of the US this year, Tesco said, in partnership with its US franchise partner Retail Group of America. It said the first store opening will be near Boston in May, followed by four stores in New York, and stores in Philadelphia and Newport.
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SABMiller said that revenue growth and volume increases in the fourth quarter continued to be driven by its emerging markets businesses, which drove sales growth for the year as a whole, although the brewer said that it was hit by currency fluctuations and continued weakness in North America and Europe. The brewer said that group net producer revenue in the fourth quarter grew by 2%, driven primarily by Latin America, and robust growth in China. For the year as a whole, SABMiller said that group net producer revenue grew by 3%, and group net producer revenue per hectolitre grew by 2%, both on an organic and constant currency basis.
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Kazakhmys has completed an agreement to buy the Koksay project from CCC Mining Construction BV for USD260 million in cash. The Kazakhstan-focused copper producer said the Koksay deposit will be the company's third major growth project and the payment includes a USD65 million deferred consideration to be paid during 2015.
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Sports Direct International, the sportswear retailer controlled by Mike Ashley, is poised to begin selling on credit via its website, as it seeks to emulate the model successfully used by fashion chain Next PLC, the Financial Times reports.
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Drinks giant Diageo said it would launch an offer to buy up to 26% more of India's United Spirits Ltd in a deal estimated to be valued at about USD1.9 billion. In a regulatory filing the company said it plans to buy 37.79 million shares, or 26% of the company's share capital, at a price of 3,030 rupee per share. Diageo currently has a 28.78% stake in United Spirits.
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Recruiter Michael Page International saw its shares rise early after it reported an increase in gross profit at constant currency rates, driven by an accelerating recovery in the UK and the US in particular, even though overall profit fell due to currency fluctuations. In a statement, the company said gross profit at constant currencies was up 6.8% in the first quarter, including a 15.6% increase in the Americas, 8.1% in the UK and 5.6% in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. It said its businesses in France and Germany had returned to growth, while business also improved in Holland, Italy and Spain.
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Anglo-Australian mining giant Rio Tinto reported that global iron ore production for the first quarter rose 8% from last year, reflecting the continuing ramp-up of mining operations in the Pilbara region, while production fell compared to the previous quarter due to bad weather. Rio Tinto, the world's second largest iron-ore producer, said global iron ore production for the first quarter increased 8% from last year to 66.4 million tonnes, with Rio Tinto's share also growing 8% from last year to 52.3 million tonnes. Iron ore accounts for roughly two-thirds of Rio Tinto's profits.
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Imperial Tobacco is to close cigarette factories in Nottingham and Nantes with the loss of 900 jobs in response to the downturn in cigarette sales in Europe.
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Capita has agreed to buy software company AMT-SYBEX Group Ltd for up to GBP105 million, a deal that it hopes will give it an advantage in its key utility and transport markets and allow it to expand AMT's offerings into its other markets. In a statement, the outsourcing company said it will pay an initial GBP82 million for the business on a cash-free, debt-free basis, and could pay up to GBP23 million more if AMT reaches specific profit targets over the next 12 months,
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British Sky Broadcasting, TalkTalk Telecom Group And CityFibre Infrastructure Holdings have created a new broadband firm for York. Each hold 33.3% in the JV, with plans to leverage CityFibre's existing Metro Fibre Infrastructure in York for the venture.
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MARKETS
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The UK's main stocks indices have slipped into the red, reversing the gains that came from Monday's better-than-expected US banking sector earnings.
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FTSE 100: down 0.3% at 6564.05
FTSE 250: down 0.2% at 15668.82
AIM ALL-SHARE: down 0.6% at 821.62
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The pound initially dipped to a five day low of USD1.6656 on low UK inflation numbers but has quickly recovered and now trades broadly flat.
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GBP-USD: up at USD1.6726
EUR-USD: down at USD1.3808

GOLD: down at USD1309.15 per ounce
OIL (Brent): down at USD108.74 a barrel

(changes since end of previous GMT day)
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ECONOMICS AND GENERAL
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UK consumer price inflation slowed in March, as expected, figures from the Office for National Statistics showed. The consumer price index rose 1.6% annually, following 1.7% in February. The figure matched economists' expectations. The Bank of England has an inflation target of 2%.
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Like-for-like retail sales in the UK tumbled 1.7% on year in March, the British Retail Consortium said - falling into the red for the second straight month. The headline figure was well shy of forecasts for an increase of 1.0% following the 1.0% decline in February. Among the individual components of the survey, sales improved for dresses, blouses and slippers, as well as men's shorts and children's clothing, but food sales were a key drag, shedding 2.7%.
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Eurozone foreign trade surplus in February increased from a year ago, figures from Eurostat showed. The unadjusted trade surplus rose to EUR 13.6 billion from EUR 9.8 billion in the same month last year. Economists had forecast a surplus of EUR 10 billion.
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Investor sentiment in Germany in April continued to be damped by the effect of the Ukraine crisis, results of key survey showed. The economic expectations index for Germany dropped to 43.2 from 46.6 in March, the Mannheim-based Centre for European Economic Research said. The score was worse than the 45 forecast by economists, but much above its long-term average of 24.6.
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A long-awaited "anti-terror" operation to root out pro-Russian separatists in the east of the country has begun, says Ukraine's acting president, Oleksandr Turchynov. The exact nature of the deployment remains unclear. Turchynov said that troops would be deployed to northern Donetsk near the Russian border. "The goal is to protect citizens from terrorists who are trying to tear this country apart," Turchynov told the Ukrainian parliament
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As pro-Russian protesters fuelled concerns about the country's possible break up by storming more government buildings in eastern Ukraine, the pro-western leadership in Kiev offered a referendum on federalization and suggested deployment of UN peacekeepers. Having vowed Sunday to launch military action unless the separatists layed down their arms by Monday morning, interim President Oleksandr Turchynov signed a decree allowing law enforcement agencies to start an "anti-terror operation" in restive areas. In a telephone call late Monday, Russian President Vladimir Putin urged US President Barack Obama to use Washington's influence in Kiev "to prevent the use of force and bloodshed" in Ukraine. Putin rebuffed Obama's concerns about Russian interference in eastern Ukraine as speculation based on inaccurate information, according to a statement released by the Kremlin.
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