Barclays Share News (BARC)

LONDON (Alliance News) - The following is a summary of top news stories Wednesday.
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COMPANIES
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Smiths Group PLC raised its interim dividend and announced the expansion of its investment programme 'Fuel For Growth', although pretax profit declined as the company's Medical and Defence businesses weighed on results. The technology and engineering company posted a dividend of 12.75 pence, up from 12.50 pence in the previous year. Pretax profit declined to GBP132 million from GBP166 million, as revenue slipped to GBP1.44 billion from GBP1.48 billion in the previous year, largely due to the Medical and Defence businesses.
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Barclays PLC plans to solicit offers for its index business that could fetch USD400 million in a sale, Bloomberg reported Tuesday, citing people with knowledge of the matter. According to the Bloomberg report, CME Group Inc, which had approached Barclays about buying the Index, Portfolio and Risk Solutions (IPRS) unit last year, is expected to make an offer.
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Ophir Energy PLC said it has failed to find significant hydrocarbons in targeted reservoirs through drilling at the Padouck Deep-1 well in the Ntsina Block, offshore Gabon. The oil and gas exploration and production company said drilling at the site has now concluded. The well was drilled to 3,297 metres, targeting the Cretaceous Gamba and Coniquet/Dentale sands in the pre-salt section of the earth. The company said thicker than expected, good quality reservoir sands were encountered in both zones but there were no significant hydrocarbon shows in the targeted areas.
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Imagination Technologies PLC jumped to lead the FTSE 250 after the firm said it has developed a new suite of graphics processors for mobile phones and other consumer devices. Imagination said the new Wizard family of PowerVR Ray Tracing GPUs "dramatically" improves graphics, increasing realism and performance. The Wizard suite enables more immersive games and apps with real-life dynamic lighting models, supporting better lighting effects and like-life reflections, said the firm. Imagination also said the tool is scalable, making it usable in markets beyond just mobile devices.
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Kentz Corporation Ltd said its handling company in the US, Valerus FS, has been awarded a USD38 million engineering contract from Cardon IV SA in Venezuela. The major oil and gas engineering company said the contract is to provide engineering and procurement of a simplified early production plant in Punto Fijo, enabling first gas from the Perla field in Venezuela.
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Specialist life insurer Partnership Assurance Group PLC reported a declining new business sales in the fourth-quarter and said it expects a further fall in the first-quarter. Partnership Assurance shares were Wednesday quoted at 299.60 pence, down 6.1%, making it the second-largest faller in the FTSE 250. Partnership Assurance, which sells annuities to customers who may have diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease or cancer, said fourth quarter new business sales fell to GBP297.1 million from GBP300.3 million in the third-quarter.
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Unite Group PLC said it has received planning approval for the development of a new student property in Islington, central London. The FTSE 250-listed student accommodation developer and manager said the new site will comprise of 900 beds, with the 260,000 square foot scheme forecast to require total development costs of GBP93 million and yield on cost of 8.8%.
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MARKETS
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UK stock indices are trading near flat Wednesday ahead of the Chancellor George Osborne's budget statement at midday.
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FTSE 100: flat at 6605.25
FTSE 250: up 0.1% at 16364.12
AIM ALL-SHARE: down 0.1% at 866.56
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The pound is up against the dollar following positive UK employment figures and a rise in average earnings.
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GBP-USD: up at USD1.6638
EUR-USD: down at USD1.3921

GOLD: down at USD1346.02 per ounce
OIL (Brent): down at USD106.15 a barrel

(changes since end of previous GMT day)
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ECONOMICS AND GENERAL
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Unemployment in the UK declined in three months to January and employment continued to increase with economic recovery, data from the Office for National Statistics showed. During three months to January, unemployment was down by 63,000 from the August to October period. The jobless rate fell to 7.2% of the labour force from 7.4% in three months to October. Employment increased 105,000 from August to October due to more self-employed people. Pay including bonuses for November to January 2014 increased 1.4% from a year earlier. Excluding bonuses, pay gained 1.3%
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Policymakers of the Bank of England unanimously decided to maintain interest rate and quantitative easing as no member thought it appropriate to tighten, or to loosen, the stance of monetary policy at the current juncture. All nine members of the Monetary Policy Committee voted to retain the interest rate at 0.50% and quantitative easing at GBP 375 billion, the minutes of the meeting held on March 5 and 6 showed
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The Royal Mint announced that HM Treasury believes there is a "strong case" for introducing a new GBP1 coin to help reduce counterfeiting. Chancellor George Osborne has revealed the opportunity to create the most secure circulating coin in the world to date ahead of the 2014 annual budget announcement on Wednesday. The Royal Mint said it has produced a prototype twelve-sided coin which utilises multiple layers of cutting edge technology and would allow the UK to rapidly reduce the rate of counterfeit coins entering general circulation.
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EU leaders will consider ratcheting up pressure on Russia through economic sanctions at this week's summit in Brussels, amid heightened tensions over Moscow's course of action in Ukraine's Crimea peninsula. The summit was meant to focus on the bloc's gradual economic recovery, as well as its future energy and climate change policies. But Ukraine will now dominate the agenda, with the 28 EU leaders due to "agree on a united European response" to the situation, EU President Herman Van Rompuy and European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso have said.
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Pro-Russian activists stormed the Ukrainian navy headquarters in Crimea, media reports said, a day after Russia signed an accession treaty with the leaders of the Black Sea peninsula. The activists took down the Ukrainian flag and replaced it with Russia's, the Russian Interfax news agency reported. Tensions are rising in Crimea after Russian President Vladimir Putin signed the treaty with its Moscow-backed leaders of Crimea and Sevastopol, which finalizes the two regions' accession to Russia. Shortly after the ceremony in the Kremlin, one Ukrainian and a Russian soldier were killed in the Crimean capital Simferopol.
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US Vice President Joe Biden's mission to Poland and the Baltic countries includes energy security for Ukraine and the rest of Europe in the standoff with Russia over Crimea. Biden, sent by the White House on an emergency journey to reassure the region of US support during the tense situation, on Tuesday discussed with leaders several avenues to explore, including reverse gas flow and fracking for gas trapped in deep underground shale. He also announced that the US has deployed a dozen F-16 fighter jets to the Lask Airbase in Poland as part of its expansion of the US rotation into NATO's Baltic air policing programme to protect Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania as military tensions in the region grow.
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International Monetary Fund (IMF) chief Christine Lagarde arrived Wednesday at a French court for questioning over her role in a massive state payout to a controversial businessman when she was finance minister. The Court of Justice of the Republic is charged with investigating and prosecuting crimes by ministers in the course of their duties. Lagarde was already questioned by the court in May over the state's 400-million-euro payment to Bernard Tapie in 2008 to settle a long-running dispute over the sale of his sportswear company Adidas.
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Bank of Japan policymaker Takahide Kiuchi said side effects of further monetary easing would outweigh the positive effects and that would undermine economic stability in the long run. "If the current large-scale monetary easing policy were to be protracted or such policy strengthened by additional measures, the associated side effects would instead outweigh the positive effects," Kiuchi told business leaders in Shiga. He said the 2% inflation target is well above the level that is consistent with the economy's growth potential. There will be room for a future review of the level
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Japan posted a merchandise trade deficit of JPY800.309 billion in February, the Ministry of Finance said - sliding into the red for the 19th consecutive month. The headline figure missed forecasts for a shortfall of JPY600.9 billion following the downwardly revised record deficit of JPY2,791.7 billion in January (originally JPY2,789.97 billion). Exports were up 9.8% on year - also shy of expectations for 12.5% following the 9.5% increase in the previous month.
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The Thai Constitutional Court will rule this week on the legality of Thailand's last general election in which several constituencies failed to conduct the polls, reports said. After hearing the testimony of the plaintiff Ombudsman Pornpetch Vichitcholachai, and the defendants representing the government of Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra, the judges said they would announce their verdict on the constitutionality Friday, Thai TV reported.
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The search for a missing Malaysian airliner entered its 12th day with investigators still puzzled over why the aircraft disappeared and where it could possibly be now, a Malaysian aviation official said. "We are still clueless," the official said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to speak to media. A local newspaper reported that investigators found information on landing strips in Diego Garcia, Maldives, Sri Lanka and India in the flight simulator seized from the house of the plane's pilot, Zaharie Ahmad Shah, but a police source said he was not aware of such report.
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Iran and six world powers were working on a compromise over an Iranian plutonium-producing reactor project, delegates said on the second day of negotiations in Vienna. The reactor, which has yet to be completed, is a central topic at the talks on ending the stand-off over Tehran's nuclear programme because the other governments are concerned that Iran could use the plutonium that the facility in the western city of Arak would produce for making nuclear weapons. A shutdown is out of the question, Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said, according to the Iranian state broadcaster Press TV.
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