BBA Share News (BBA)

LONDON (Alliance News) - Stocks in London are seen opening higher on Monday, tracking gains in Japan and Hong Kong and amid some early M&A announcements to distract market participants from Brexit.IG futures indicate the FTSE 100 index is to open up 26.04 points at 6,978.90. The blue chip index ended down 0.1%, or 7.46 points, at 6,952.86 Friday.The Japanese Nikkei 225 index closed up 0.8%. In China, the Shanghai Composite closed down 0.1%, while the Hang Seng index in Hong Kong is up 1.7%.In early UK corporate news, Rio Tinto sold its stake in Rossing Uranium, Greencore exited the US market, and Faroe Petroleum received a hostile takeover offer. Miner Rio Tinto said it agreed to sell its entire 69% stake in Rossing Uranium, which owns the Rossing mine in Namibia, for USD106.5 million to China National Uranium.The Anglo-Australian miner said the sale of its interest in Rossing "demonstrates our commitment to strengthening our portfolio and focusing on our core assets". Sandwich maker Greencore Group said it completed the sale of its entire US business, Greencore US, to Hearthside Food Solutions. In October, Greencore agreed to sell its troubled US arm to Hearthside for USD1.08 billion is cash.BBA Aviation said it completed the acquisition of US based Firstmark Corp, an aerospace focused aftermarket service provider.In September, the aviation support and aftermarket services provider had said it agreed to acquire Firstmark for USD97 million and it would become part of the company's aftermarket services business, Ontic.Norwegian oil and gas company DNO announced a GBP607.9 million hostile takeover offer for AIM-listed Faroe Petroleum.DNO, which holds a 28% stake in Faroe, made a 152 pence cash offer directly to Faroe Petroleum shareholders. The offer represents a 21% premium to Faroe's closing share price of 125.80p on Friday and a 45% premium to when DNO first acquired shares in April at 105p. "For those who wish to remain, there is no assurance of Faroe achieving its full value potential in a volatile commodity and financial markets environment as a relatively small scale, financially constrained AIM-listed company whose share price performance has remained stubbornly disappointing, with the very notable exception of short-term spikes following the sale of a particular large block of shares by one investor to another and the attendant speculation about an impending takeover premium with each such transaction," DNO said. The pound was flat at USD1.2816 early Monday from USD1.2806 at the London equities close Friday, after the European Union endorsed UK Prime Minister Theresa May's Brexit withdrawal agreement.May will challenge MPs to back her Brexit plan or risk crashing out of the EU without an agreement. The UK prime minister will face the Commons after EU leaders endorsed the deal and made it clear it was not up for renegotiation. May will tell the Commons "with absolute certainty" that "there is not a better deal available".The prime minister, who will chair a meeting of her Cabinet on Monday morning, will warn rejecting her deal will "open the door to more division and uncertainty, with all the risks that will entail".At a historic summit in Brussels on Sunday, the leaders of the remaining 27 member states took less than 40 minutes to approve the deal.May will now put it to a vote of MPs before Christmas but faces a battle to get it through the House of Commons in the face of intense opposition on both the Leave and Remain-supporting wings of her party.In addition, May's proposed Brexit deal would shrink the value of the UK's economy by 3.9% a year by 2030, independent analysis has suggested.May's negotiated deal to exit the EU would leave the UK GBP100 billion a year poorer, a report by the National Institute of Economic & Social Research found.NIESR's analysis, commissioned by the People's Vote campaign, concluded the UK's gross domestic product per head would fall by 3% a year, amounting to an average cost per person a year of GBP1,090 at today's prices - the equivalent of losing the economic output of Wales or the City of London.In a shortened trading session in the US on Friday, Wall Street ended lower, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average down 0.7%, S&P 500 down 0.7%, and the Nasdaq Composite down 0.5%.In the economic calendar there are UK mortgage approvals figures at 0930 GMT.