BBA Share News (BBA)

(Alliance News) - Stocks are set to open lower Monday amid renewed tensions in the Middle East and protests in Hong Kong, as well as the US's escalating trade war with China.UK-headquartered, China-focused banking giant HSBC early Monday surprised markets by saying Chief Executive Officer John Flint will be stepping down.In other early company news, engineer Senior reported a first half in line with expectations, while BBA Aviation saw a strong performance from its Signature and Ontic businesses in the first half. Quilter reported a rise in assets in the first half and sold its Quilter Life Assurance to ReAssure.IG says futures indicate the FTSE 100 index of large-caps to open 77.76 points lower at 7,329.30 on Monday. The FTSE 100 index closed 177.81 points lower on Friday at 7,407.06. This left the index 1.7% lower for the week."Asian stocks sold off aggressively on the back of escalating tensions in the Middle East, unsettled trade talks between the US and China, and another week of street protests in Hong Kong," said London Capital Group analyst Ipek Ozkardeskaya.In Asia on Friday, the Japanese Nikkei 225 index closed down 1.7%. In China, the Shanghai Composite is down 1.3%, while the Hang Seng index in Hong Kong is 2.9% lower.The Chinese yuan fell to its lowest level against the dollar since August 2010 in morning trade on Monday, fuelling speculation that Beijing is allowing currency depreciation to counter threatened US tariffs.The offshore currency weakened to CNY7.1085 to the dollar, days after US President Donald Trump announced a plan to impose fresh tariffs on another USD300 billion in Chinese goods, sharpening trade war tensions between the world's two biggest economies.The onshore yuan also tumbled, hitting CNY7.0307 in Monday morning trade to reach its lowest level since 2008.Both the onshore and offshore yuan breached the CNY7.0 level against the dollar, which investors see as a key threshold in currency value.Sterling was quoted at USD1.2141 early Monday, up slightly from USD1.2122 at the London equities close on Friday.The Iraqi Oil Ministry has denied Iranian reports that an oil tanker seized by Iran in the Gulf comes from Iraq. The claim that the tanker was Iraqi was made by Iranian state news agency IRNA on Sunday evening.The tanker Hita had 700,000 litres of illegal diesel on board, IRNA said. The fuel had been confiscated, an earlier report from Fars news agency said.The Iraqi Oil Ministry later denied any link to the tanker, stressing that the vessel is one of the small tankers that the ministry does not deal with.Hong Kong's pro-democracy protesters are close to creating a "very dangerous situation", the city's leader warned Monday as train travel and international flights in the global financial hub were thrown into chaos.The peak-hour efforts to lock down Hong Kong's transport sector on Monday morning followed two months of unprecedented and often violent unrest, fuelled by demands for greater democracy in the semi-autonomous Chinese city.With commuters unable to get to work and international travellers facing delays, Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam held a press conference to warn protesters and signal authorities would not buckle under the growing pressure.They "have seriously undermined Hong Kong's law and order and are pushing our city, the city that we all love and many of us helped to build, to the verge of a very dangerous situation," Lam said.Monday sees a string of PMI readings released.Already out, China's private sector continued to expand marginally in July, after edging slightly higher on the month prior.Data from the Caixin China Composite Purchasing Managers' Index rose to 50.9 points in July from 50.6 in June. Any figure above 50 shows expansion rather than contraction."The uptick in the headline index was helped by the stabilisation of manufacturing output following a decline in June," Caixin said in a statement. "Meanwhile, business activity at services companies expanded at only a modest rate in July."In London, engineering firm Senior said revenue rose but profit fell in the first half of 2019, in line with expectations.Pretax profit slipped 16% to GBP26.5 million from GBP31.4 million a year before. Revenue increased 11%, however, rising to GBP580.4 million from GBP523.3 million.Senior declared an interim dividend of 2.28 pence, 4% higher than the 2.19p distributed the year before.Looking ahead, Senior said it "remains confident", despite the Boeing 737 MAX production rate cuts and the "ongoing uncertainty around the current geopolitical and macro-economic backdrop".BBA Aviation reported a sharp rise in profit in the first half but attributed the growth to switching accounting methods. In the six months to June 30, the aviation services provider saw pretax profit rise 22% to USD156.0 million from USD128.2 million the year before.Revenue increased 20% to USD1.53 billion from USD1.28 billion the year before."The first half of 2019 has been broadly in line with our expectations for BBA Aviation, with a solid Signature performance, in a flat B&GA market. Our Ontic legacy business has delivered a strong performance," said BBA CEO Mark Johnstone. Last week, BBA Aviation said it agreed to sell its aerospace parts and services unit Ontic to CVC Fund Vll, managed by private equity firm CVC Capital Partners, for an enterprise value of USD1.37 billion. It expects to return between USD750 million and USD850 million of that to shareholders.Financial services firm Quilter reported a "solid" first half to June 30 and has agreed to sell its heritage life and pensions division, Old Mutual Wealth Life Assurance, now Quilter Life Assurance, to ReAssure for GBP425 million. Quilter ended the half with GBP108.7 billion in assets under management, up 8% from December 31.Quilter sunk to a pretax loss of GBP32 million from a GBP2 million profit a year before. The company's total fee revenue increased 2.6% to GBP395 million from GBP385 million. Ocado announced it has completed the 50% sale of Ocado Retail to Marks & Spencer.In February, the pair agreed to a 50-50 joint venture, whereby Ocado UK grocery retail business would sell M&S products. Following the completion of the deal, Ocado Retail will start selling M&S products in September next year.M&S Strategy Director Melanie Smith has been appointed CEO of Ocado Retail as part of the deal.Elsewhere, HSBC said CEO Flint will step down from his role as the lender reported "strong momentum" in the first half.Europe's largest bank said Flint will be replaced by Global Commercial Banking CEO Noel Quinn on an interim basis.Turning to the Asia-focused lender's first-half results, HSBC reported a 16% jump in pretax profit to USD12.41 billion from USD10.71 billion the year before."This increase reflected a rise in revenue of USD2.1 billion, primarily in Retail Banking & Wealth Management from balance sheet growth and wider margins in Retail Banking, and in Commercial Banking from growth in all our major products," HSBC explained.The lender did note, however, its investment bank Global Banking & Markets saw revenue slip in the half. HSBC said the unit suffered from "lower market activity due to ongoing economic uncertainty".The economic events calendar on Monday has a slew of services PMIs, with the eurozone at 0900 BST, UK at 0930 BST and the US at 1445 BST.