Borders & Sth. Share News (BOR)

LONDON (Alliance News) - ITV said Wednesday that first quarter revenue rose thanks to a continued recovery in advertising revenue, and said it expects to get a further boost from its coverage of the football World Cup in June as well as the launch of new TV channels.

Revenue rose to GBP672 million for the quarter, up from GBP666 million a year earlier, as net advertising revenue rose to GBP390 million, from GBP382 million. Its total external revenue rose 2.5% to GBP585 million, from GBP571 million.

ITV said its advertising revenue growth accelerated to 19% on the year in April and is forecast to be up 7% in May and between 12% and 15% higher in June, and again be positive in July.

The company could charge advertisers as much as GBP300,000 for a 30-second commercial during World Cup matches featuring England, up to seven times more than to run an ad in a non-England game, said The Guardian, citing media agency ZenithOptimedia.

Still, ITV was the biggest decliner on the FTSE 100 Wednesday.

While the World Cup is "quite rock'n'roll," says Jefferies analyst David Reynolds, it's a one-off event and the market may be looking for more drivers. Moreover, the stock traded fairly strongly into the update, having risen more than 7% over the past two weeks, he said.

At the top of the blue-chip index sits Compass Group after the food and support services company reported a higher pretax profit for the first-half of its financial year, boosted by new business wins and a continued strong performance in North America and in its emerging markets.

Pretax profit for the six months came in at GBP595 million, compared to GBP575 million the prior year, when it booked GBP20 million in exceptional costs relating to a European exceptional and goodwill impairment. Revenue for the first-half of the year dipped to GBP8.66 billion, from GBP8.80 billion a year earlier on negative currency movements.

The company also raised its interim dividend by 10% to 8.8 pence, and proposed capital return of GBP1 billion to shareholders via a special dividend and ongoing GBP500 million share buyback.

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FTSE 100: down 0.2% at 6,860.25
FTSE 250: down 0.2% at 15,999.63
AIM ALL-SHARE: down 0.1% at 807.69
GBP-USD: down at 1.6776
EUR-USD: up at 1.3718
GOLD: up at USD1,306.66 an ounce
OIL (Brent): up at USD109.68 a barrel
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Key UK Corporate News

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FTSE 100: British drugs giant AstraZeneca, the subject of a GBP63 billion takeover approach from US rival Pfizer Inc, said its MedImmune biologics arm would collaborate with Incyte Corp on an early-stage cancer treatment trial using a combination of the two companies' drugs. GlaxoSmithKline said it was taking allegations raised by Chinese authorities very seriously and continuing to co-operate with investigations, after the Chinese authorities accused a British Glaxo executive of ordering staff to bribe hospital officials to use its products. BHP Billiton has announced that it is reviewing its Western Australian Nickel West business. It said the review includes all options for the long-term future of Nickel West, including the potential sale of all or parts of the business, following the decision to cease operations in the sub-level cave at Perseverance Underground mine due to safety concerns in December. Admiral Group said first-quarter turnover dropped due to intense competition in the UK car insurance business, which was only partly offset by growth in its international car insurance business. Old Mutual said it has chosen two new executive directors from its ranks, promoting Ingrid Johnson, the current managing executive of retail and business banking for majority-owned subsidiary Nedbank Group Ltd, to Finance Director, and Paul Hanratty, currently Old Mutual's Group Operating Officer, as new COO. Mondi said its underlying operating profit rose in the first quarter, as restructuring benefits and price increases for some products more than offset higher input costs and lower selling prices for paper in Europe. British Land Company reported an increase in profit for the full year, as its UK portfolio was valued 8.3% higher than a year earlier. Investment bank Morgan Stanley has hired Brad Whitman, head of mergers for financial institutions at Barclays, as a vice chairman in its financial institutions group, according to media reports late Tuesday.

FTSE 250: John Wood Group said its engineering and production services businesses are performing slightly ahead of expectations in the year-to-date, but financial performance at its turbine joint ventures has been adversely hit by delays to its Dorad contract in Israel. Premier Oil said its production for the first four months of 2014 is up on the previous year, and it has maintained its full-year production guidance as increases in production from its UK and Vietnam operations offset a fall in production from its Pakistan and Mauritania operations. UDG Healthcare raised its full-year earnings per share guidance on the back of its recent acquisition of KnowledgePoint360 Group, and raised its interim dividend after fiscal first-half profit rose at constant currency rates. Renishaw reported a lower pretax profit for its fiscal third quarter, although revenue increased thanks to demand for its additive manufacturing, encoder and measurement automation product lines. Galliford Try made a strong start to 2014 and expects to report pretax profit for its full-year above current analysts' consensus of GBP89.7 million and not less than GBP92.0 million. ICAP said annual pretax trading profit slipped 4.2% as a result of a tough year in which it was hit by new rules governing derivatives, deleveraging by banks, and low currency volatility and interest rates reducing trading volumes. 3i Group said its fiscal year profit rose by almost a third, driven by higher gains on its investments and narrowed operating expenses achieved under cost cuts set out in its strategic plan two years ago. Capital & Counties said it plans to place up to 75.9 million new shares, representing almost 10% of its issued share capital, in an effort to raise funds to invest in its Covent Garden and Earls Court estates. Partnership Assurance Group said it has taken immediate action to manage costs as it said a key indicator of potential future individual annuity sales has shown a sharp drop since the UK government's shake-up of the pensions industry was unveiled in March. Catlin Group said first-quarter gross premiums written increased by 9.3%, recording growth across all of its underwriting hubs. Rathbone Brothers said its total funds under management rose by GBP800.0 million over the course of the first-quarter, even though its acquisitions of Jupiter Asset Management's private client and charity investment management business and Deutsche Bank's London private client investment management business are not included in the figures.

AIM All-Share: Safeland shares rose after the property investment group revealed that planning consent for its housing development on the Chandos Tennis Club in Golders Green, north London has not yet been granted due to a number of outstanding conditions which have yet to be agreed, but said that it had obtained a residential consent under permitted development right in relation to part of a property in Wimbledon which it acquired in 2013. At the other end of the market, Enables IT Group warned that it now expects revenue in the current financial year to be below market forecasts and operating earnings to be slightly negative, after it scaled back its expectations of its UK sales pipeline. Borders & Southern Petroleum is also trading lower after the oil and gas exploration company said its pretax loss widened significantly in 2013 as a fall in administrative expenses failed to offset a significant drop in finance income and a finance expense charge. LZYE Group shares have been suspended after they fell 20% when the company reported the resignation of a director and its nominated adviser and broker.
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Top Economics And General
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The Bank of England said the margin of spare capacity has narrowed since February. But it assessed that there remains more scope to make greater inroads into slack before raising interest rate. When committee does start to raise the key rate, it expects to do so only gradually and to a level materially below its pre-crisis average, the bank said in its May Inflation Report on Wednesday. The bank maintained its economic growth outlook for this year at 3.4% and estimates 2.9% growth next year. But the bank expects unemployment to fall faster than it estimated in February. Inflation is expected to remain below the 2% target in two years.
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The UK unemployment rate fell to a five-year low in the first quarter, as economic recovery added more jobs, and pay growth exceeded consumer price inflation. The ILO jobless rate declined to 6.8% during January to March, the lowest since February 2009, from 7.2% in October to December, data from the Office for National Statistics showed. Last year, the Bank of England pledged not to hike interest rate until the jobless rate hit 7%. As the unemployment rate started falling faster than estimated, the bank assured markets that interest rates will not be raised before the second quarter of 2015. Partly due to more self-employed people, employment rose by 283,000 from the prior quarter to 30.43 million in January to March period.
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UK Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne is endangering the recovery by “washing his hands” of rising house prices and passing the buck to a Bank of England still coming to terms with new regulatory powers, the Financial Times quoted Labour shadow chancellor Ed Balls as saying Wednesday. The paper quoted Balls saying that Osborne needed to rein in the Help to Buy scheme in London, and put fresh effort into building new towns and more social housing to boost supply.
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Separatists in eastern Ukraine said that they killed eight government soldiers in a night-time battle outside their stronghold in Sloviansk. "The enemy launched a fresh attack around 1 a.m. (0400 GMT) but we fought back," the city's self-proclaimed mayor Vyacheslav Ponomaryov told Russia's Interfax news agency. Ponomaryov said that his men killed eight soldiers and destroyed a number of armoured vehicles. He added that the separatists also suffered losses, but failed to give further details. The Ukrainian government did not immediately comment on Ponomaryov's claims.
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Turkey declared three days of mourning as the death toll from the country's worst mining disaster in more than two decades reached 205, with fears that the number could climb much higher. Of the 787 workers who were in the coal mine when the explosion and fire occurred late Tuesday, only 363 of them have been accounted for, including those killed. "It's much worse than we initially expected," Energy Minister Taner Yildiz said.
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Attempts to illegally enter the EU increased threefold in the first four months of this year, the bloc's Frontex border agency said Wednesday, predicting even heavier migrant flows once summer arrives. Europe has been struggling with an influx of people looking for a better life or seeking refuge from conflicts such as the Syrian war, with hundreds dying in their bid to reach European shores. Seventeen migrants were reported dead earlier this week, after a ship with hundreds of people on board capsized in waters between Libya and Italy. Many are still missing. From January to April, about 42,000 people were caught trying to enter Europe illegally, compared to just 12,400 in the same period last year, Frontex Deputy Director Gil Arias-Fernandez told journalists in Brussels.
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Afternoon Watchlist (all times British Summer Time)

13:30 US Producer Price Index
15:30 US EIA Crude Oil Stocks change

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Thursday's Key UK Corporate Events

Aviva Interim Management Statement
Dixons Retail Trading Statement
Euromoney Institutional Investor Full Year Results
Marston's Half Year Results
Rank Group Interim Management Statement
Eurocastle Investment Interim Management Statement
Centamin Q1 Results
Chime Communications Interim Management Statement
Thomas Cook Group Half Year Results
Vedanta Resources Full Year Results
TalkTalk Telecom Group Full Year Results
New Europe Property Q1 Results
Impax Asset Management Group Half Year Results
Premier Farnell Interim Management Statement
Tarsus Group Interim Management Statement
Kier Group Interim Management Statement
Old Mutual Interim Management Statement
Land Securities Group Full Year Results
French Connection Group Interim Management Statement
London Stock Exchange Group Full Year Results
Restaurant Group Interim Management Statement
National Grid Interim Management Statement
Ophir Energy Interim Management Statement
Optos Half Year Results
Shanks Group Full Year Results
Trinity Mirror Interim Management Statement
UTV Media Interim Management Statement
Vesuvius Interim Management Statement
NewRiver Retail Limited Full Year Results
Merlin Entertainments Interim Management Statement
Informa Interim Management Statement

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Thursday's Key Economic Events (all times British Summer Time)


All Day EU European Council meeting
00:50 Japan Foreign bond investment
00:50 Japan Gross Domestic Product
00:50 Japan Tertiary Industry Index
01:00 Russia Gross Domestic Product Quarterly
04:25 Japan Bank of Japan Governor Kuroda Speech
06:00 Japan Consumer Confidence Index
06:30 France Gross Domestic Product
07:00 Germany Gross Domestic Product
09:00 EU ECB Monthly Report
10:00 UK CB Leading Economic Index
10:00 EU Consumer Price Index
10:00 EU Gross Domestic Product
13:30 US Consumer Price Index
13:30 US Initial Jobless Claims
13:30 US NY Empire State Manufacturing Index
14:00 US Total Net TIC Flows
14:15 US Industrial Production
14:15 US Capacity Utilisation
15:00 US NAHB Housing Market Index
15:00 US Philadelphia Fed Manufacturing Survey
15:30 US EIA Natural Gas Storage change

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By Alice Attwood; aliceattwood@alliancenews.com; @AliceAtAlliance

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