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LONDON (Alliance News) - The following is a summary of top news stories Monday.
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COMPANIES
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Centrica reiterated its full-year guidance, after a cold winter boosted energy consumption in its British Gas business despite a broadly flat number of residential accounts and lower numbers of business customers, but the company noted its outlook is clouded by the upcoming General Election and the regulatory review of the UK gas and electricity market. "Overall, the group continues to trade in line with the guidance provided at the time of its 2014 preliminary results in February, with improved year-on-year profitability downstream expected to be more than offset by the impact of lower commodity prices on the upstream business," said the company in a statement. The company said residential gas consumption through British Gas was 10% higher in the first three months of 2015 than a year earlier with electricity consumption increasing by 2%, which Centrica said was due to colder temperatures than normal during the period.
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Drinks giant Diageo confirmed it is considering its options as Indian drinks company United Spirits moved to oust its chairman and former majority shareholder amid an internal probe into its financial statements. Diageo noted a statement by USL, in which it holds a 54.78% majority stake, saying that the board had lost confidence in Vijay Mallya and had called on him to resign. Mallya had indicated he wouldn't tender his resignation, said USL, which had said it would ask shareholders to vote him out if he refused to step down. The Financial Times reported over the weekend that USL's probe found improprieties in financial transactions between United Spirits and Kingfisher Airlines, the now-collapsed Indian carrier also owned by Mallya, between 2010 and 2012.
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Royal Bank of Scotland Group said it will book a USD30 million loss on disposal after it sold a further portfolio of North American corporate loan commitments to Mizuho Financial Group, coming on top of the deal it did with the same bank in February. The British bank said the latest loan portfolio it is selling in North America comprises USD5.6 billion of loan commitments, including USD0.5 billion of drawn assets as of the end of February, and generated a profit after tax in the region of USD20 million in calendar 2014.
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HSBC Holdings is mulling the spin-off of its UK retail bank into a separate business for about GBP20 billion, the Sunday Times newspaper reported. A deal could revive the old Midland Bank, which was bought by the lender in 1992. The move comes amid government requirements that banks separate their retail business from the rest of their operations as of 2019. The lender said Friday that it would review whether to move its headquarters out of the UK, as the Asia-focused bank grapples with higher taxes and regulatory costs in the country.
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Irish building materials company CRH said it will shortly start looking for a new finance director after it said the current holder of the role, Maeve Carton, will lead a new strategic function from the start of 2016. In a statement, CRH said Carton will become group transformation director, identifying and implementing the optimum financial and business model for the group in the years ahead.
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The European Commission on Friday cleared the proposed acquisition of several assets of Holcim of Switzerland and of Lafarge of France by CRH. The Commission concluded that the transaction would raise no competition concerns, in particular because the merged entity will continue to face sufficiently strong competition after the merger and customers will have alternative suppliers in all markets concerned.
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The UK government has told BP it would oppose any potential takeover of the company, amid speculation the oil major could become a target in the wake of the takeover of BG Group by Royal Dutch Shell, the Financial Times reported. British officials told the FT that Downing Street would be "sceptical" about any takeover as it wants the UK to retain two big global oil companies. ExxonMobil, the US oil and gas giant, has been tipped by analysts for a possible takeover bid for BP, the FT noted.
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Randgold Resources said the Tongon gold mine in the Ivory coast is on track to achieve its full-year production and cost guidance for 2015 after the company made "significant progress" in dealing with challenges at the mine that had previously hampered operations. The Tongon mine will produce around 260,000 ounces of gold in 2015 at a cash cost of USD820 per ounce. At the current gold price, the project should be able to repay the capital expenditure spent on developing the project in 2015 as scheduled, said Randgold.
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Great Portland Estates said its Great Wigmore Partnership joint venture with FTSE 100 fund manager Aberdeen Asset Management has sold the 95 Wigmore Street property in central London for GBP222.4 million. FTSE 250-listed Great Portland said the property has been sold to UBS Global Asset Management's real estate business and said the sale price reflects a net initial yield of 3.4%.
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Tullow Oil confirmed an international tribunal has ordered all exploration for oil and gas in a disputed offshore area between Ghana and the Ivory Coast to be suspended, including in the company's flagship TEN project. Although exploration and new exploitation in the disputed area is suspended, existing developments such as the TEN project can continue to be developed. All new exploration and exploitation will remain suspended until the Special Chamber of the International Tribunal of the Law of the Sea in Hamburg, Germany, makes a final decision on the maritime boundary dispute between the two countries in late 2017.
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Playtech expressed confidence for strong growth in 2015 as it delivered a strong start to the year, with revenue up 31% in its first quarter. Playtech provides software and services for the gaming industry. The company said its revenue for the first quarter of 2015 was EUR134.9 million, up from EUR102.7 million a year before, and up from EUR126.2 million in the fourth quarter of 2014. This was mostly driven by a strong performance from its Casino and Services segments, and a big jump in its Land-based revenue, which offset a slight decline in Poker revenue.
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MARKETS
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London stock indices quickly reversed a higher open to trade lower mid-morning, in a quiet start to the week, with HSBC Holdings leading FTSE 100 gainers for the second consecutive session after press reports over the weekend suggesting it will spin off its UK retail bank.
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FTSE 100: down 0.3% at 7,050.16
FTSE 250: down 0.2% at 17,697.65
AIM ALL-SHARE: down 0.1% at 752.94
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GBP: down at USD1.5138
EUR: down at USD1.0838

GOLD: up at USD1182.47 per ounce
OIL (Brent): down at USD64.71 a barrel

(changes since end of previous GMT day)
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ECONOMICS AND GENERAL
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Labour put housing policy at the centre of its UK election campaign, pledging a stamp duty holiday for first time buyers and a clampdown on landlords, as the Tories launched a small business manifesto in an attempt to deflect Labour's accusation that it is the party of big business. Labour leader Ed Miliband will announce plans to scrap stamp duty for first-time buyers purchasing a property of up to GBP300,000, an attempt by the party to try and build momentum in the last full week of campaigning. In a speech in Stockton, Labour will say it would implement a "holiday" on stamp duty for first time buyers for the first three years of its tenure in government, claiming the plan will cost GBP225 million.
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The Conservatives retained a lead in the latest Opinium poll over the weekend, but Labour continues to narrowly top the YouGov surveys as polls of polls have the two parties in a dead heat as the UK General Election campaign moves into its final 10 days. The latest Opinium/The Observer poll has the Conservatives retaining their lead, albeit at a narrower margin than a week earlier. The Tories are on 34%, down two points from a week ago, but remain a point ahead of Labour on 33%. The YouGov/The Sun poll for Monday saw Labour lose a point but also retain a lead over the Tories, at 34% to 33%. The BBC and Sky News polls of polls both have Labour and the Tories level-pegging on 33%.
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Germany's import prices continued to decline in March but the pace of decrease slowed for the second month, data from Destatis showed. Import prices fell by less-than-expected 1.4% in March from last year, following a 3% drop in February. Prices were expected to fall 2%. Nonetheless, the import price index has been falling since January 2013. At the same time, the annual increase in export prices doubled to 1.4% from 0.7% in February. Similarly, monthly growth accelerated to 0.6% from 0.3%.
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For weeks, Greece and its eurozone financial backers have been talking past each other, piling up frustration upon frustration as the Mediterranean country's coffers slowly dry up. On Friday, the tensions finally started to boil over. At a tumultuous meeting in Riga, eurozone finance ministers beseeched their Greek colleague Yanis Varoufakis, in what diplomats said was unusually frank language, to deliver the economic reforms needed to unblock bailout aid. Athens and its creditors have been negotiating such reforms for weeks, but no agreement is in sight. The Financial Times made waves by reporting that Slovenian Finance Minister Dusan Mramor had told the meeting to prepare a "Plan B" to deal with a Greek default. But the comment could not be independently confirmed, and Mramor publicly downplayed suggestions that "Plan B" referred to a Grexit.
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Top EU officials are due Monday to urge Ukraine to press ahead with its reform agenda, despite the security challenges in the east of the cash-strapped country, at the bloc's first summit with Ukraine since the 2014 ouster of former president Viktor Yanukovych. While battling a pro-Russian separatist uprising in eastern Ukraine, Kiev is also receiving international support to stave off bankruptcy, in return for carrying out wide-reaching political and economic reforms. "This is not a routine summit," a senior EU official said Friday on condition of anonymity, adding that the aim of the 17th such round of EU-Ukraine talks is to give a "clear and strong sign of solidarity" to Ukrainian officials when they meet in Kiev.
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The death toll from the 7.8-magnitude earthquake at the weekend in Nepal was 3,432, the Interior Ministry said Monday, after thousands more spent a second night in the open. The government said around 6,505 people were injured in the quake that hit on Saturday.
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