LONDON (Alliance News) - The following is a summary of top news stories Monday.
----------
COMPANIES
----------
Merlin Entertainments said it expects its full-year results to be below its previous forecasts due to the roller-coaster crash at its Alton Towers theme park in June. Merlin's Alton Towers theme park was shuttered back in June after a serious accident occurred on the Smiler ride. People on the Smiler ride were trapped 25 feet up at a 45 degree angle for up to four-and-a-half hours after two carriages collided, resulting in 16 people being injured, including four seriously. Merlin said that while it still anticipates its results for the first half of 2015 will be in line with its previous expectations, its results for the full year in its theme parks business are set to take a hit from the temporary closure of the park, the suspension of UK theme park marketing, and temporary ride closures.
----------
Reckitt Benckiser said it has upgraded its like-for-like revenue growth target for the full year after its pretax profit rose in the first half thanks to a solid performance across the business. The consumer goods company said its pretax profit for the six months to the end of June was GBP921 million, up from GBP838 million a year earlier. The group said it will pay an interim dividend of 50.3 pence per share, in line with its 50% payout ratio policy. The figure is lower than last year, when it paid 60 pence per share, as this included the Indivior business. Reckitt now expects to exceed the targets it set at the start of the year and is now targeting like-for-like revenue growth of 4-5% for the full year.
----------
BG Group said the Brazilian competition authority has cleared the company's proposed mega-merger with Royal Dutch Shell. The authority had already given initial approval earlier in July before formally clearing the deal after an appeal period ended. The clearance is the first of five needed by the pair as BG and Shell await approval from Australia, China and the European Union. The company did not state the fifth approval that it requires. Both sets of shareholders also need to approve the deal.
----------
Randgold Resources said it is making progress across all of its assets in the Ivory Coast, as the company's chief executive affirmed his commitment to the country.Chief Executive Mark Bristow, speaking at the company's quarterly update for local media, said the recovery rate at the Tongon mine has been "improving" after commissioning new hydrocone crushers and said the company will increase capacity further by installing three additional crushers. "Looking beyond Tongon, we've stepped up our exploration effort in Côte d'Ivoire on the back of its positive new mining code, and the results are confirming our belief in the high potential of the country's prospectivity," he said.
----------
Pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca said it has signed an agreement with Genzyme to sell Astra's Caprelsa rare disease medicine. AstraZeneca said Genzyme will pay it up to USD300 million, including a USD165 million upfront payment, to acquire the global rights to sell and develop Caprelsa. Caprelsa was granted Orphan Drug Designation by the US Food and Drug Administration in 2005 and is currently available in 28 countries for the treatment of aggressive and symptomatic medullary thyroid carcinoma, AstraZeneca said.
----------
Pearson confirmed on Saturday it is talks to sell its 50% stake in the Economist Group, just two days after it announced the sale of the FT Group, which includes the Financial Times, to Japanese media group Nikkei Inc for GBP844 million. Pearson made the announcement following a report by CNBC that the company was in negotiations to sell the stake, which was not included in the deal to sell the FT Group, to other shareholders in the Economist, citing people familiar with the situation. The report suggested the stake would be worth about GBP400 million.
----------
The takeover battle for online gaming company Bwin.Party Digital Entertainment took a further twist after GVC Holdings made an increased takeover bid for the company, having previously seen its advanced spurned in favour of a rival offer from 888 Holdings. Earlier this month, Bwin.Party turned down GVC's first offer in favour of the 888 bid, despite it valuing the company for less. GVC originally offered 100 pence per share for Bwin.Party, but said on Monday it has now raised this to 122.5 pence per share, 25 pence of which would be paid in cash, with the rest to be paid in GVC shares. The company added it would finance the deal with a EUR400 million senior secured loan provided by affiliates of US private equity group Cerberus Capital Management. GVC also intends to raise GBP150 million through an equity placing.
----------
Informa, a publishing and business intelligence company, has sold its Datamonitor Financial, Datamonitor Consumer, MarketLine and Verdict businesses to media company Progressive Digital Media Group. In a statement on Monday, Progressive Digital Media said it acquired the businesses for GBP25.0 million in cash, making the purchases under its strategy of expanding its premium subscription based services, and moving to strengthen its consumer activities.
----------
Acacia Mining reported a large fall in profit in the first half of 2015 due to higher costs and lower gold prices. The miner reported a pretax profit of USD25.0 million in the first half of 2015, dramatically falling from the USD62.2 million a year earlier despite revenue experiencing a small lift to USD446.8 million from USD445.5 million in the period. Despite the large fall in profit, Acacia retained its interim dividend of 1.4 cents per share, which is in line with the dividend paid for 2014.
Gold production in the first half totalled 367,301 ounces, 6% higher than the 346,581 ounces produced a year earlier. The miner retained its full year guidance to produce 750,000 to 800,000 ounces of gold.
----------
Food producer Cranswick said its first-quarter trading was in line with its expectations, with a rise in revenue and higher underlying sales year-on-year. The company, which makes food products including sausages and pies, said its revenue in the first quarter to the end of June was up 8% year-on-year on the back of robust volume growth across most product categories. Underlying sales in the quarter were up 4%, also on the back of higher volumes, while export sales to Far Eastern markets continued to be positive, with volumes up 14% year-on-year.
----------
MARKETS
----------
UK shares are mixed mid-morning but are putting in a better performance than other European indices, while Chinese stocks were sold off on Monday after disappointing manufacturing Purchasing Manager's Index data reported on Friday.
----------
FTSE 100: up 0.1% at 6,583.05
FTSE 250: down 0.3% at 17,443.22
AIM ALL-SHARE: down 0.3% at 752.27
----------
The euro jumped to USD1.1113 following positive business confidence data from Germany and is now at USD1.1078. The eurozone currency dropped recently below the USD1.1 mark, touching USD1.0806 last Monday.
----------
GBP: up at USD1.5519
EUR: up at USD1.1078
GOLD: up at USD1100.18 per ounce
OIL (Brent): up at USD54.18 a barrel
(changes since end of previous GMT day)
----------
ECONOMICS AND GENERAL
----------
Political parties in Greece were demanding answers Monday after media reports that ex-finance minister Yanis Varoufakis had secret plans for a parallel banking system in the event of Athens' exit from the eurozone. The plan involved the reintroduction of the drachma, the Kathimerini newspaper reported Sunday, and was discussed during a conference call with investors on July 16. Also published were extracts of the call. Varoufakis claimed he was authorized by Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras in December to examine such a parallel payment system, Kathimerini reported, but did not get the final go-ahead.
----------
Greece's talks with its creditors over a new bailout package will be delayed until Tuesday "for technical reasons" and are "neither political nor diplomatic" in nature, a finance ministry official said. The meetings with representatives from the European Commission, European Central Bank, International Monetary Fund - and possibly the European Stability Mechanism - were supposed to have started on Monday - already considered a delay from Friday. The finance ministry official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, says negotiations at the technical level would start on Tuesday, adding that the mission chiefs will arrive in Athens with a delay of "one or two days" due to technical reasons."
----------
There is no need for an interest rate hike soon in the UK, Bank of England's Chief Economist Andy Haldane told BBC Newsnight. Haldane repeated that rates could go up or down in the future and that he thought the current level was appropriate for the near term. Haldane said he saw economic "headwinds" such as demographic change, the overhang of high debt and its aftermath and the rise of short-termism that could mean economic growth in the future is weaker than in the past.
----------
Germany's business confidence improved by more than expected in July, reports said citing data from the the Munich-based Ifo Institute on. The Ifo Business Climate Index rose to 108 in July, well above the 107.5 score economists had forecast. In June, the reading dropped to a four-month low of 107.4.
----------
Germany's import prices declined at a faster-than-expected pace in June, data from Destatis showed. Import prices slid 1.4% year-over-year in June, slightly more than economists' expectations for a 1.3% decrease. In May, prices had fallen 0.8%. The import price index has been falling since January 2013. Excluding energy, import prices rose 2.6% in June from the previous year, while energy prices alone tumbled by 23.9%.
----------
Profits earned by Chinese industrial enterprises increased in June, figures from the National Bureau of Statistics showed. Industrial profits rose 0.3% year-over-year to CNY 588.57 billion in June following a 0.6% rise in the preceding month. The agency said the slowdown in industrial profit growth for the month was impacted by a decline in industrial producer prices, higher unit costs and tough comparisons with the year-ago period, when profits surged up 17.9%.
----------
Turkey has called for a special session of the NATO military alliance, following recent airstrikes by Ankara on positions in Syria of the terrorist militia Islamic State and in northern Iraq of the banned Kurdish Workers Party. According to a statement by the country's foreign ministry, Turkey wants consultations with the other members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization on further steps under Article 4 of the NATO charter which covers threats to a member state's national security. The session with the ambassadors of all 28 NATO allies is to take place on Tuesday, the alliance said.
----------
US President Barack Obama is expected to promote the fight against Islamist militant group Al-Shabaab in Ethiopia on Monday, the second stop of his four-day state visit to the region. "The threat in Kenya and Ethiopia is very similar," said Obama's national security adviser Ben Rhodes. Obama, who is the first sitting US president to visit Ethiopia, is also scheduled to hold a speech at the African Union. Zimbabwean President and AU chair Robert Mugabe, who is repeatedly criticized by the West for his authoritarian governance style, is not expected to attend Obama's speech.
----------
Yemen's Shiite Houthi rebels reject a five-day truce offered by a Saudi-led military coalition, their leader said. "The rejected truce requested by the Saudi aggression is aimed at giving a breathing space for mobilizing Daesh and al-Qaeda," Abdel-Malek al-Houthi says in a tweet, referring to Sunni radical groups. A Saudi-led military coalition had intensified its airstrikes against Iran-allied Houthi rebels in Yemen, hours before the start of the proposed five-day unilateral truce.
----------
By Arvind Bhunjun; arvindbhunjun@alliancenews.com; @ArvindBhunjun
Copyright 2015 Alliance News Limited. All Rights Reserved.
2 Feb 2016 08:52
