BT Share News (BT.A)

LONDON (Alliance News) - Shares in FTSE 100 insurer RSA were down 21% at the open Monday, after Switzerland's Zurich Insurance Group pulled out of talks to acquire the UK company.

The broader market was flat to lower. Irish pharmaceutical company Shire led blue-chip gainers, up 2.3%. Shire said it has received approval from the European Commission for Intuniv for the treatment of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder in children. The stock also was raised to Overweight from Equal Weight by Barclays.

Here is what you need to know at the London market open:
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MARKETS
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FTSE 100: flat at 6,106.29
FTSE 250: down 0.3% at 16,902.30
AIM ALL-SHARE: down 0.1% at 741.07
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Hang Seng: down 1.1% at 21,684.81
Nikkei 225: Tokyo market closed for holiday until Thursday.
DJIA: closed down 1.7% at 16,384.58
S&P 500: closed down 1.6% at 1,958.03
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GBP: up at USD1.5553
EUR: flat at USD1.1308

GOLD: flat at USD1,139.14 per ounce
OIL (Brent): up at USD48.11 a barrel

(changes since end of previous GMT day)
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ECONOMICS AND GENERAL
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Monday's Key Economic Events still to come
(all times in BST)

11:00 Germany Buba Monthly Report
13:30 Canada Wholesale Sales
15:00 US Existing Home Sales
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House prices in the UK jumped in September, the latest house price balance from property tracking website Rightmove showed on Monday, climbing 0.9% to 294,834 pounds. That follows the 0.8% decline in August. On a yearly basis, prices were up 6.4% - unchanged from the previous month's reading. The number of new sellers fell 4.9% in the North, however, and 7.1% in the South.
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Claiming a surprising victory with projections showing more than 35% support Sunday, Alexis Tsipras and his SYRIZA party said they would form a coalition with former partner Independent Greeks and "continue fighting for the sake of the people". While projected turnout was the lowest it has been since at least 1950, the outcome belied forecasts by pre-vote surveys and analyses. It ensured SYRIZA a mandate to govern over a difficult implementation of bailout conditions over the next four years. The Independent Greeks (ANEL) had been the junior coalition partner of SYRIZA after Tsipras' party rose to power in a wave of support for his anti-austerity platform in January. According to tallies by the Ministry of the Interior, SYRIZA was projected to win 145 seats and Independent Greeks 10 in the 300-seat parliament.
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Thousands of refugees were stranded Sunday, many without shelter, on the roads and borders of Croatia, Slovenia and Hungary as EU leaders prepared to meet this week to decide their fates. Their sheer numbers have proven overwhelming to EU border and security officials and politicians. Attempts by Austrian police to deny entry to some migrants trying to cross its southern border with Slovenia proved ineffectual as they were grossly outnumbered.
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German producer prices declined at a faster-than-expected pace in August, figures from Destatis showed. Producer prices fell 1.7% year-over-year in August, following a 1.3% decrease in the previous month. Economists had forecast a 1.6% drop for the month. Producer prices have been falling since August 2013. Excluding energy, producer prices dropped 0.5% annually in August and it edged down 0.2% from the prior month.
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China's service sector strengthened in the third quarter but the manufacturing sector continued to remain weak, the China Beige Book survey published by CBB International revealed Monday.
"Perceptions of China may be more thoroughly divorced from facts on the ground than at any time in our nearly five years of surveying the economy," CBB President Leland Miller said.
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The US and China are negotiating a cyberspace arms control agreement ahead of Chinese President Xi Jinping's visit to Washington this week, the New York Times reports. The two nations would agree not to use cyberweapons to attack each other's infrastructure during peacetime, officials involved in the talks told the newspaper. Such an agreement would be the first of its kind and would be designed to prevent cyberattacks against power plants, banking systems, mobile telephone networks and hospitals.
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The US government was facing its second shutdown in two years after the House of Representatives on Friday voted to freeze federal funding for an organization that provides women's health services and some abortions. Nearly all Republicans in the House and two Democrats voted for the legislation (241-187), which would block federal funding to Planned Parenthood for one year. The vote is largely symbolic, as Democrats have enough votes in the Senate to block it.
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German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier and US Secretary of State John Kerry said their two countries would redouble their efforts for a diplomatic solution to the Syrian crisis. Speaking in Berlin after a meeting between the two, Steinmeier said it was clear after five years of civil war with many dead and millions of refugees that there was "a political and moral duty to put an end to the killing in Syria." Kerry announced that the US - after international criticism for its less than robust action in the Syria refugee crisis - would to take in at least 100,000 refugees from around the world in 2017.
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Iranian President Hassan Rowhani insisted that his country is upholding the conditions of a wide-ranging nuclear deal in a meeting with the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency. IAEA chief Yukiya Amano flew to Tehran as the international nuclear watchdog is rushing to complete its investigation of alleged past nuclear weapons projects in Iran. The inquiry is part of an agreement that the Islamic republic struck with six major powers in July to curb its nuclear programme in return for sanctions relief.
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BROKER RATING CHANGES
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NOMURA CUTS BT GROUP TO 'NEUTRAL' ('BUY') - PRICE TARGET 490 (560) PENCE
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BARCLAYS RAISES SHIRE TO 'OVERWEIGHT' ('EQUAL WEIGHT') - TARGET 5700 (5564) PENCE
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BERNSTEIN INITIATES LANCASHIRE HLDGS WITH 'MARKET-PERFORM' - TARGET 700 PENCE
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GOLDMAN REMOVES POLYMETAL FROM 'CONVICTION BUY LIST'
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COMPANIES - FTSE 100
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RSA Insurance Group confirmed an earlier statement by Switzerland's Zurich Insurance Group that the latter has pulled out of talks to acquire the UK insurer. RSA said that as a result of the recent deterioration of trading conditions in Zurich's general insurance arm, it had decided to pull out of the talks. RSA said Zurich had confirmed its due diligence findings were in line with its expectations and it had not found anything related to RSA that would have prevented it from going ahead with the talks. Zurich said in a short statement that discussions with RSA about making a bid for the British insurer had been terminated, without providing any further details.
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Inmarsat said it has agreed a strategic partnership with German telecommunications provider Deutsche Telekom to develop a new combined satellite and a high-speed ground network, to be dubbed the 'European Aviation Network.' The network is designed to provider in-flight high-speed internet access in Europe. The network will combine coverage from Inmarsat's new S-band satellite with a ground network operating in the same frequency band developed and run by Deutsche Telekom.
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HSBC Holdings reportedly plans to add 4,000 positions in China's Pearl River Delta region in the coming three to four years, even as the Asia-focused lender cuts jobs elsewhere. In June, the company had announced certain restructuring actions, which were reportedly expected to eliminate 25,000 jobs globally. The planned appointments in China are to support the company's retail banking and wealth management business.
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A group of telecommunications and media companies have joined the Institute of Directors to denounce the quality of UK broadband services and call on the country's competition watchdog to investigate the role played by BT Group in the market, in a letter published in the Financial Times. BT's ownership of the national telecoms network has resulted in a "substandard experience for millions of customers," according to the letter, which called for "radical reform" of the market. The letter was signed by a number of industry bodies and by Vodafone Group, Sky and TalkTalk Telecom Group.
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Shire said it has received approval from the European Commission for Intuniv for the treatment of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder in children and adolescents from 6 to 17 years old for whom stimulants are not suitable, not tolerated or ineffective.
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COMPANIES - FTSE 250
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Online electrical appliances retailer AO World said its UK business has continued to grow in the second quarter and said revenue from its German business is in line with its expectations. The FTSE 250-listed company said it expects revenue for the second quarter to the end of September to be up by around 20% to 21% year-on-year, driven by growth of around 30% from AO.com sales. The company said it has accelerated investment into the AO.com business in the quarter.
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Fellow FTSE 250 property investors SEGRO and UK Commercial Property Trust sealed a swap deal involving properties in Northampton and Radlett. Under the deal, industrial property investor SEGRO will pay GBP31.0 million to acquire a modern distribution warehouse in Brackmills in Northampton from UK Commercial Property Trust. UK Commercial Property Trust will then acquire the Ventura Park industrial estate in Radlett in Hertfordshire for GBP67.1 million. SEGRO said the balance of GBP36.1 million has been paid to it by UK Commercial Property Trust in cash.
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Construction and support services company Balfour Beatty said its joint venture with FTSE 250 peer Carillion has won a GBP292.0 million contract with Highways England. Under the deal, the Balfour-Carillion joint venture will handle the construction work on the upgrade of the A14 between Swavesey and Milton, part of the wider A14 Cambridge to Huntingdon improvement scheme.
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COMPANIES - LONDON MAIN MARKET AND AIM
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CK Hutchison is understood to be considering plans to float UK mobile network O2 in London again, having completed the GBP10.3 billion acquisition of the company, the Financial Times reported. Canning Fok, the co-chief executive of CK Hutchison, said an initial public offering of the combined O2 and Three mobile networks has been discussed with external investors, which have committed about GBP3 billion to fund the deal. The combined O2 and Three business is valued at around GBP15 billion, the FT said.
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Finsbury Food Group said the acquisition of bakery Fletchers Group in October last year resulted in a big rise in revenue and an uptick in pretax profit in the its last financial year. Finsbury, which makes cakes and bakery products, said its pretax profit for the 52 weeks to June 27 was GBP8.5 million, up from GBP6.6 million in the comparable period a year earlier, as its revenue rose to GBP256.2 million from GBP175.7 million, driven by the acquisition of Fletchers. On a like-for-like basis, the group's revenue rose 6.1%.
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Fashion retailer French Connection Group said its loss in the first half widened in line with its revised expectations, outlined in a trading update issued earlier in the year, due to the disappointing performance of its Spring 2015 collection. The company posted a pretax loss of GBP7.9 million for the six months to the end of July, compared to a GBP3.9 million loss a year earlier. In April, the group issued a profit warning thanks to the weak performance of its spring collection, saying its trading performance would be materially weaker than expected for the first half and that its full-year results would miss the market view.
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Stevia ingredients producer PureCircle said it is planning to move to the London Stock Exchange's Main Market as it posted higher profit and revenue for the year to the end of June. The company said it is planning to apply for a listing on the Main Market in a bid to raise its investor profile and give it access to a broader spectrum of investors. It does not intend to raise any further funds through the listing change and said the move is expected to occur by October 26 at the latest. The move came as PureCircle published its results for the year to the end of June, which saw is net pretax profit rise 78% to USD4.1 million from USD2.3 million, thanks to its revenue rising 26% to USD127.4 million from USD101.0 million.
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COMPANIES - INTERNATIONAL
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The lockup on 63% of Alibaba Group Holding's shares has ended and investors are bracing for the worst following the Chinese e-commerce giant's USD128.5 billion stock market slump, Bloomberg reported. As Yahoo! Inc is still weighing a spin off of its stake in Alibaba amid the tax uncertainty, Alibaba's shareholders fear about the possibility of more shares hitting the market and further driving down the company's stock price.
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German automaker Volkswagen Chief Executive Officer Martin Winterkorn apologized for customers' "broken trust" after the company was accused of defrauding environmental regulators. The company has ordered an external investigation of the matter. Volkswagen could face penalties of up to USD18 billion after being accused by the US government of installing software to defeat emissions controls on nearly half a million diesel vehicles sold in the US since 2008, according to media reports on Friday.
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The Coca-Cola Co said it received a Statutory Notice of Deficiency from the Internal Revenue Service for the tax years 2007 - 2009. The IRS claims that the company's US taxable income should be increased by an amount that creates a potential additional federal income tax liability of approximately USD3.3 billion for the period, plus interest. No penalties were asserted.
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Google has announced that it will host a press event on Tuesday, September 29 at 9 am in San Francisco. The company has promised 'some tasty new treats and much S'more'. The event will be live streamed via google channel on YouTube. At the event, the company is expected to introduce two new Nexus smartphones, and an updated Chromecast device. The new smartphones, developed by Huawei and LG, would run on Android 6.0 Marshmallow.
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Monday's Scheduled AGMs/EGMs

Finsbury Food
Abzena
BSD Crown
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By Tom Waite; thomaslwaite@alliancenews.com; @thomaslwaite

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