Last checked at 
LONDON (Alliance News) - UK shares are set to open lower Thursday as talks between the Eurogroup finance ministers and Greece over the country's debt remain at a stalemate.
IG indicates the FTSE 100 to open 22 points lower at 6,796.1. The index closed down 0.2% at 6,818.17 amid a heavy day of corporate news and a fall in oil prices.
Brent oil has made up some ground ahead of the open Thursday, trading at USD56.79 a barrel. West Texas Intermediate is also quoted higher but still below the USD50 a barrel mark, at USD49.81 a barrel.
Eurozone finance ministers ended their talks without any major breakthrough on the future course of action on Greek debt funding. "We had an intense discussion and constructive, covering a lot of ground, also making progress, but not enough progress at this point to come to joint conclusions," Eurogroup President Jeroen Dijsselbloem said at the press conference in Brussels late Wednesday.
"This meeting was never about finding a solution, but more about establishing what the latest Greece proposals are, and whether there is a basis for some form of agreement, with a view to what the next steps are likely to be," says Michael Hewson, chief market analyst at CMC Markets. "In this context it shifts the focus more towards Monday?s meeting though even after yesterday prospects of a solution seem as far away as ever."
Meanwhile, a preliminary reading of German consumer prices showed the country fell into deflation in January. Data from the Statistiches Bundesamt Deutschland showed consumer prices declined by 0.4% in January, more than the expected fall of 0.3%, and the 0.2% rise in December.
US stocks ended mixed Wednesday. The DJIA closed slightly lower, the S&P 500 ended flat, and the Nasdaq Composite closed up 0.3%.
In Asia Thursday the Japanese Nikkei closed up 1.9%, catching up after a holiday on Wednesday, while the Hang Seng trades up 0.3%, and the Shanghai Composite is up 0.5%.
Anglo-Australian miner Rio Tinto reported a fall in underlying earnings in 2014, but said it would hike its dividend and will launch a USD2 billion share buyback programme. The group said its underlying earnings for the year to the end of December hit USD9.31 billion, down from USD10.2 billion last year.
Informa reported in it swung to a pretax loss of GBP31.2 million in 2014 from a GBP115.4 million pretax profit in 2013. The publishing firm said the loss was driven by a non-cash impairment of GBP219 million. The group's full-year revenue was broadly flat at GBP1.14 billion versus GBP1.13 billion in 2013. However, Informa increased its full-year total dividend by 2% to 19.3 pence per share.
Morgan Advanced Materials reported its pretax profit halved in 2014, as revenue was dragged back by currency headwinds over the year. The FTSE 250-listed carbon and ceramic products manufacturer said its pretax profit for the year to December 31 was down to GBP31.5 million from GBP64 million a year earlier.
Imperial Tobacco Group said tobacco net revenue grew by 4% at constant currency rates to GBP1.49 billion in the first quarter of its financial year, driven by volume and revenue growth from its growth brands, and reaffirmed its outlook for the full year, with dividend growth of at least 10%.
BT Group announced a placing of new shares to raise around GBP1.0 billion, which it will use to part fund its acquisition of mobile provider EE. BT said Thursday that the shares issued in the placing will represent around 3% of its outstanding share capital. The placing will be conducted through an accelerated bookbuilding process conducted by JP Morgan Securities, Merill Lynch International and Goldman Sachs.
In the UK corporate calendar, Shire will release its full-year results at 1200 GMT.
In the economic calendar, the Bank of England's quarterly inflation report is due to be released at 1030 GMT. In the afternoon, US retail sales for January is at 1330 GMT.
By Neil Thakrar; neilthakrar@alliancenews.com; @NeilThakrar1
Copyright 2015 Alliance News Limited. All Rights Reserved.
