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LONDON (Alliance News) - UK stocks are higher Friday mid-morning, with a focus on corporate news as FTSE 100 bottler Coca-Cola HBC sets a new 52-week high following a positive trading update.
The blue-chip index is back above 7,000 points, up 0.4% at 7,000.10. The FTSE 250 is up 0.5% at 18,025.07, and the AIM All-Share is up 0.2% at 761.06.
European indices also are higher, with the CAC 40 in Paris up 0.5%, and the DAX 30 in Frankfurt up 0.5%.
Coca-Cola HBC is up 1.9% at 1,443 pence, having touched a new 52-week high at 1,472.00p, after it said net sales revenue rose in the first quarter, with volumes higher due to extra selling days and an early Easter, though it faced a mixed effect from currency fluctuations across its operations.
The company, the second-largest bottler of products made by US drinks group The Coca-Cola Co, said its net sales revenue in the first quarter to the end of March was EUR1.35 billion, up from EUR1.33 billion a year earlier. The group's volume rose by 7.2% in the quarter, up to 439 million unit cases from 409.6 million a year earlier, though its net sales revenue per unit case fell to EUR3.08 against EUR3.25.
Coca-Cola HBC said volumes increased in all three of its segments, covering established, developing and emerging markets, in the quarter, largely due to four extra selling days and the timing of the Easter holiday, with good performances for the group in Nigeria, Poland, Romania, Hungary and the Czech Republic.
ITV is up 2.1%, wiping out Thursday's 1.0% decline when a lower viewing share, a staff strike and a weaker second quarter outlook for net advertising had weighed on its share price. Analysts are mixed on the television stock, with house broker Panmure Gordon saying Buy, while Berengerg says Sell.
Brewer SABMiller is up 1.0%. It said it has struck a deal to buy Greenwich, London-based craft beer company Meantime Brewing Co for an undisclosed amount. Meantime was founded in 1999 and now offers a range of beers sold in pubs across the UK, including London Lager and Meantime Pale Ale. SABMiller said it intends to grow sales of Meantime beers nationally and explore export opportunities in the European market.
Intertek Group, up 1.0%, said it is trading in line with its expectations in 2015 so far, with good growth in the majority of regional operations and continued challenging conditions in its units exposed to the oil and gas and minerals markets.
The company, which provides testing, certification and inspection services, said revenue grew 3.3% in the four months to the end of April, pushed higher by sterling weakening against a number of currencies. At constant currencies, revenue grew 0.3%. Intertek said its operating margin in the period was broadly flat year-on-year.
UK media and communications regulator Ofcom said it has tabled proposals which would allow companies looking to provide high-speed telecoms lines for businesses to be granted access to BT Group's fibre networks using their own equipment, and said it has tabled new service requirements for BT's Openreach arm.
Under the plans, BT would have to give its competitors physical access to its fibre-optic cables, allowing those competitors to take direct control of the connections. BT is already required to offer wholesale leased-line products, which bundle the fibre-optic cable with its own network equipment, but Ofcom said the new proposals would go further, allowing operators to use the BT cables with their own equipment, rather than BT's.
BT Group shares are up 0.1%.
Miners Fresnillo, down 1.5%, Anglo American, down 1.0%, Randgold Resources, down 0.6% and Antofagasta, down 0.5% are amongst the worst performers in the blue-chip index.
In the FTSE 250, Bwin.party Digital Entertainment is the best performer, up 6.3%, amid renewed take-over speculation.
Housebuilder Bovis Homes is up 1.1% after it said it is on track to meet its targets for the year, with a robust forward sales position for the year, which the company expects to be more second-half weighted than in 2014. Bovis said it has made solid progress in 2015 to date, with total forward sales for 2015 delivery at 3,049 homes at May 8, up 8% year-on-year.
International Personal Finance is down 1.7% after JP Morgan downgraded the company to Underweight from Neutral.
Stock markets got some relief as US Treasuries yields dropped Thursday, meaning Treasury prices rose, on the back of an unexpected decline in US producer prices in April.
"With US Treasury yields calming down their recent rise yesterday...equities markets were able to regain some upside initiative once more," says Hantec Markets analyst Richard Perry. "This seems to now be the theme of trading, that if the bond markets are settled then equities can take heart and find support."
US futures point to a higher opening, with the DJIA and the S&P 500 seen up 0.2% and the Nasdaq 100 pointed up 0.3%. The S&P hit a new closing high Thursday at 2,121.10 points.
Still in the economic calendar, in the US, industrial production is due at 1415 BST, while the Reuters/Michigan consumer sentiment index is at 1500 BST.
By Daniel Ruiz; danielruiz@alliancenews.com
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