eServGlobal Share News (ESG)

LONDON (Alliance News) - Shares have opened higher in London Monday, after China's central bank on Sunday lowered the amount of cash financial institutions are required to hold as reserves, in order to provide some stimulus after disappointing Chinese economic data last week.

Stock markets in Hong Kong and Shanghai are trading lower Monday despite the news, having rallied last week in the face of the weak Chinese trade and GDP reports.

In London, Petrofac shares are down 11% at the open, after the FTSE 250 oil and gas services company said it will book a further GBP130 million pretax loss on its Laggan-Tormore gas plant project on Shetland in the UK.

Here is what you need to know at the London market open:
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MARKETS
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FTSE 100: up 0.9% at 7,059.07
FTSE 250: up 0.5% at 17,657.96
AIM ALL-SHARE: up 0.1% at 750.20
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Hang Seng: down 2.1% at 27,059.64
Nikkei 225: closed down 0.1% at 19,634.49
DJIA: closed down 1.5% at 17,826.30
S&P 500: closed down 1.1% at 2,081.18
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GBP: down at USD1.4938
EUR: down at USD1.0773

GOLD:up at USD1,206.23 per ounce
OIL (Brent): up at USD63.94 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)

Germany Buba Monthly Report
10:00 EU Construction Output
13:30 US Chicago Fed National Activity Index
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Polling ahead of the UK General Election remained mixed over the weekend, with the latest Opinium poll giving the Conservatives a four-point lead but a YouGov poll putting Labour ahead by three points and an ICM poll putting the parties neck-and-neck.
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The average asking price for a house in the UK was up 1.6% on month in April, property tracking website Rightmove said on Monday, coming in at a record GBP286,133. That follows the 1.0% increase in March. On a yearly basis, house prices climbed 4.7%, slowing from 5.4% in the previous month. The website cited a shortage of new home building as one of the main reasons for the spike in prices.
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China's reserve requirement ratio reduction by 100 basis points announced Sunday was the biggest such cut since the financial crisis. The People's Bank of China lowered the amount set aside by banks as reserves to 18.5% effective Monday. This was the second reduction this year, an action taken after the economy logged its weakest growth in six years. The central bank last lowered the ratio by 0.5 percentage points in February, which was the first reduction since May 2012. The latest move was intended to make available more funds for banks for lending and to divert funds to productive sectors.
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Greek officials are pulling out all the stops in an effort to borrow EUR15 billion to avoid default, with recent feelers out to China and Russia, according to Greek media reports Saturday. Weekly newspaper Karfi cited government officials saying that the country is hoping China will provide it with a EUR10 billion loan, in the form of a prepayment for future use of the port of Piraeus and as an advance on its investment into Greece's railway operator. The country is also hoping for an additional EUR3-5 billion from Russia, according to the weekly Agora, also quoting officials. That would serve as an advance payment for fees linked to a planned gas pipeline dubbed Turkish Stream. The pipeline would bring Russian gas to the Greek-Turkish border.
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Germany's producer prices declined at a faster-than-expected pace in March, figures from Destatis showed. The producer price index fell 1.7% year-over-year in March, surpassing economists' expectations for a 1.6% decrease. In February, prices had fallen 2.1%. Producer prices have been falling since August 2013.
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Although consumer price inflation eased to around zero mainly reflecting the significant decline in crude prices, the underlying trend of inflation has improved markedly, Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda said at a luncheon speech at the Economic Club of Minnesota. The monetary easing implemented by the BoJ is having the intended effects and the economy is making steady progress on its way to conquering deflation. He noted that a number of indications of the deflationary mindset that had taken hold in Japan are subsiding.
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The US Federal Reserve can reduce the risk of financial instability from expected interest rate hikes in the coming months by clearly communicating its monetary policy plans, the International Monetary Fund's key policy committee said. The US central bank has already signalled that it might start tightening monetary policy as early as June, after keeping its benchmark interest rate at an unprecedented near-zero since December 2008. The committee, which steers the Washington-based IMF's policies, said in a statement Saturday that "careful calibration and effective communication of policy normalization is needed" to ease potential shocks to the financial system, currency fluctuations and large swings in investment flows to fast-growing developing economies.
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BROKER RATING CHANGES
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GOLDMAN RAISES HSBC TO 'CONVICTION BUY LIST' ('BUY') - PRICE TARGET 760 PENCE
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TRADERS: INVESTEC RAISES VIRGIN MONEY TO 'HOLD' ('SELL')
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BARCLAYS CUTS ELECTROCOMPONENTS TO 'UNDERWEIGHT' ('EW') - TARGET 219(210)PENCE
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BARCLAYS RAISES NORTHGATE TO 'OVERWEIGHT' ('EW') - TARGET 710 (555) PENCE
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COMPANIES - FTSE 100
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The Conservative party on Sunday confirmed plans to allow retail investors to buy up to GBP4 billion worth of shares in Lloyds Banking Group if the party wins the country's upcoming general election. Writing in the Sunday Telegraph, Chancellor George Osborne said the retail offer would be launched within one year of the election and include a loyalty bonus of one share for every ten held for a year to encourage people to adopt a long-term approach to ownership. Various UK press reports said the shares would be sold at discounted market prices.
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HSBC Holdings is renewing its efforts to simplify and shrink its operations by speeding up plans to withdraw from certain emerging markets, according to a Financial Times report. The FT report, which cited people close to the bank, said that HSBC's new strategy will result in an exit from retail banking in Brazil and Turkey, as well as from other operations that aren't performing to a level deemed adequate. The group's investment banking arm, known as global banking and markets, also faces cuts, according to the report.
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St Modwen Properties has appointed British Land Financial Controller Robert Hudson as its next finance director, and he's set to start by October. Hudson, aged 41, is a chartered accountant who began his career with PricewaterhouseCoopers before moving to Experian PLC in 2000 where he held a number of senior financial roles, including global finance director of its Decision Analytics business and UK finance director. St. Modwen's current finance director, Mike Dunn, had announced in December that he would leave the property company on May 31.
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COMPANIES - FTSE 250
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Steel maker Evraz said its crude steel and steel products output was flat in the first quarter of 2015 compared with the previous quarter, meaning output was slightly up on the year-earlier period, while it will return USD336.2 million to shareholders after its share tender ended. Consolidated crude steel output was stable on the quarter at 3.9 million tonnes a quarter, with its Russian steel mills running at full capacity.
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International Public Partnerships said it has acquired an additional 40% investment in the Lewisham Building Schools for the Future project, increasing its overall exposure to between 40% and 50% in the underlying project assets. The company said it will invest GBP14.3 million for the additional 40% interest from Babcock Project Investments Ltd.
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Petrofac said it will book a further GBP130 million pretax loss on its Laggan-Tormore gas plant project on Shetland in the UK, blaming weather-related delays, an issue with a sub-contractor, lower worker productivity and the requirement for more work than it had previously expected. The oil and gas services company had booked a USD230 million loss on the project in its 2014 results and had said it expected that it wouldn't have to book any further losses over the remainder of the contract, which it expected to complete in the third quarter of 2015. However, as activity ramped up in March and April, it became clear that the project was going to require more work than it had previously expected, it said Monday.
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LondonMetric Property said it has exchanged contracts on the sale of its 170,000 square foot Travis Perkins PLC distribution facility in Brackmills, Northamptonshire to CBRE Global Investors for GBP14.4 million, reflecting a net initial yield of 5.5%. The property was bought in November 2013 for GBP9.0 million with four months remaining on the lease.
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AA late Friday said that 81% of the shares available under its placing and open offer were accepted by investors under its effort to raise GBP200 million as part of a broader refinancing to help cut debt costs and enable it to pay dividends. The roadside assistance company, which entered the FTSE 250 index of companies in March, said the remaining 9.8 million new shares will be allocated to investors procured by co-ordinator Cenkos Securities PLC under the placing.
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COMPANIES - LONDON MAIN MARKET AND AIM
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An investment vehicle owned by financier Edmund Truell has made a bid to buy most of the remaining business of Quindell, the Financial Times reported. Tatalum, a part of Truell's Disruptive Capital Finance umbrella, has approached Quindell to acquire its telematics business, though Quindell has said it is not ready to sell the assets as neither party is sure exactly how much profit the businesses make, the FT said, citing two people familiar with the matter. A sale would come after shareholders on Friday approved the sale of Quindell's professional services division to Australian law firm Slater & Gordon.
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HSS Hire Group reported higher operating profit for its last financial year as revenue rose by a quarter thanks to strong demand for its hire fleet, although it swung to a pretax loss due to higher finance expenses. The tool hire business also said 2015 has got off to a good start, and it's still looking for acquisition opportunities to add to its specialist hire business. HSS Hire, which listed in early February, reported a pretax loss of GBP8.5 million for the year ended December 27, compared with a profit of GBP2.6 million in the 12 months to December 27, 2013.
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Brookfield Property Partners said it now has, in conjunction with its joint venture partner Qatar Investment Authority, acquired 100% of Canary Wharf Group, following its GBP2.6 million acquisition of Songbird Estates. Brookfield said it expects Songbird's shares to cease trading on AIM on April 23. Prior to its takeover by Brookfield and QIA, Songbird owned a 69.37% stake in Canary Wharf Group, which owns, develops and operates the Canary Wharf financial district in London, while Brookfield directly held an additional 22.08%, meaning the recent acquisition covered the remaining 8.55%.
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eServGlobal said it has put a stop to its search for a new chief executive, instead promoting Non-Executive Director John Conoley to the role of executive chairman to lead the company alongside Chief Operating Officer Stephen Blundell. In a statement, eServGlobal said it is discontinuing its search for a new chief executive, because the combination an executive chairman and a chief operating officer is "currently the appropriate leadership team" for the company.
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COMPANIES - INTERNATIONAL
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The US Department of Justice's antitrust division is nearing a recommendation to block Comcast Corp's proposed USD45.2 billion acquisition of Time Warner Cable Inc, Bloomberg reported Friday, citing people familiar with the matter. According to the Bloomberg report, staff attorneys at the antitrust division are leaning against the merger of the two largest cable TV operators in the US, as they are concerned that consumers would be harmed if the deal closes.
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Monday's Scheduled AGMs/EGMs

CityFibre
Playtech
PPHE Hotel Group
Fastjet
Juridica Investments
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By Tom Waite; thomaslwaite@alliancenews.com; @thomaslwaite

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