Esure Group Share News (ESUR)

LONDON (Alliance News) - The following is a summary of top news stories Monday.
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COMPANIES
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Meggitt saw its shares rise in early trade on after it said it has struck a USD200 million deal to acquire the advanced composites unit of FTSE 250-listed Cobham. Meggitt will pay USD200 million in cash to acquire the Cobham division, which makes a range of engineering aerospace components and secondary structures and which make USD81.1 million in revenue in 2014. It will be integrated into Meggitt's Polymers & Composites division. The deal will be backed by a USD300 million credit facility, Meggitt said. The deal is expected to be earnings-enhancing immediately and Meggitt anticipates it will exceed the weighted average cost of capital by the third year of of ownership.
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FTSE 100 fund supermarket and stockbroker Hargreaves Lansdown said it has hired Chris Hill as its new chief financial officer, poaching him from FTSE 250 spread betting and contracts-for-difference company IG Group Holdings and leaving IG nursing the loss of a second key executive in a matter of weeks. Hill is expected to take up the role at Hargreaves in March 2016, until which time Simon Cleveland will continue to act as interim chief financial officer. His departure is the second IG has experienced in recent weeks, following the news that Chief Executive Tim Howkins will leave the company in October following its annual general meeting. Howkins told reporters he was stepping down in order to spend more time relaxing and travelling.
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Pearson is expected to announce a GBP400 million deal as early as this week to sell its 50% stake in The Economist Group, the Financial Times reports. The De Rothschild family and Exor, the investment vehicle run by Italy's Agnelli family, are likely to emerge as the largest shareholders in The Economist Group, the publisher of The Economist magazine, following the deal, though the details of the sale are still being worked out, the FT said, citing people close to the matter.
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The UK data regulator is understood to be "making inquiries" after mobile retailer Carphone Warehouse, part of Dixons Carphone, said the personal details of up to 2.4 million of its customers may have been accessed in a cyber-attack, the BBC reports. The Information Commissioner's Office, which probes data breaches, confirmed to the BBC that it was aware of the incident and was working on a response. The breach was discovered on Wednesday and made public on Saturday, with Carphone Warehouse saying the credit card details of up to 90,000 people may have been accessed.
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Construction and support services company Carillion said it has been selected for all three lots of the UK government's Facilities Management Services agreement. Carillion has been named as a supplier on the Total Facilities Management, Hard Facilities Management, and Soft Facilities Management lots of the agreement. The total scheme is expected to see the government spend between GBP1.3 billion and GBP4.1 billion on outsourced facilities management contracts which will run until the end of July 2019.
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Insurer esure Group cut is interim dividend, as it said its underlying pretax profit dropped in the first half of 2015, in line with guidance, despite a rise in gross written premiums and in-force policies in the period. The company said its underlying pretax profit, which strips out exceptional gains and costs, fell by 21% to GBP46.5 million in the six months to the end of June from GBP59.1 million a year earlier. As a result of the fall in profit, it cut interim dividend to 4.2 pence per share from 5.1 pence per share a year earlier.
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Nostrum Oil & Gas said it has made a further approach to Tethys Petroleum to acquire the company, less than a month after Tethys had rejected its previous overtures. Nostrum said it has made a informal bid to acquire the entire issued share capital of Tethys for CAD0.2185 per Tethys share, valuing Tethys at around CAD73.6 million, or around GBP36.2 million.
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MARKETS
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UK shares reversed a firm open and trade lower led by London's heavily-weighted mining sector following more concerns about the Chinese economy.
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FTSE 100: down 0.9% at 6,662.00
FTSE 250: down 0.2% at 17,620.27
AIM ALL-SHARE: down 0.2% at 751.68
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Oil fell to a six-month low overnight of USD48.20 a barrel.
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GBP: down at USD1.5462
EUR: down at USD1.0944

GOLD: up at USD1094.60 per ounce
OIL (Brent): down at USD48.79 a barrel

(changes since end of previous GMT day)
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ECONOMICS AND GENERAL
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Chinese exports declined sharply at a faster than expected pace in July, figures from the General Administration of Customs showed. Exports decreased 8.3% year-over-year in July, reversing the 2.8% increase in the previous month. Economists had expected exports to decline 1.5%. At the same time, imports were down 8.1% in July. It was forecast to fall 8%. The trade surplus totalled USD43.03 billion, which was below the expected surplus of USD54.7 billion.
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China's consumer prices increased at a faster rate for the second straight month in July, with the growth exceeding the consensus estimate, figures from the National Bureau of Statistics showed. Additionally, producer prices fell at a steeper than expected pace and declined by the most in 6 years. Consumer prices increased 1.6% year-over-year in July following the 1.4% rise in June. In May, prices had risen 1.2%. Economists had expected a 1.5% growth for the month. A separate report released by the agency showed that its producer prices contracted further by 5.4% annually in July, following a 4.8% drop in the previous month. The drop was steeper than the 5% decline expected by economists and marked the lowest since October 2009.
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At least 14 people were killed and four missing in a typhoon in eastern China over the weekend, authorities said. Typhoon Soudelor made landfall on the south-eastern province of Fujian and moved to neighbouring Zhejiang and Jiangxi provinces before being downgraded to a tropical storm.
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Greece's creditors have agreed amongst themselves a draft bailout memorandum that they now hope to finalise with Athens in the coming days, sources said on Saturday, amid growing pressure on the two sides to strike a deal. "We hope that everything will go well," Greek Economy Minister Giorgos Stathakis told journalists in Athens outside the hotel where the negotiations on a new bailout for his near-bankrupt country were taking place. When asked whether an agreement was within reach, he said that reports to this effect "could be" correct. The two sides are under pressure to strike a deal and give Greece access to bailout funds by August 20, when it is supposed to make a EUR3.2 billion debt repayment to the ECB.
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Ireland's construction sector activity expanded at the weakest pace in three months in July, though activity, new orders and employment all continued to increase sharply, survey figures from Markit Economics showed. The Ulster Bank Construction Purchasing Managers' Index fell to 59.1 in July from 65.7 in the previous month. Any reading above 50 indicates expansion in the sector, but it was the lowest reading in three months.
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The White House said Friday it was still confident of winning congressional approval for the Iran nuclear deal despite an influential US senator's announcement that he will vote against it. The announcement from Senator Chuck Schumer "was not particularly surprising to anyone here at the White House," spokesman Josh Earnest said. He said that Schumer's decision did not alter the White House's confidence that it will be able to mobilize a majority of Democrats in both the House and the Senate in support of the deal.
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The US military has deployed six F-16 strike fighters to Turkey's Incirlik Air Base to participate in the air campaign against the Islamic State jihadist organization in Syria, US Forces Europe said Sunday. The US Air Force Fighting Falcons were moved to the base along with support equipment and about 300 personnel in support of Operation Inherent Resolve. As part of the operation, the US has been carrying out airstrikes against Islamic State targets in Iraq since August 2014 and in Syria since September 2014.
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Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi called for the posts of vice president and deputy premier to be abolished as part of a reform plan following massive protests against alleged government corruption and incompetence. There are three vice presidents and three deputy premiers in Iraq. Al-Abadi proposed forming a judicial commission to examine corruption claims against incumbent and former officials.
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By Arvind Bhunjun; arvindbhunjun@alliancenews.com; @ArvindBhunjun

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