Glaxosmithkline Share News (GSK)

LONDON (Alliance News) - The following is a summary of top news stories Monday.
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COMPANIES
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Aviva said it has agreed to sell its 47% stake in South Korean business Woori Aviva Life Insurance to NongHyup Financial Group, as the insurer continues to focus on markets where it has scale or a sustainable competitive advantage to maximise return on capital. In a statement, Aviva said the deal will have a neutral impact on its IFRS net assets and will increase economic capital surplus by GBP200.0 million, recognising the reduced exposure to interest rate and credit risk. Woori Aviva Life Insurance is majority-owned by Woori Financial Holdings Company Ltd, which has also agreed to sell its stake to NongHyup Financial Group as part of this transaction. The sale of WALI is part of a broader privatisation of Woori by the Government of South Korea, and is subject to regulatory approval.
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Swiss commodities trader and miner Glencore Xstrata has agreed to sell its interest in the Las Bambas copper project in Peru to a Chinese consortium including MMG, Guoxin International Investment Corp and CITIC Metal Co for USD5.85 billion in cash. The consortium will reimburse all capital expenditure and other costs incurred in developing Las Bambas during the period between January 1 and the closing of the deal. As of the end of March, the capital expenditure and other costs incurred since January 1 stood at about USD400 million. Glencore is selling the Las Bambas project as part of an agreement to win Chinese regulatory approval for its USD29 billion takeover of Anglo-Swiss miner Xstrata in May last year.
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UK-based drugmaker GlaxoSmithKline is facing a criminal probe in Poland for allegedly paying bribes to doctors to promote its asthma drug Seretide, BBC Panorama reported on Sunday. According to the report, eleven doctors and one of Glaxo's regional managers have been charged over alleged corruption between 2010 and 2012. The doctors were reportedly bribed to promote Seretide.
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Japan-based Orix Corp is considering bidding for Asia-focused lender Standard Chartered's consumer credit unit in Hong Kong, Bloomberg reported citing two people familiar matter. Orix may seek to team up with another investor to acquire PrimeCredit Ltd. Standard Chartered wants to sell the unit for about USD700 million, almost three times book value, and plans to compile a shortlist of potential bidders this month, the report said quoting the people.
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MARKETS
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UK stock indices are lower, with defensive stocks performing the best as investors look for quality amid ongoing valuation concerns and increased tension in Ukraine over the weekend.
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FTSE 100: down 0.4% at 6536.48
FTSE 250: down 1.7% at 15629.07
AIM ALL-SHARE: down 1.3% at 823.93
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The pound is a little lower against the dollar, which is firmer across the board in the light the Ukraine tensions.
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GBP-USD: down at USD1.6712
EUR-USD: down at USD1.3824

GOLD: up at USD13221.43 per ounce
OIL (Brent): up at USD107.86 a barrel

(changes since end of previous GMT day)
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ECONOMICS AND GENERAL
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Global trade is expected to expand by 4.7% this year because of positive developments in the US and the EU, World Trade Organization chief Roberto Azevedo said Monday in Geneva. Last year, trade grew by only 2.1% and reached 18.8 trillion dollars. China, the US and Germany were the biggest exporting nations last year, the WTO said
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UK house prices rose to a record high due to the lack of property coming for sale in April, data from the property tracking website Rightmove showed. Asking prices increased at a pace of 7.3% year-on-year in April, the highest since October 2007 and takes it back to pre-credit crunch levels. This follows a 6.8% rise reported for March. The availability of mortgage finance coupled with property shortages exacerbated house prices. The monthly growth held steady at 2.6% in April.
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The pro-Russian activists occupying state institutions in eastern Ukraine said that they will not heed an ultimatum by the government in Kiev. "Nobody is prepared to give up," Alexei Chmulenko, a spokesman for the protesters in the Luhansk region told the Russian Interfax news agency. Chmulenko added that the number of protesters was growing. Ukraine's acting President Oleksandr Turchynov on Sunday warned that a military operation would be launched against them if the separatists did not lay down their arms by 0700 GMT. The situation escalated over the weekend when armed men in camouflage uniforms seized numerous police stations and administrative buildings in Ukraine's eastern Russian-speaking provinces.
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The jury in the Anglo Irish Bank fraud trial will resume deliberating Monday after a 10-week trial. The bank's former chairman, Sean FitzPatrick, and two former directors, Patrick Whelan and William McAteer, deny giving illegal loans to 10 customers of the bank to buy shares in Anglo in July 2008. After over 10 weeks of evidence in the trial, Judge Martin Nolan told the jurors, who were out for just under an hour last Friday, that they must have the moral courage to decide the case based only on the evidence. He said they could not "visit the financial calamity of the country on the three accused men," to do so would be "incredibly unfair."
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Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has suggested that the more than three-year-old civil war in his country is tilting in favour of his government. "There is a turning point in the Syrian crisis. Militarily, the army has made successive accomplishments in the war against terrorism," he told a gathering of students in the capital Damascus, according to Syria's official news agency SANA. While al-Assad has faced an unprecedented rebellion since 2011, his troops, backed by fighters from the allied Lebanese Shiite Movement Hezbollah, have in recent months regained opposition-held strongholds, mainly near the border with Lebanon.
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More than 200 were feared killed after a major explosion rocked the outskirts of Nigerian capital Abuja, according to witnesses and local media. The explosion occurred at a busy public transport hub at a major road in the neighbourhood of Nyanyan, which leads to the capital's commercial centre. At least 200 bodies were lying on the blood-spattered grounds of the bus station, some of them beyond recognition, reported local newspaper Premium Times.
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Turkey Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has lashed out at the head of the Constitutional Court, as tensions rise between the country's chief judicial body and the government. In a veiled reference to Hasim Kilic, the head of the court, Erdogan called for a judge who wants to get involved in politics to "take off your robe." The court this week issued a ruling overturning key parts of a controversial new law that gave the justice minister more power over the judiciary, which civil rights groups argued risked politicizing the justice system.
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