Last checked at 
LONDON (Alliance News) - The following is a summary of top news stories Wednesday.
----------
COMPANIES
----------
Engineering firm Weir Group said it no longer intends to pursue a takeover of Metso Oyj, after the Finnish company rejected an improved offer. The FTSE 100-listed engineering company said it had made a new all-share offer under which Metso shareholders would have received 0.95 Weir share per Metso share, a 13% increase to the 0.84 exchange ratio that Weir Group initially proposed. "The board of Metso did not engage with Weir and on May 27, 2014 rejected the proposal, based on its belief that the market does not fully value the prospects of Metso and that the proposal significantly undervalues Metso," Weir said in a statement.
----------
GlaxoSmithKline said late Tuesday that it is under criminal investigation by the UK's Serious Fraud Office, which is looking into its commercial practices. The company has been hit by a series of allegations and probes into its business practices after initial probes were opened into the company's Chinese operations.
----------
Serco Group said it has been selected by Transport Scotland to manage the Caledonia Sleeper service, which is set to be operated separately from FirstGroup's ScotRail franchise. It means FirstGroup has lost two franchises in a less than a week. Serco will manage the new 15-year franchise from April 2015, and expects revenue over the period to be up to GBP800 million, of which GBP180 million will be in the form of franchise payments.
----------
Brewin Dolphin Holdings reported a sharp increase in first-half pretax profit, thanks to stronger equity markets and lower costs. In a statement, the UK wealth manager said it made a GBP21.4 million pretax profit in the six months ended March 31, compared with GBP6.8 million in the corresponding period a year earlier. Excluding redundancy costs, an additional Financial Services Compensation Scheme levy, onerous lease contracts provision and certain amortisation charges, pretax profit increased to GBP29.7 million, from GBP23.7 million.
----------
Balfour Beatty has won a GBP180 million, three-year infrastructure works contract from Heathrow Airport Ltd under which it will upgrade and maintain Terminals 1, 2 and 4. Balfour Beatty will act as programme manager and contractor at various stages throughout the lifecycle of the framework deal, delivering individual projects worth between GBP500,000 and GBP70 million ranging from structural improvements to replacing escalators, passenger conveyors, lifts, air conditioning systems, retail areas, CCTV, access and security systems.
----------
Bank note printer De La Rue said its restructuring programme was paying off as it reported a rise in pretax profit in its last financial year. A strong performance from its Identity Systems division and higher bank note paper volumes more than offset weakness in its cash processing unit and bank note printing volumes. It posted a pretax profit of GBP59.8 million in the year to March 29, up from GBP43.7 million a year earlier, as revenue rose to GBP513.3 million, from GBP483.7 million. The revenue rise more than offset exceptional costs of GBP17.5 million, including ongoing costs relating to its improvement plan of GBP3.5 million, a GBP2.2 million for the resolution of a tax liability and an impairment charge of GBP14.2 million as it lowered its expectations for cash generating units within its cash processing business.
----------
Royal Bank of Scotland Group plans to cut up to 400 jobs in its US trading business over the next two years as part of the lender's efforts to reduce its assets ahead of tough new US regulations, according to media reports. RBS, 80% owned by the British government, is said to be paring its US trading operations and cut between 300 and 400 jobs at its Stamford, Connecticut headquarters so as to reduce costs and refocus on its UK home market. According to media reports, RBS, whose US business employs about 2,400 people, will partly exit its mortgage-trading and distressed-loan trading business. RBS reportedly plans to cut its US mortgage-trading business by two-thirds. However, the company will continue to retain its securitisation and agency mortgage business.
----------
MARKETS
----------
UK stocks are trading mixed in low volumes Wednesday, with some disappointing eurozone data leading to investor caution ahead of the European Central Bank policy meeting next week.
----------
FTSE 100: flat at 6845.75
FTSE 250: up 0.2% at 15870.33
AIM ALL-SHARE: up 0.1% at 807.39
----------
Forex traders have certainly been pricing in some action, as the euro is headed for its worst month of the year so far. The single currency has fallen about 2.5% against the dollar and lost about 1.5% against the pound over the same period.
----------
GBP-USD: down at USD1.6763
EUR-USD: down at USD1.3619
GOLD: up at USD1264.30 per ounce
OIL (Brent): up at USD110.25 a barrel
(changes since end of previous GMT day)
----------
ECONOMICS AND GENERAL
----------
EU leaders have begun haggling over who should take over the reins of the bloc's executive while beginning a process of soul-searching after eurosceptic parties made gains in last week's European elections. "The EU cannot just shrug off these results and carry on as before. We need change," said British Prime Minister David Cameron at the start of the Brussels talks. French President Francois Hollande said Europe must draw the lessons out of his country's elections, in which almost one in four French voters chose the far-right Front National - leaving his ruling Socialists trailing in third place. One opportunity for change will be the appointment of the new president of the European Commission. Former Luxembourg premier Jean-Claude Juncker has laid claim to the post, after his centre-right European People's Party won the most seats in the European Parliament.
----------
Russian President Vladimir Putin will meet his French counterpart Francois Hollande in Paris for talks on June 5, an aide said. They will discuss topics, including the crisis in Ukraine, during an informal meeting in the Elysee Palace, Putin's foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov was quoted as saying by Russian news agencies. Putin might have bilateral contacts with other Western leaders during D-Day celebrations in the seaside resort Deauville on June 6, Ushakov said.
----------
Armed separatists in eastern Ukraine are holding four missing civilian observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), the Danish government confirmed Tuesday. "According to our information (a Danish national) has been detained by armed separatists in Ukraine along with three other observers," Mogens Jensen, Danish minister for trade and development cooperation, wrote in an email to the Ritzau news agency. The team of four observers - including citizens of Turkey, Switzerland and Estonia - was on a routine patrol Monday near Donetsk when contact. Their apparent abduction comes as heavy fighting continued in eastern Ukraine, even after forces loyal to the government in Kiev retook control of Donetsk airport.
---------
Ukrainian president-elect Petro Poroshenko vowed to crush the pro-Russian rebellion in the east of the country. "We will end this terror," Poroshenko told the German tabloid Bild in an interview published Wednesday. "There is a real war being waged against our country." Proshenko stressed that he was not giving any orders because he has not been inaugurated but said he is in close contact with the government.
---------
Germany's unemployment rate remained unchanged in April and employment increased from March due to the usual spring upturn, data from Destatis showed. The adjusted jobless rate came in at 5.2%, the same rate as seen in March. On an unadjusted basis, the unemployment rate dropped to 5.3% from 5.5%. About 2.26 million people were unemployed in April. Compared with March, the number of unemployed was down by 62,000 or 2.6%.
---------
Germany's import prices continued to decline in April, but at a slower pace than in the previous month, figures from Destatis showed Wednesday. The import price index fell 2.4% year-on-year in April, following a sharp 3.3% drop in the previous month, which was the biggest fall since August last year. Economists had forecast a decline of 2.2% in April. On a monthly basis, import prices dropped 0.3% in April, defying forecasts to remain flat, after a 0.6% decline registered in the previous month. This was the fourth consecutive month of decrease.
---------
The US State Department has told all citizens to leave Libya and avoid any travel to the country, citing "security concerns" in the country, which has been unstable since the 2011 toppling of the former regime. In a statement, the department said it "warns US citizens against all travel to Libya and recommends that US citizens currently in Libya depart immediately." The US embassy in Tripoli's staffing was sharply reduced due to the security situation and could offer only "very limited emergency services" to US citizens in Libya.
---------
US President Barack Obama has touted his foreign policy for keeping the country clear of conflict even as he presided over the end of wars in Iraq and, soon, Afghanistan. He plans to announce a "new chapter in American foreign policy" on Wednesday at the US Military Academy in West Point, New York, with an emphasis on a geographical shift from Afghanistan and Pakistan to emerging terrorist threats from Africa and the Middle East. The speech is seen as an attempt to answer growing criticism that Obama has presided over an ill-defined foreign strategy, lurching from crisis to crisis. Gulf Arab allies are impatient with his dithering on Syria, where the US has failed to carry out a pledge to arm moderate Syrian rebels and dropped its threat in August 2013 to engage if Damascus used chemical weapons.
---------
The underdog in Egypt's presidential poll called for votes to be counted for the first two days of the election only, objecting to a decision to extend the polls for a third day. The election commission's decision, announced hours before polls were due to close on Tuesday, came amid reports of a low turnout in the two scheduled days of voting. Veteran leftist Hamdeen Sabahy's campaign charged that the extension came after pressure "to intervene in the numbers and percentages voting in the elections." The commission said it was acting in response to growing numbers at the polls in the last hours of voting, citing daytime temperatures that hit 40 degrees in parts of Egypt.
---------
Japan needs to overhaul its security policies and military roles overseas amid China's military buildup and North Korea's nuclear threats, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said. Abe wants to boost Japan's security relations with the US by removing a self-imposed ban on using collective self-defence by reinterpreting the constitution. The premier reiterated Japan should be able to defend its allies, especially the US, if they came under armed attack.
---------
The ruling Thai military junta said it had ordered the reshuffle of key positions within the national police force with immediate effect. Several provincial governors, including in the northern city of Chiang Mai, have also been reassigned to positions that hold no executive power. Most of those that were reassigned were put in post by the previous civilian government.
----------
Copyright 2014 Alliance News Limited. All Rights Reserved.
