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LONDON (Alliance News) - London share prices opened firm Friday, after Brent crude oil rose back above USD50 a barrel and ahead of the key US nonfarm payrolls report later in the day.
BP said it has agreed to settle one of the many outstanding legal claims made against the company following the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico back in 2010, after agreeing to pay some of its investors USD175.0 million.
US Federal and District Courts certified a legal case back in May 2014 that was brought against the company by a group of investors that purchased BP's US-listed American Depositary Shares after the oil spill occurred.
BP shares were up 2.0% early Friday.
Here is what you need to know at the London market open:
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MARKETS
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FTSE 100: up 0.7% at 6,226.62
FTSE 250: up 0.1% at 17,100.36
AIM ALL-SHARE: up 0.1% at 740.91
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Hang Seng: up 0.3% at 20,917.58
Nikkei 225: closed up 0.5% at 16,642.23
DJIA: closed up 0.3% at 17,838.56
S&P 500: closed up 0.3% at 2,105.26
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GBP: flat at USD1.4416 (USD1.4432)
EUR: flat at USD1.1152 (USD1.1157)
GOLD: flat at USD1,211.81 per ounce (USD1,212.02)
OIL (Brent): firm at USD50.09 a barrel (USD49.77)
(changes since previous London equities close)
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ECONOMICS AND GENERAL
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Friday's Key Economic Events still to come
(all times in BST)
08:45 Italy Markit services PMI
08:50 France Markit services and composite PMI
08:55 Germany Markit services and composite PMI
09:00 EU Markit services and composite PMI
09:30 UK Markit services PMI
10:00 EU retail sales
13:30 US nonfarm payrolls, unemployment rate, average earnings
13:30 US trade balance
13:30 Canada labor productivity
13:30 Canada international merchandise trade
14:45 US Markit services and composite PMI
15:00 US ISM non-manufacturing PMI
15:00 US factory orders
18:30 US FOMC member Brainard speech
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UK Prime Minister David Cameron has urged British voters not to "roll the dice" on their children's futures by quitting the EU, as he delivered an impassioned warning that Brexit would cost economic growth and jobs. Cameron was repeatedly accused of "scaremongering" as he took questions from a live studio audience in the first major setpiece TV event of the referendum campaign. But he insisted "this is not about scaring anybody", as he set out concerns that the UK would face barriers to trade with the 500 million-population European single market if it votes Leave on June 23. Speaking on Sky News's EU: In or Out? broadcast, Cameron accepted that levels of EU migration into the UK were "a challenge". But he said he expected inward and outward migration to come back into balance as ailing continental economies start to catch up with the UK's "extraordinary" levels of job creation - though he did not give a timetable for this to happen.
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Leaders of some of Britain's biggest firms have warned the UK's service sector will be damaged by Brexit, with Chancellor George Osborne saying as many as 400,000 jobs could be lost. Osborne will make another high-profile intervention, with a challenge to the Leave campaign to admit that "jobs would be lost if we vote to leave the EU and the single market". He will highlight the business letter warning of the threat to service industries, which employ more than 25 million people in areas including retail, hospitality, transport, professional and financial services. Leading players in the sector including HSBC Chairman Douglas Flint and Chief Executive Stuart Gulliver, PwC Chairman Ian Powell, Ocado Chief Executive Tim Steiner and BT Chief Executive Gavin Patterson, signed the statement backing a Remain vote.
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Ireland's services companies registered a faster growth in May after easing to a 26-month low in April, survey data from Markit showed. The services Purchasing Managers' Index rose to 61.7 in May from 59.8 in April. A reading above 50 indicates expansion in the sector. Panellists reported improving economic conditions and strengthening client demand.
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The Chinese private sector activity expanded at a slower pace in May as the service sector growth slowed from April and manufacturing output declined, survey data from Markit showed. The Caixin composite output index came in at 50.5 in May, down from April's 50.8, signalling the weakest pace of expansion in the current three-month sequence of growth. Similarly, the service sector PMI dropped to 51.2 in May from 51.8 in the previous month.
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The services sector in Japan swung back to expansion in May, the latest survey from Nikkei showed with a services PMI score of 50.4. That's up from 49.3 in April.
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Representatives from nearly 30 countries were meeting in Paris on Friday to begin talks on pursuing peace in the Middle East - without the Israelis and Palestinians. The French-led negotiations are an attempt to build support for conditions that would eventually bring the sides together, a little more than two years after the last bid to broker a long-lasting truce collapsed. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has blasted the effort, saying that direct negotiations without preconditions are the only way to move forward in a conflict that has been the subject of repeated peace deal attempts over the decades.
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The UN said it was awaiting approval from the Syrian government before it can airlift humanitarian aid to besieged areas. "You need the consent of the government," UN deputy Syria envoy Ramzy Ezzeldin Ramzy said at a Geneva press conference. "I don't think there is something imminent," he cautioned. However, late Thursday the Syrian mission to the United Nations said it had approved an aid delivery plan for the month of June to a number of areas.
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The number of terror attacks and deaths resulting from them declined in 2015, the US State Department said Thursday, saying it was the first decline in attacks and related fatalities worldwide since 2012. The number of attacks worldwide in 2015 was 11,774, a decline of 13% compared with 2014, and the number of people killed in the attacks was 28,328, a decrease of 14%.
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Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton assailed Republican candidate Donald Trump as "not just unprepared" to be president but "temperamentally unfit" to hold the office. Meanwhile, Speaker of the House Paul Ryan announced he will vote for Trump in the November elections, following weeks of saying he could not yet back the candidate. Clinton, who served as secretary of state under President Barack Obama, blasted Trump for failing to outline a coherent foreign policy doctrine and for his lack of knowledge about international affairs.
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The US should not retreat from the world stage, US President Barack Obama warns amid calls by Republican candidate Trump to put America first. "America cannot shirk the mantle of leadership," Obama says during a graduation speech at the US Air Force Academy in Colorado. "We can't be isolationist, it's not possible in this global, interconnected world."
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Preparations for the August Olympics in Brazil are going according to plan, the president of the Rio organizing committee, Carlos Nuzman, said. Nuzman was briefing the executive board of the International Olympic Committee in Switzerland on Brazil's final preparations for the August 5-21 Games. He sought to allay concerns about the troubled final sprint to the Games amid the political and economic turmoil in Brazil and the spread of the mosquito-borne Zika virus.
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Protesters clashed with police in the Venezuelan capital of Caracas, Mayor Jorge Rodriguez said, as tensions heightened amid the country's political and economic crisis. Protests against food shortages turned violent, as police used tear gas on demonstrators who tried to march toward the presidential palace. Eleven journalists were beaten and robbed, the country's journalists' union said. Venezuela is in the grip of a severe economic crisis that has exacerbated political tensions between the socialist government and the opposition. Power outages and food shortages have become common and the country's inflation rate is among the highest in the world.
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BROKER RATING CHANGES
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Investec Cuts HSBC To Hold From Buy, Price Target 450p
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GOLDMAN CUTS SAINSBURY'S TARGET TO 1770 (1778) PENCE - 'CONVICTION SELL LIST'
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TRADERS: JPMORGAN CUTS MARKS & SPENCER TO 'UNDERWEIGHT' ('NEUTRAL') - TARGET 307 P.
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TRADERS: JEFFERIES CUTS DECHRA PHARMACEUTICALS TO 'HOLD' ('BUY') - TARGET 1099 PENCE
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N+1 Cuts Goals To Hold From Buy, Price Target Under Review From 150p
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COMPANIES - FTSE 250
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ICAP, the interdealer broker and trading platform provider soon to be renamed NEX Group, said it has secured a contract to provide fixed income and foreign exchange electronic execution services in mainland China through the China Foreign Exchange Trade System, the country's official inter-bank market trading platform. EBS BrokerTec, ICAP's electronic foreign exchange and fixed income platform business, will handle the contract, which will be worth USD65.0 million over three years.
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Savills said it has acquired a minority stake in YOPA Property after participating in a GBP16.0 million fundraising round to finance the roll out of YOPA's online hybrid estate agency. Savills, a real estate advisory firm, said it has invested in YOPA, which launched its hybrid business model in January, to enable the roll out of the agency in the "high volume segment of the UK market". It didn't specify the size of its resulting stake in YOPA. Hybrid estate agencies, such as YOPA and recently London-listed Purplebricks Group, operate online, but also offer offline services such as local property experts.
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Events company UBM said it has struck a USD23.5 million deal to sell its electronics media portfolio to an affiliate of Arrow Electronics Inc, a US electronic components and computer products company. The portfolio includes the US and Asian version of EE Times, EDN, ESM, Embedded, EBN, TechOnline and DataSheets.com, UBM said. "In line with our 'Events First' strategy this transaction further improves the alignment between our portfolio of Events and Other Marketing Services," said UBM Chief Executive Tim Cobbold.
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Respiratory drug company Vectura Group said it has completed the phase-one clinical study evaluating its VR942 inhaled asthma treatment. The study met the primary objective of evaluating the safety and tolerability of once-daily doses of the treatment, showing VR942 was safe and well-tolerated.
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COMPANIES - LONDON MAIN MARKET AND AIM
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SeaEnergy said it has been placed into administration as marine engineering services company James Fisher & Sons acquired the AIM-listed firm's Return to Scene Ltd business. SeaEnergy shares were suspended in April pending clarification of its financial position, after which KPMG was appointed to run an accelerated sales process. Prior to the appointment of administrators to SeaEnergy, the company said the business, assets and employees of its SE Innovation Ltd unit were transferred to the Return to Scene subsidiary. After this had occurred, and as confirmed on Friday, James Fisher struck a GBP1.9 million deal to acquire the Return to Scene business.
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Toilet paper and tissue manufacturer Accrol Group Holdings announced the pricing for its upcoming initial public offering on London's AIM market. Accrol imports industrial-sized paper reels and converts them into toilet, kitchen, facial and other tissue products at the company's manufacturing facility in Lancashire. The firm first announced plans to float in London last week and on Friday said it intends raising a total of GBP63.5 million, comprising GBP43.3 million from the placing of new shares and GBP20.2 million from the sale of existing shares. The shares will be floated at 100.00 pence apiece and the company's anticipated market capitalisation upon admission will be around GBP93.0 million.
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COMPANIES - INTERNATIONAL
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United Continental Holdings and Delta Air Lines are among suitors considering bids for Avianca Holdings, the Wall Street Journal reported citing people familiar with the matter. Advisers to Avianca have distributed a document to potential bidders seeking a USD500 million capital injection, the report said, adding that could develop into a full sale. The process is in early stages, and there may be no deal at all. Avianca, one of the largest airline companies in Latin America, is based in Panama and owns carriers including its Colombian namesake and Tampa Cargo SA in that country, and AeroGal in Ecuador.
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Singapore-listed Commodity trading house Noble Group said its founder and chairman, Richard Elman, wishes to step down as executive chairman within the next 12 months. Additionally, its board approved a fully underwritten rights issue with net proceeds of approximately USD500 million, while the company also announced an expanded cost-reduction programme.
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Friday's Scheduled AGMs/EGMs
Moneyswap
CityFibre Infrastructure Holdings
Edenville Energy
ICG-Longbow Senior Secured UK Property Debt Investments
NMC Health
North American Income Trust
Africa Opportunity Fund
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By Tom Waite; thomaslwaite@alliancenews.com; @thomaslwaite
Copyright 2016 Alliance News Limited. All Rights Reserved.
