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LONDON (Alliance News) - The following is a summary of top news stories Friday.
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COMPANIES
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HSBC Holdings said its nominations committee has turned its attention to a succession plan for its chairmanship in order to allow the new chairman to lead the search for its next chief executive. In its annual general meeting circular, HSBC said its board's nominations committee has turned its attention to formulating a succession plan for Chairman Douglas Flint. The board is seeking to appoint a successor to Flint in 2017, though the exact timing will be dependent on identifying the right candidate, HSBC said.
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Telecoms giant BT Group named Simon Lowth as its new finance director, with plans for him to join the company on July 4. Lowth, who was the finance director at gas producer BG Group prior to its takeover by Royal Dutch Shell, will take over from Tony Chanmugam, who announced his plan to step down in February. Chanmugam will remain in place for a handover period, after which he will move to focus on integrating mobile network EE into BT, following its acquisition of the business last year. Prior to working at BG, Lowth was the finance director at drugs giant AstraZeneca and he currently sits on the board of emerging markets bank Standard Chartered.
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Berkeley Group Holdings said it is continuing to see good underlying demand for its properties, with the London market remaining stable, and expects full-year results at the top end of its expectations. However, Berkeley said transaction levels at the upper end of the housing market have been affected by the "significant increase" in transaction taxes over the last 18 months, which it said "will have consequential effects on both social mobility and the supply of new homes".
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Associated British Foods said discussions are continuing over its potential acquisition of the remaining shares in Illovo Sugar that it does not already own. AB Foods, which owns discount fashion retailer Primark as well as British Sugar, along with agriculture and consumer goods businesses, currently holds a 51.4% interest in Illovo, a large South African sugar producer.
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Go-Ahead Group said it was "disappointed" not to have won the contract to run the London Overground service in the capital. The contract has been awarded to Arriva Rail London, owned by Germany's Deutsche Bahn AG. It will run the service for seven-and-a-half years, with an option to extend for another two years, with a value of GBP1.5 billion. Arriva will take over the line in November and will support the modernisation of the service, including new trains to be introduced in 2018.
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Anglo-South African financial services company Investec said trading has been impacted by weakness and volatility in currency and equity markets but its operating profit for the year will be marginally ahead. The FTSE 250-listed group said increased macroeconomic uncertainty in the second half of its financial year to the end of March has hit its results, particularly in its Wealth & Investment and Asset Management The Wealth & Investment division is expected to deliver full-year results marginally ahead of the prior year, but the Asset Management unit will be behind, despite having recorded net inflows in the second half, Investec said.
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MARKETS
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UK indices were higher led by Standard Chartered on a light day in the economic calendar. Wall Street was pointed to a higher open.
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FTSE 100: up 0.5% at 6,233.10
FTSE 250: up 0.6% at 16,940.77
AIM ALL-SHARE: up 0.3% at 707.32
GBP: flat at USD1.4438 (USD1.4493)
EUR: down at USD1.1270 (USD1.1325)
GOLD: down at USD1,254.00 per ounce (USD1,263.47)
OIL (Brent): down at USD41.81 a barrel (USD41.52)
(changes since previous London equities close)
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ECONOMICS AND GENERAL
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Germany's producer prices declined at a faster-than-expected pace in February, data from Destatis showed. The producer price index fell 3.0% year-over-year in February, ahead of economists' expectations for a 2.6% decrease. In January, prices had dropped 2.4%. The measure has been falling since August 2013. The annual decline in February was largely driven by a 9.4% plunge in energy prices. Excluding energy, producer prices slid 0.7% yearly in February and edged down 0.1% from the preceding month.
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The EU and Turkey will attempt Friday to agree a contentious new plan to stem migration flows to Europe, in talks that German Chancellor Angela Merkel predicted would be "not entirely easy". The EU wants to recruit Ankara's help in dissuading migrants from crossing the Aegean and instead having them wait to be resettled in an orderly fashion out of Turkey. In exchange for its help, Ankara is seeking further refugee aid, as well as progress on visa-free access to the bloc for its citizens and on EU membership for the country. EU leaders late Thursday put the finishing touches to their negotiating position, after eight hours of summit talks in Brussels.
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It is unlikely that the EU and the US will wrap up their negotiations on a mammoth free trade deal before the US elects a new president in November, Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny said Thursday. There have long been fears that a change of leadership in the White House could stall progress on the so-called Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, which would create the world's largest free trade area with 800 million people. "It now appears as if the TTIP arrangements will not be completed before the American presidential election," Kenny told journalists in Brussels on the margins of an EU summit, adding that this would probably create "a sense of vacuum."
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House Speaker Paul Ryan, Republican-Wisconsin, said it was "unacceptable" for Donald Trump to suggest there would be riots at the Republican convention if he is not chosen as the GOP nominee. "Nobody should say such things in my opinion because to even address or hint to violence is unacceptable," Ryan told reporters at his weekly press conference. Ryan acknowledged that the possibility of an open convention is "more likely" but said those involved "need to respect that".
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North Korea fired at least one ballistic missile on Friday, amid protests from Pyongyang against annual military drills by US and South Korean forces, military officials in Seoul said. One missile was fired at 5:55 am local time from the west of the country, and travelled around 800 kilometres across North Korean territory before landing in the sea off its east coast, South Korea's Yonhap News Agency reported, citing Seoul's Joint Chiefs of Staff. Around 22 minutes after the launch, radar signals picked up by the South Korean military indicated a likely second missile launched from the same location, Yonhap said.
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By Arvind Bhunjun; arvindbhunjun@alliancenews.com; @ArvindBhunjun
Copyright 2016 Alliance News Limited. All Rights Reserved.
