Judges Scientific Share News (JDG)

LONDON (Alliance News) - The Royal Bank of Scotland Group Friday confirmed that it has struck a deal to sell the international operations of its Coutts private banking and wealth management business to Switzerland's Union Bancaire Privée.

The sale will include client relationships outside of the UK and associated staff, said RBS, which is retaining the UK private banking and wealth management operations of Coutts.

The asset sold will include relationships managed by Coutts from Switzerland, Monaco, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Singapore and Hong Kong.

The bank did not provide any financial details about the deal, although it said it expects to receive a price at a premium and partly based on the assets under management at closing, which is expected in the fourth quarter of 2015. Earlier the Financial Times reported that UBP is expected to pay around USD600 million to USD800 million for the acquisition, citing two people familiar with the situation.

"Last year we set out a clear strategy to create a truly UK-focused bank. This announcement is another important step in that process. Following an extensive review, it was clear that the bank we are building would not be the most appropriate owner of the business being sold," said RBS Commercial & Private Banking Chief Executive Alison Rose.

"We gave careful consideration to identifying a buyer with the capability to take on this business in order to minimise the impact on clients and staff. We believe that in UBP we have found a good long term owner for this business," Rose added.

Still, RBS shares are down 1.5% midday Friday, one of the worst-performing stocks in the FTSE 100.

Vodafone Group is amongst the best performers in the blue-chip index after it said late Thursday that its Indian business had won spectrum in 12 telecom circles in a government auction for GBP2.8 billion, allowing it to expand its 3G capabilities in the country. It said it will be able to expand its 3G service over its own network from nine circles to 16 circles.

JP Morgan said the big three mobile operators in India, Vodafone, Bharti Airtel Ltd and Idea Cellular Ltd, retained almost all of their 900 Megahertz spectrum in the government auction, and Vodafone has secured a sizable amount of additional 2.1 gigahertz spectrum, whilst also expanding its 3G coverage.

The price Vodafone paid at the auction was towards the higher end of the range that analysts had expected, they said, although lower than some press reports had speculated it could be.

Combined with the auction in February 2014, Vodafone has now renewed spectrum in service areas representing 88% of its Indian service revenues. A final auction could take place in 2016, but Vodafone now effectively has 20 year visibility on the bulk of its Indian business, according to bank UBS.

The Swiss bank also thinks Vodafone could look to launch an initial public offer for the Indian business from the end of 2016 onwards. India represents around 10% of Vodafone's earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation.

Vodafone shares are up 1.1% midday Friday.
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Markets: UK indices trade mixed, with miners and oil-related stocks amongst the worst-performers in the FTSE 100. The pound trades higher against the dollar as Bank of England Governor Mark Carney speaks at the Bundesbank in Frankfurt.

US stock futures point to a flat to lower open, with the DJIA and S&P 500 set to open down 0.1% and the Nasdaq 100 flat.

FTSE 100: down 0.3% at 6,875.50
FTSE 250: down 0.1% at 17,241.36
AIM ALL-SHARE: up 0.2% at 718.61
GBP-USD: up at 1.4903
EUR-USD: down at 1.0854
GOLD: down at USD1,200.97 an ounce
OIL (Brent): down at USD58.27 a barrel
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Other Top Corporate News
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Housebuilder Barratt Developments said David Thomas is to move from his current role as chief financial officer to take over as chief executive officer. Thomas will take over from Mark Clare on July 1, when Clare will step down after nine years in the role to develop his non-executive career. Barratt said it has started the process of recruiting a finance director to replace Thomas.
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Carnival Corp said it signed two strategic memorandums of agreement that will add a total of nine new cruise ships to its fleet over a four-year period from 2019 to 2022. The shipbuilding agreements, which include options for additional ship builds in the coming years, are subject to several conditions, including satisfactory financing. Italian shipbuilder Fincantieri and German shipbuilder Meyer Werft will each build new ships based on Carnival's next-generation ship designs. The new ships are expected to serve established cruise markets in North America and Europe, as well as newer markets, including China. Carnival is due to report first quarter results later Friday.
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Antofagasta said the heavy rainfall in the Atacama desert in Chile has resulted in the company suspended operations at three of its mines. The FTSE 100-listed Chilean copper miner said it has suspended operations at the Centinela, Antucoya and Michilla mines, all of which are located in the desert. It said the suspension was primarily to ensure the safety of employees, though it said some processing of stockpiled material has been possible.
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Anglo-Australian miner Rio Tinto is set to cut at least 1,500 jobs, including a substantial number from its headquarters in London, Sky News reported. Sky said it understands Rio Tinto informed staff earlier this week that it was starting a consultation on cuts involving a significant number of UK jobs. The move comes in the wake of a reorganisation of the business outlined last month which will focus on streamlining its operations and cutting costs.
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Vodafone Group said it has signed a new partner deal with Botswana Telecommunications. Under the deal, Botswana Telecommunications will become Vodafone's preferred partner in Botswana, and the two companies will jointly offer businesses and consumers a range of products and services. No financial details were disclosed on the deal.
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Home emergency company HomeServe said it is trading in line with expectations for the year to the end of March. In a short trading statement, the company said trading across the company in the final quarter of its financial year has been good, with retention and marketing activities both performing well.
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Housebuilder and construction company Redrow said it has signed a deal to sell a series of ground rent portfolio holdings to Adriatic Land 3 Ltd for GBP10.2 million. Under the deal, Redrow Homes Ltd will sell its ground rent portfolios for Kingston Riverside, Kingston Riverwalk, Amberley Waterfront and 205 Holland Park, all based in London.
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AIM Movers
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Xtract Resources shares are up after it signed a deed of assignment with Mineral Technologies International Ltd which gives the company the option to fully acquire a sulphide copper tailings project in South Africa. Xtract has paid USD30,000 to have the option to acquire the project in the next seven months. Oxford Pharmasciences Group is up after it reported successful results from a pilot clinical study on its OXPzero Naproxen gastrointestinal treatment. Europa Oil & Gas is another gainer after the companies involved in the Wressle-1 oil and gas discovery on the PEDL180 license in the UK Friday said the oil being produced at Wressle has increased after the operator completed a flow test on a fourth interval on the discovery. CloudBuy is up after it partnered with a US cloud-based provider of procurement services to provide a platform allowing end users to buy from successful tenders and provide visibility of the throughput and savings achieved. Messaging International shares are down by almost a quarter after it said it expects revenue from its text-to-landline service to decline in 2015 due to a change in arrangements with a key customer, though it said it expects better margins to partially offset the hit to its results and said it is seeing good demand for its TeleMessage service. Teathers Financial is down by a fifth after it raised GBP500,000 in a discounted placing. Teathers said it has issued 12.5 million shares at 4 pence per shares. Judges Scientific is another faller after its pretax profit rose in 2014, though the company said like-for-like sales slowed amid weak order intake and patchy demand in the scientific instrumentation sector.
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Top Economics And General
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UK house price growth softened for the seventh consecutive month to an 18-month low in March, the Nationwide Building Society reported. House prices advanced 5.1% year-on-year in March, slower than February's 5.7% increase and a 5.3% rise forecast by economists. This was the slowest rate of growth since September 2013. However, house prices rose 0.1% on a monthly basis offsetting a 0.1% drop seen in February. Economists had forecast a steeper 0.2% rise for March.
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A Saudi-led Arab coalition intensified airstrikes against Houthi rebels sweeping southward in Yemen, in a conflict that pits regional powers Saudi Arabia and Iran against each other. Allied strikes targeted the Houthis' installations in the rebel-held capital, Sana'a, destroying military batteries and at least four warplanes, Saudi-owned broadcaster Al-Arabiya reported. Saudi jets bombarded a reserve troop base manned by the Houthis in southern Sana'a, Yemeni website Mareb Press said. Ahmad Assiri, spokesman of the Saudi-led Arab coalition, said late Thursday in a short press briefing that his country has "no immediate plans" to launch ground operations in Yemen, though forces are ready if necessary.
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The chief diplomats of the US and Iran launched a final stretch of talks to hammer out key elements of a wide-ranging nuclear deal that could mend Tehran's relations with the West. "We very much believe we can get this done by the 31st," a senior US State Department official said ahead of the meeting between US Secretary of State John Kerry and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, referred to the end-of-March deadline that Iran and six world powers have set themselves to agree on the outlines of a deal curbing Iran's nuclear programme and obliging Tehran to accept intrusive nuclear inspections, in return for sanctions relief.
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Investigations into this week's fatal crash of Germanwings flight 4U9525 focused on the background of the co-pilot, who has been accused of deliberately downing the plane and killing all 150 people on board. French and German prosecutors were looking into the background of Andreas Lubitz, 27, to ascertain why he may have wanted to take his life and murder 149 others after a voice recording showed that he purposefully locked the flight commander out of the cockpit and activated the descent. Parent company Lufthansa's Chief Executive Carsten Spohr said on Thursday that Lubitz had interrupted his aviation training in 2009, but refused to say why. Speculation was rife about the pilot's psychological state leading up to the incident. The crash has spurred airlines in Canada and Europe to implement a US rule that a commercial pilot cannot be left alone in the cockpit.
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Afternoon Watchlist (all times in GMT)

12:30 US Gross Domestic Product
12:30 US Personal Consumption Expenditures Price
15:00 US Reuters/Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index
19:45 US Fed's Yellen Speech
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Monday's Key UK Corporate Events

AA - Full Year Results
Quadrise Fuels International - Half Year Results
Polymetal International - Full Year Results
Al-Noor Hospitals - Full Year Results
XL Media - Full Year Results
Plant Healthcare - Full Year Results
Instem - Full Year Results
Central Asia Metals - Full Year Results
Compass Group - Trading Update
Outsourcery - Full Year Results
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Monday's Key Economic Events (all times in GMT)

00:50 Japan Industrial Production
09:30 UK Consumer Credit/Mortgage Approvals
10:00 Italy Business/Consumer Confidence
10:00 EU Economic Sentiment Indicator
13:00 Germany Consumer Price Index
13:30 US Core Personal Consumption Expenditure
15:00 US Pending Home Sales
15:30 US Dallas Fed Manufacturing Business Index
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