Kingfisher Share News (KGF)

LONDON (Alliance News) - UK shares are mixed at the open, as markets await the outcome of Friday's crunch talks between Greece and the Eurogroup finance ministers over its debt programme.

On Thursday, Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis wrote to Eurogroup chief Jeroen Dijsselbloem to formally request a six-month extension to the agreement governing its bailout. But the terms of the Greek proposal were dismissed out of hand by the German finance ministry, saying the proposal "does not correspond" to criteria agreed by eurozone finance ministers earlier this week.

Standard Life is up 1.8%, after the FTSE 100 insurer reported a 19% rise in operating profit before tax from continuing operations in 2014, bolstered by rising assets under administration.

Weir Group tops the blue-chip index, up 2.7%, after being raised to Buy from Neutral by Goldman Sachs.

Here is what you need to know at the UK market open:
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MARKETS
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FTSE 100: up 0.1% at 6,892.62
FTSE 250: down 0.1% at 17,036.57
AIM ALL-SHARE: down 0.1% at 709.13
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Hang Seng: market closed for Chinese New Year
Nikkei 225: closed up 0.4% at 18,332.30
DJIA: closed down 0.2% at 17,985.77
S&P 500: closed down 0.1% at 2,097.45
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GBP-USD: up at USD1.5430
EUR-USD: down at USD1.1356

GOLD: down at USD1,207.83 per ounce
OIL (Brent): up at USD60.29 a barrel

(changes since end of previous GMT day)
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ECONOMICS AND GENERAL
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Friday's Key Economic Events still to come
(all times in GMT)

China Chinese New Year
EU Eurogroup meeting
09:00 Italy Industrial Orders
09:00 EU Markit Manufacturing, Services and Composite PMI Preliminary
09:30 UK Public Sector Net Borrowing
09:30 UK Retail Sales
10:00 Italy Consumer Price Index
13:30 Canada Retail Sales
14:45 US Markit Manufacturing PMI Preliminary
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British households perceived that the value of their home increased in February, but the corresponding index was at the lowest level in eighteen months, survey figures from Markit Economics and Knight Frank showed Friday. The Knight Frank/Markit House Price Sentiment Index came in at 56.5 in February. In January, the index was at 58.2. Any figure above 50 indicates that prices are rising and the higher the figure, the steeper the increase. This was the twenty third consecutive month of increase, though the latest score was lowest since August 2013.
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Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda said the bank has various monetary policy options available in order to achieve 2% inflation in a stable manner. Speaking in Parliament, Kuroda said the massive bond purchase programme is not causing any problem in the government bond market. The BoJ earlier this week maintained its monetary easing programme unchanged. The bank expanded its quantitative and qualitative easing in October to raise the monetary base at an annual pace of about JPY 80 trillion.
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The manufacturing sector in Japan continued to expand in February but at a slower pace, the latest survey from Markit Economics showed, with a preliminary PMI score of 51.5. That was well shy of forecasts for a score of 52.5, and it was down from 52.2 in January. The February reading represents a seven-month low score, although it remains above the boom-or-bust score of 50 that separates expansion from contraction.
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The intelligence services of the US and Britain hacked into the world's largest SIM card maker, taking encryption keys allowing them to monitor users, a report said. The hack was a joint operation by the two agencies, and would have facilitated eavesdropping on much of the world's voice and data mobile networks, The Intercept website reported, citing a 2010 internal British document provided by former US national security contractor Edward Snowden. The unit was set up by the US National Security Agency and Britain's Government Communications Headquarters. It targeted Gemalto, the report said, which makes 2 billion SIM cards a year for 450 mobile service providers, including AT&T, T-Mobile, China Mobile and SoftBank.
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Australia said it will consider Japanese, French and German contractors for its next order of submarines, but promised that hundreds of jobs for the project will stay in Australia. The government of Prime Minister Tony Abbott has been under pressure from labour groups and local politicians to honour a campaign promise to build the subs in Adelaide on the south coast. Defence Minister Kevin Andrews said his department was now considering the option of designing and building the vessels abroad, at home, or a combination, broadcaster ABC reported. The Future Submarine Program is worth AUD50 billion, the largest defence procurement in the country's history, it said, citing government figures.
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Two strong storm systems hit Australia's north and north-eastern coast. The more powerful storm, tropical cyclone Marcia, made landfall near the city of Rockhampton on the north-east coast of Queensland state, media reports said, with gusts of up to 295 kilometres per hour. Marcia was downgraded from a category 5 to a category 4 storm as it moved south along the coast, the Bureau of Meteorology said, warning local residents of "abnormally high tides."
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A leader of a left-wing Malaysian party was arrested under a controversial sedition law for criticizing a ruling against opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim, police and party officials said. S Arutchelvan, secretary general of the leftist Socialist Party of Malaysia, was arrested late Thursday by Malaysian police, the latest arrest targeting people critical of a Federal Court decision upholding Anwar's sodomy conviction.
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BROKER RATING CHANGES
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HSBC CUTS HAMMERSON TO 'NEUTRAL' ('OVERWEIGHT') - TARGET 683 (653) PENCE
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GOLDMAN RAISES WEIR GROUP TO 'BUY' ('NEUTRAL')
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BARCLAYS CUTS KINGFISHER TO 'UNDERWEIGHT' ('EQUAL WEIGHT')- TARGET 270 (285) PENCE
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Numis Downgrades Hays To Add From Buy, Price Target 184p
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CREDIT SUISSE RAISES SERCO TO 'NEUTRAL' ('UNDERPERFORM') - TARGET 208 (142) P.
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COMPANIES - FTSE 100
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Edinburgh-based Standard Life reported a 19% rise in operating profit before tax from continuing operations in 2014, bolstered by rising assets under administration on the back of net inflows, positive market movements and the acquisition of Ignis Asset Management. In a statement, the group said that operating profit before tax from continuing operations amounted to GBP604 million in 2014. The FTSE 100 constituent had been forecast by analysts to report an operating profit before tax from continuing operations of GBP559 million, according to consensus estimates provided by the company. Assets under administration from continuing operations increased by 38% to GBP296.6 billion. The group is to pay a final dividend of 11.43 pence, making a total of 17.03p, up 7.8% for the year.
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BP has lost its bid to reduce the maximum civil fine of GBP8.9 billion that the company could face for its role in the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill, the BBC reported. A US judge rejected BP's appeal to pay a cap of USD3,000 per barrel spilt in the Gulf of Mexico, with government prosecutors claiming BP should pay up to USD4,300 per barrel to account for inflation. The court has yet to decide the amount of responsibility and final penalty the firm will pay for the disaster.
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Bidders for the private banking assets being sold by Royal Bank of Scotland Group have pointed to the allegations over tax evasion by clients of HSBC Holdings PLC's Swiss unit to lower the price it would cost to buy Coutts International, according to the FT. The report, which cited people familiar with the situation, said that Credit Suisse, Union Bancaire Privée and a combination of Société Générale and DBS are among those in the final rounds of the bidding for Coutts International.
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COMPANIES - FTSE 250
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Essentra increased its full year dividend for 2014 after reporting a significant rise in pretax profit, driven by strong revenue growth across most of its divisions. The supplier of plastic and fibre products also announced that it has completed the acquisition of an Australian plastics distributor that is set to "enhance" earnings immediately. For the year ended December 31, the company reported a rise in pretax profit to GBP99.78 million compared to GBP60.3 million a year earlier, driven by strong revenue growth in the period. Essentra increased its final dividend to 12.6 pence per share, creating a full year dividend of 18.3 pence per share, up 19% from 2013.
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Nostrum Oil and Gas said it has received the results from the independent reserves audit of its licenses in north-western Kazakhstan, and said that production has remained steady at around 450,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day since August. The company's main operations are in the Chinarevskoye field in Kazakhstan, where Ryder Scott undertook the independent audit. The field makes up most of the company's reserve base, with three smaller licenses it acquired in 2013 topping it up. Nostrum said the report has revealed proved reserves in the north-west of 192.2 million barrels of oil equivalent.
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3i Infrastructure said it has signed an agreement with Oiltanking GmbH to acquire a 45% stake in two storage companies for a total of EUR111 million. The closed-ended investment company said it signed the agreement to acquire the stakes in Oiltanking Terneuzen BV in the Netherlands and Oiltanking Ghent NV in Belgium. The Oiltanking companies provide storage and related services for refined oil products, chemicals and biofuels and both companies are based in the ARA - Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Antwerp - region, which is "one of four global hubs for the oil industry", giving them benefits from their location, said 3i.
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Bank of Georgia Q4 Profit GEL66.5M, Up 19.5% On Year; Q4 Earnings Per Share Up 18.4% On Year To GEL1.87; Intends GEL2.1 Annual Dividend Vs GEL2.0
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Man Group , the investment manager, is discussing a takeover deal for London asset manager NewSmith, according to a Financial Times report. The report, which cited people familiar with the situation, said the deal could be announced as early as Friday. However, the deal is not yet final, and the price isn't clear, the report said.
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COMPANIES - INTERNATIONAL
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Telstra Corp said Andrew Penn has been appointed as the new chief executive officer of the Australian telecom giant, effective May 1. He replaces David Thodey, who announced his retirement after almost six years as CEO. Penn is a former Group CEO of AXA Asia Pacific.
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Apple Inc, which has been working secretly on a car, aims to begin production of an electric vehicle as early as 2020, Bloomberg reported citing people familiar with matter. Apple may decide to scrap its car effort or delay it if executives are unhappy with progress, as they've done before with other secret projects, the report said quoting people. The car team, which already has about 200 people, began ramping up hiring within the past couple of months as the company sought out experts in technologies for batteries and robotics.
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Google Inc's online video service YouTube plans to release a new app for children next week, to be known as YouTube Kids. YouTube Kids, which will focus on content for children, will run on smartphones and tablets. The free app will be available for download from February 23.
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A judge in the US District Court in the Eastern District of New York ruled in favour of the US Justice Department's lawsuit claiming that American Express' rules for merchants violate antitrust laws. The US Department of Justice and 17 state attorneys general sued American Express, Visa Inc and MasterCard International Inc, in 2010 to eliminate restrictions that the three credit card networks imposed on merchants. Over the course of a seven week trial during the summer of 2014, the department argued that these restrictions obstruct merchants from using competition to try to keep credit card fees from increasing. The civil case sought to end the violation and to restore competition.
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French drug maker Sanofi appointed Olivier Brandicourt as the new chief executive officer of the company, effective April 2, 2015. Brandicourt succeeds Christopher Viehbacher, who was ousted from the position last year. Brandicourt brings to Sanofi 28 years of global experience in the pharmaceutical industry. He was most recently Chairman of Bayer HealthCare AG and member of the Executive Council of Bayer AG.
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Friday's Scheduled AGMs/EGMs

Brewin Dolphin Holdings
Melrose Industries
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By Tom Waite; thomaslwaite@alliancenews.com; @thomaslwaite

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