Marks & Spencer Share News (MKS)

LONDON (Alliance News) - Share prices have opened flat in London Thursday on some profit-taking ahead of UK GDP figures due at 0930 GMT and despite Brent crude rising above USD50 a barrel.

Electra Private Equity said Edward Bramson, the activist investor who fought his way onto the board of the FTSE 250 company last year, has been appointed interim chief executive.

Electra said Bramson will take on the interim CEO role on an unpaid basis and it has started the search for a chief financial officer. The moves come after Electra said it had decided to create an executive function in order to boost its corporate governance structure and provide ongoing support to its board.

Electra also said it has terminated the agreement under which management of its operations and investments is outsourced to Electra Partners.

The stock was down 0.6% early Thursday.

Here is what you need to know at the London market open:
----------
MARKETS
----------
FTSE 100: flat at 6,263.45
FTSE 250: down 0.1% at 17,221.83
AIM ALL-SHARE: flat at 733.36
----------
Hang Seng: down 0.1% at 20,358.19
Nikkei 225: closed up 0.1% at 16,772.46
DJIA: closed up 0.8% at 17,851.51
S&P 500: closed up 0.7% at 2,090.54
----------
GBP: flat at USD1.4731 (USD1.4711)
EUR: flat at USD1.1171 (USD1.1161)

GOLD: up at USD1,228.72 per ounce (USD1,222.95)
OIL (Brent): up at USD50.15 a barrel (USD49.17)

(changes since previous London equities close)
----------
ECONOMICS AND GENERAL
----------
Thursday's Key Economic Events still to come
(all times in BST)

09:00 Italy retail sales
09:30 UK BBA mortgage approvals
09:30 UK gross domestic product preliminary
09:30 UK business investment preliminary
09:30 UK index of services
10:00 Italy wage inflation
10:15 US Fed's Bullard speech
13:30 US initial and continuing jobless claims
13:30 US durable goods orders
15:00 US pending home sales
15:30 US EIA natural gas storage
16:00 US Kansas Fed manufacturing activity
17:00 US FOMC member Powell speech
----------
The UK made an average annual net contribution to the EU of GBP7.1 billion between 2010 and 2014, according to figures from an Office for National Statistics analysis. The figures are contained in analysis from the Office for National Statistics and are based on data from the European Commission, which the ONS argues gives "a more complete picture of the money that flows between the UK and the EU". This is because the calculations include money sent by the EU to both the public and private sectors in the UK.
----------
UK Prime Minister David Cameron has announced a drive to urge young people to register to vote in a clear sign of concern on the Remain side about a tight result in the referendum on Britain's membership of the EU. Casting the referendum as "a vote for your life", the Prime Minister said young people still had until June 7 to sign up for a vote in the June 23 poll.
----------
Five people died in a migrant shipwreck off the coast of Libya and 562 survived it, the Italian Navy said on Twitter, revising down a previous death toll of seven. A migrant boat in distress was spotted by a patrol unit just before it overturned because of "the high number of people on board," Italy's Marina Militare said in a separate statement. Its patrol vessel rushed to the scene with lifeboats and life jackets. Further rescue units, including a helicopter, were immediately deployed to support rescue attempts.
----------
French lawmakers passed an anti-terrorism law aimed at making it easier for authorities to search and detain people. The Senate voted in favour of the bill, which had already gone through France's lower house, the National Assembly, in March. It is due to take effect once it is signed by French President Francois Hollande. The legislation was drafted following a series of attacks in Paris in November 2015, which left 130 people dead in restaurants, cafes, outside a national stadium and in a music hall. Measures in the proposal include the ability to hold people suspected of terrorist activity under administrative detention for up to four hours and to carry out house raids at night.
----------
Producer prices in Japan were up 0.2% on year in April, the Bank of Japan said - in line with expectations and unchanged from the previous month. Among the individual components of the data, prices for communications, real estate and advertising were up. Prices were down for transportation, engineering and maintenance. On a monthly basis, prices dipped 0.2% after jumping 0.6% in March.
----------
A State Department review faulted Hillary Clinton for her exclusive use of a private email server during her tenure as secretary of state, saying the practice posed a security risk and did not comply with government records laws. Revelations that Clinton used a personal email address and a server located in her home have raised questions about her tenure at the State Department and dogged her presidential campaign for months.
----------
BROKER RATING CHANGES
----------
TRADERS: JEFFERIES CUTS MARKS & SPENCER TO 'UNDERPERFORM' ('HOLD'); TARGET 300 P.
----------
TRADERS: JEFFERIES CUTS GREAT PORTLAND TO 'UNDERPERFORM' ('HOLD') - TARGET 650 P.
----------
UBS CUTS MELROSE INDUSTRIES TO 'NEUTRAL' ('BUY') - TARGET 385 PENCE
----------
COMPANIES - FTSE 100
----------
United Utilities Group said profit fell in line with its expectations in its recent financial year, as the water company accelerated its investment plans. The utility said its operating profit for the year to the end of March was GBP567.9 million, down 13% from GBP653.3 million. Underlying operating profit was GBP604.1 million, down from GBP664.3 million and in line with the company's expectations. Revenue rose 0.6% to GBP1.73 billion from GBP1.72 billion the year before. United Utilities will pay a total dividend for the year of 38.45 pence, compared to 37.70p a year earlier.
----------
Life insurer and investment manager Legal & General Group said John Stewart will step down as chairman on June 1. L&G announced in November that Stewart would retire in 2016 and the group said the search for his successor is well-advanced, with an announcement expected in coming weeks. Rudy Markham, the vice-chairman and senior independent director, who is leading the search for Stewart's replacement, will become interim chairman when Stewart leaves.
----------
BP said it has started a major water injection project at the Thunder Horse platform in the Gulf of Mexico in order to extend the production life of the deepwater oil field. The project will boost recovery of oil and natural gas from one of the three main Thunder Horse reservoirs, BP said. It is the second of five major upstream projects BP expects to bring online in 2016 and is part of the group's plan to add around 800,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day of new production from projects starting up between 2015 and 2025.
----------
Anheuser-Busch InBev late Wednesday said the South African Reserve Bank has approved its proposed combination with London-listed SABMiller. The approval comes soon after the European Commission's approval of the deal, which was granted after it agreed to sell some of its businesses. All regulatory approvals for the deal are expected to be obtained to allow the GBP71.00 billion deal to be completed in the second half of this year.
----------
COMPANIES - FTSE 250
----------
Security software firm Sophos Group said it had seen a strong performance in its first year as a publicly listed company, as it reported a widened loss for the year. For the financial year to end-March, Sophos reported a pretax loss of USD68.4 million, widened from a pretax loss of USD54.3 million the previous year, as a rise in revenue to USD478.2 million from USD446.7 million was offset by higher operating costs and exceptional expenses related to the company's initial public offering last July. It proposed a final dividend of 1.1 cents, taking its total dividend for the year to 1.8 cents.
----------
Payments services company PayPoint said its pretax profit plunged in its financial year to the end of March due to an impairment charge, though underlying profit edged up despite lower revenue. Pretax profit for the group fell to GBP8.2 million from GBP49.6 million, primarily as a result of the impairment booked on the group's mobile payments business. It is seeking to sell the mobile payments unit, but has yet to do so. Adjusted operating profit, stripping out one-offs, grew to GBP50.1 million from GBP49.5 million. The group said it will pay a final dividend of 28.2 pence, meaning its total payout will rise 10% to 42.4p. In addition, Paypoint will return a further 21.0p dividend from the proceeds from the sale of its online payments unit.
----------
QinetiQ Group said its pretax profit and revenue dipped in the year to March 31 as defence markets remained challenging. Thedefence services company said its pretax profit for the recently completed financial year fell to GBP90.2 million from GBP105.4 million the year earlier, primarily due to higher one-off charges being booked. However, revenue also slipped to GBP755.7 million from GBP763.8 million. QinetiQ said it has secured 74% of its projected revenue for the 2017 financial year, its current year, slightly lower than the 77% secured at the same time a year earlier, and it maintained its expectations for the year. The group will pay a 3.8 pence final dividend, up from 3.6p, meaning its total payout rises 5.6% to 5.7p from 5.4p.
----------
Debenhams said it has appointed Sergio Bucher as chief executive, replacing Michael Sharp who resigned last year. Bucher will join the department store operator in October from Amazon.com where he has served as vice president of Amazon Fashion Europe since 2013. Sharp will step down from the board on June 24.
----------
Members of the Unite union working for Thomas Cook Group's airlines business have backed strike action, the union said on Wednesday. Unite said 74.4% of those voting backed industrial action in a dispute over health and safety concerns and "dangerous" changes to rest breaks.
----------
COMPANIES - LONDON MAIN MARKET AND AIM
----------
ASOS co-founder Nick Robertson has sold a GBP46.0 million stake in the company to cover his divorce settlement, bookrunner Numis Securities confirmed. Robertson sold 1.3 million shares at 3,525 pence per share, the same as their closing price on Wednesday, raising around GBP46.0 million. The sale was announced late on Wednesday and will cut Robertson's stake in the business to around 5.5 million ASOS shares, or a 6.6% stake.
----------
Daily Mail & General Trust reported a rise in pretax profit for its first half, but said its dmg media segment has been hit by a further deterioration in the UK print advertising market, leading it to edge down its expectations for its operating margin in this segment. The company now expects its operating margin for the dmg media segment to be around 10% for the full year, rather than flat on the previous year at 13% as it had previously guided. However, it maintained the remainder of its full-year outlook.
----------
COMPANIES - INTERNATIONAL
----------
Citigroup agreed to pay USD425 million to resolve US Commodity Futures Trading Commission claims that it tried to rig several interest-rate benchmarks from 2007 to 2012. The company neither admitted to nor denied the allegations, which concern ISDAfix and benchmarks in London and Tokyo.
----------
Chinese internet giant Alibaba is under investigation by US stock market regulators over accounting practices, the company said. Alibaba, which is listed on the New York Stock Exchange, noted the investigation by the federal Securities and Exchange Commission in a generalized statement, published in its annual report Wednesday. The company said it is cooperating with the probe, which is examining whether Alibaba's accounting is in line with US corporate law.
----------
Alphabet Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt believes that dramatic advances in the health and technology will change the world in the near future, Bloomberg reported. Schmidt expects technology will improve gene sequencing and make health care more efficient and personalized as the medical industry becomes more digitized. Speaking at Bloomberg's Breakaway conference Wednesday in New York, Schmidt also said Google-owner Alphabet will probably never break up and its job is to seek out transformative solutions.
----------
Thursday's Scheduled AGMs/EGMs

Legal & General Group
Inchcape
G4S
BGEO Group
Georgia Healthcare Group
Ibstock
Huntsworth
Rotala
Keyword Studios
Belvoir Lettings
Mortgage Advice Bureau
Arrow Global Group
Hostelworld Group
Hague & London Oil
Elecosoft
Powerflute
Jersey Oil & Gas
Allied Minds
Henry Boot
Fundsmith Emerging Equities Trust
Northbridge Industrial Services
Smart Metering Systems
----------
By Tom Waite; thomaslwaite@alliancenews.com; @thomaslwaite

Copyright 2016 Alliance News Limited. All Rights Reserved.