Moneysupermarket.Com Share News (MONY)

LONDON (Alliance News) - The following is a summary of top news stories Thursday.
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COMPANIES
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Royal Dutch Shell said its pretax profit fell as expected in the first quarter of 2015 after its upstream division took a substantial hit caused by the fall in oil prices which was partially offset by an improved performance from the downstream division and said it has further cut its capital investment budget and reduced costs as part of its ongoing cost control programme. Despite the fall in earnings, the oil and gas major outstripped analyst consensus, with production also being above expectations. The FTSE-100 major reported a pretax profit of USD5.83 billion in the first quarter of 2015, a significant fall from the USD8.54 billion in the same period a year earlier, as the company's upstream division was hit by lower oil prices and reduced trading contributions, partially offset by an improved performance from the downstream division.
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Royal Bank of Scotland Group said it swung to a first-quarter net loss, as revenue fell and operating expenses rose due to GBP856 million in litigation and conduct costs and GBP453 million in restructuring costs. RBS said it made a GBP446 million net loss in the three months ended March 31, compared with a net profit of GBP1.20 billion in the corresponding quarter of the prior year. "It will be a tough year," Chief Executive Ross McEwan told reporters.
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Schroders said its assets under management increased by GBP19.5 billion in the first quarter of the year, driven by strong net inflows and investment returns. In a statement, the asset manager and FTSE 100 constituent said assets under management amounted to GBP319.5 billion at the end of March, an increase from the GBP300 billion recorded at the end of 2014.
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International Consolidated Airlines Group reported its first ever first-quarter operating profit, as all three of its airlines reported an improved performance and it was buoyed by the earlier timing of Easter and lower fuel prices, and it kept its guidance for the year as a whole. The owner of British Airways and Spanish airlines Iberia and Vueling reported an operating profit of EUR25 million for the three months to end-March, compared with a loss of EUR150 million a year earlier, as revenue rose 12.0% to EUR4.71 billion. Airlines typically make little or no profit during the slower winter months, booking most of their profit in the summer months when travel demand hits a peak.
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Smith & Nephew reiterated its expectations for 2015 as it saw revenue rise 3% in its first quarter, although the strong dollar held back its performance, and it cautioned that it expects a "significant currency headwind" in 2015. The medical devices company estimated a hit of around 8% from the stronger dollar in the first quarter, which offset 8% growth contributed by acquisitions. For the quarter to March 28 the company posted revenue of USD1.10 billion, up from USD1.07 billion a year before. This was boosted by strong revenue growth in Emerging markets, which offset modest revenue growth in the US and challenging markets in Europe, it said.
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Zoopla Property Group diversified into the online price comparison market, saying it will buy Ulysses Enterprises, the operator of the uSwitch energy, telecoms and financial products comparison site for up to GBP190 million. Zoopla, which currently operates one of the UK's main online property sites, said it will pay GBP160 million initially on a cash-free, debt free basis, and the a performance-based earn-out of up to GBP30 million.
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Moneysupermarket.com Group reported a 25% rise in revenue in the first quarter, with improvements across its price comparison lines and good trading in its MoneySavingExpert.com and TravelSupermarket.com divisions. The FTSE 250-listed price comparison site said group revenue in the three months to the end of March was GBP76.6 million, up 25% year-on-year. Within the Moneysupermarket.com portal, insurance revenue rose 12%, money revenue rose 24%, and its home services business revenue more than doubled.
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Saga reported higher like-for-like profit for its last financial year as revenue rose thanks to strong demand for its travel products and margins improved, although it swung to a pretax loss due to losses from an operation it has earmarked for sale. The provider of travel and financial products tailored to the over-50s reported a pretax loss of GBP133.8 million for the 12 months to end-January, compared with a profit of GBP106.6 million a year earlier, as it booked a GBP220.2 million loss from the public parts of Allied Healthcare that it has earmarked for sale. It proposed a maiden final dividend of 4.1 pence a share, at the top end of the range it had set out at its IPO.
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Tullow Oil said revenue, costs and production all remained in line with expectations in the first quarter of 2015 and reiterated its capital expenditure and production guidance for the full year. The FTSE 250 oil and gas company said revenue and cost of sales were on target in the first quarter of 2015, adding that the business is "well funded" with a current net debt of USD3.5 billion and unutilised debt facilities and free cash totalling USD2.3 billion.
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Ferrexpo said it has agreed to sell its entire 15.51% stake in Brazilian iron ore company Ferrous Resources for USD41.8 million in cash to IEP Ferrous Brazil. Ferrous Resources has operating assets in the Minas Gerais region of Brazil. In 2014, the company produced 5.6 million tonnes of iron ore. In September, Ferrexpo fully impaired its investment in Ferrous, but Thursday said it expects to reverse the impairment if the deal goes through, meaning the entire cash consideration would be profit.
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Synthomer said trading in the first quarter of 2015 was in line with its expectations, as a continued good performance in Asia offset some weakness in its European business. Volumes in the group's Europe and North America business dropped slightly year-on-year in the quarter, against a tough comparable, but the group said it saw some margin benefits from falling raw material prices and said constant currency operating profit was slightly higher year-on-year, though it fell on a reported basis due to the weaker euro.
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James Fisher & Sons said its Marine Support, Specialist Technical and Tankships units have started 2015 in line but its Oil Offshore arm has taken a hit from the weak conditions in the oil and gas market, with the company expecting a weaker first half due to one-off contract wins secured a year earlier. The company said its Marine Support unit has seen a recent improvement in ship-to-ship transfer volumes and expects project revenue to rise, particularly in the second half.
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Textile service company Berendsen said Chief Executive Officer Peter Ventress will retire from end-July, and it has appointed James Drummond to take up the role from the start of August. Drummond previously acted as chief executive of Avincis Group, which was acquired by Babcock International Group last May, and prior to that chief executive of Invensys's Rail division.
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Construction and housebuilding company Galliford Try said it has appointed a new chief executive and has made a series of changes to its executive and non-executive team. Galliford said Peter Truscott will become its new chief executive, effective from October 1. Truscott is currently the head of the South of England operations at FTSE 100-listed housebuilder Taylor Wimpey. Greg Fitzgerald, currently Galliford's executive chairman, will move to be non-executive chairman from January 1, 2016.
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MARKETS
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The FTSE 100 is trading sightly higher mid-morning, supported by oil stocks, with Shell among the best performers.
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FTSE 100: up 0.2% at 6,960.28
FTSE 250: up 0.1% at 17.496.21
AIM ALL-SHARE: up 0.2% at 753.63
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The euro hit a two-month high of USD1.1249 against the dollar.
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GBP: up at USD1.5446
EUR: up at USD1.1180

GOLD: flat at USD1204.04 per ounce
OIL (Brent): up at USD65.83 a barrel

(changes since end of previous GMT day)
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ECONOMICS AND GENERAL
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The Liberal Democrats claimed that the Conservatives tabled a series of welfare cut plans while the pair governed together, claiming the party has hidden the planned cuts from sight until after the election, while a new survey found business leaders are more concerned over a so-called Brexit than a Grexit. Liberal Democrat Chief Treasury Secretary Danny Alexander said the Conservatives proposed to "slash" child benefits while the two parties were in power together, as the Tories came under attack for so-called "secret" plans to cut welfare payments and the Lib Dems claimed they acted to stop the cuts while in coalition.
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An absence of clarity in UK pre-election polls remained, with the latest ComRes poll showing Labour pulling level with the Tories a week before the May 7 vote, while the parties swapped places again in the daily YouGov survey and a new Ipsos Mori survey found the Scottish National Party has consolidated its lead north of the border. The ComRes survey, on behalf of the Daily Mail, saw the Tories lose a point from the poll a week earlier and Labour gain three points, putting the pair level of 35%. In the daily YouGov/The Sun poll, the Conservatives moved back into the lead by a point, having been down by the same margin a day earlier. The Tories are at 35% to Labour's 34%.
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An index measuring consumer confidence in the UK was unchanged in April, the latest survey from GfK showed - holding steady at a 12-year high reading of +4. That was in line with expectations and unchanged from the previous month's reading.
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The US Federal Reserve is not ruling out tightening interest rates at its next meeting on June 17, even after a government report showed US economic growth screeched to a halt in the first quarter of 2015. The Fed said it expects the economy to grow at "a moderate pace" despite the first-quarter slowdown, which it attributed partly to "transitory factors." In its monetary policy statement after concluding Wednesday's meeting, the Fed left its benchmark interest rate at an unprecedented near-zero range, which has been unchanged since December 2008. Its statement offered no direct guidance about the Fed's interest-rate intentions for June. The Fed repeated its longstanding language to "take into account a wide range of information, including measures of labour market conditions, indicators of inflation pressures and inflation expectations, and readings on financial and international developments."
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Unemployment in the eurozone remained unchanged at 11.3% in March, with more than 18 million people jobless in the crisis-plagued currency bloc, new data showed. Unemployment is at its lowest level in almost three years, but the eurozone has struggled to push it down significantly since a record 12% was reached in 2013. Analysts had expected the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate to dip to 11.2%. The jobless ranks in the 19-country bloc did shrink by 36,000 people from February, but not enough to push down the overall rate, according to the EU statistics agency Eurostat.
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Eurozone consumer prices remained flat in April as expected by economists after falling for four consecutive months, flash data from Eurostat showed. Consumer prices dropped 0.1% in March and 0.3% in February. At the same time, core inflation that excludes energy, food, alcohol and tobacco remained unchanged at 0.6%. Core inflation also matched economists' expectations. Final data will be released on May 19.
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German unemployment declined less than expected in April, the Federal Labor Agency reported. The number of people out of work declined by seasonally adjusted 8,000 to 2.79 million in April. It was forecast to fall by 15,000. The jobless rate came in at a record low 6.4%, the same rate as seen in March.
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The Bank of Japan kept its monetary stimulus unchanged despite lowering inflation and economic growth outlook. In a statement released Thursday, the BoJ announced that the policy board headed by Governor Haruhiko Kuroda decided by an 8-1 majority vote to maintain the size of quantitative and qualitative easing. Accordingly, the bank will continue to increase the monetary base at an annual pace of about JPY 80 trillion.
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Protests in the eastern port city of Baltimore over a police custody death spread Wednesday across the US, with solidarity marches in Minneapolis, Boston, New York City and Washington DC. In New York, at least 65 people were arrested as they briefly shut down the Holland Tunnel - a major transit route - while chanting "black lives matter," according to the New York Daily News.
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