Pets at home Share News (PETS)

LONDON (Alliance News) - Blue-chips stocks are outperforming amid a mixed open in London Wednesday, led by Pearson, SABMiller and Dixons Carphone, all of which provided positive pre-market trading updates.

However, shares in Sports Direct International are down 4.9%, after The Times reported that founder Mike Ashley is set to sell GBP115 million worth of his shares in the retailer.

Here is what you need to know at the UK market open:
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MARKETS
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FTSE 100: up 0.5% at 6,654.09
FTSE 250: marginally lower at 16,121.02
AIM ALL-SHARE: down 0.1% at 697.91
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Hang Seng: closed up 1.7% at 24,352.58
Nikkei 225: closed down 0.5% at 17,280.48
DJIA: closed marginally higher at 17,515.23
S&P 500: closed up 0.2% at 2,022.55
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GBP-USD: up at USD1.5161
EUR-USD: up at USD1.1558

GOLD: up at USD1,300.39 per ounce
OIL (Brent): up at USD48.50 a barrel

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

World Economic Forum - Davos
09:30 UK Bank of England Minutes
09:30 UK ILO Unemployment Rate
12:00 US MBA Mortgage Applications
13:30 US Building Permits/Housing Starts
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The Bank of Japan kept its monetary policy unchanged and lowered its near-term inflation forecast as falling oil prices hamper efforts to lift inflation. At the monetary policy meeting on Wednesday, the policy board of the bank decided by an 8-1 vote to maintain its target of raising the monetary base at an annual pace of about JPY80 trillion. Citing lower crude oil prices, the BoJ downgraded its core inflation estimate for fiscal 2015 to 1% from 1.7%. But the central bank lifted the forecast for fiscal 2016 to 2.2% from 2.1%.
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Yemeni rebel leader Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, whose fighters have surrounded President Abd Rabu Mansour Hadi's personal residence and overrun parts of the presidential palace, warned Hadi to abandon a proposed division of the country into six federal regions. Al-Houthi denounced the plan, which would divide northern areas dominated by his Shiite movement between three regions, as an international conspiracy aimed at "tearing up the country."
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The Japanese government called on the US as well as European and Middle Eastern countries to help save two Japanese men held by the Islamic State militant group, as Prime Minister Shinzo Abe flew home to deal with the crisis. Japan will "send a message calling on an immediate release of the hostages through diplomatic channels and all kinds of media," Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told a news conference. The group threatened in a video posted on the internet Tuesday to kill the two captives unless a USD200 million ransom payment was made within three days.
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US President Barack Obama enters the last two years of his final term facing potentially bruising battles with the opposition Republicans who now control both chambers of Congress. In his annual State of the Union address to Congress, Obama sought to find common ground with Republicans on policies he declared were "practical, not partisan," while throwing down the gauntlet on taxes and climate change.
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BROKER RATING CHANGES
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CITIGROUP RAISES ARM TO 'BUY' ('NEUTRAL') - TARGET 1200 (850) PENCE
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JPMORGAN CUTS WEIR GROUP TO 'UNDERWEIGHT' ('NEUTRAL')
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GOLDMAN RAISES BAE SYSTEMS TO 'BUY' ('NEUTRAL') - TARGET 577 (506) PENCE
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EXANE RAISES WOLSELEY TO 'NEUTRAL' ('UNDERPERFORM') - TARGET 3820 (3750) PENCE
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COMPANIES - FTSE 100
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Brewer SABMiller reported a 1% drop in lager volume in the third quarter of its financial year, hit by weakness in China and lower US shipments, but its soft drink volumes continued to expand, rising 4%. In a trading update, SAB Miller said its net producer revenue for the three months to end-December grew 4% at constant currency rates. The figure declined by 5% at actual rates as it was hit by adverse currency movements. Net producer revenue per hectolitre grew in all regions, as it continued to sell a greater proportion of its premium lagers and drinks.
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Mining giant BHP Billiton said its global iron ore production for the second quarter grew 16% year-over-year, but edged down 1% sequentially. Production of metallurgical coal grew 17%. Total iron ore production for the first half of 2015 increased 16%. The company also maintained its full-year production guidance for petroleum, copper, iron ore and coal businesses. "Our operational performance over the last six months has been strong. We are reducing costs and improving both operating and capital productivity across the group faster than originally planned. These improvements will help mitigate some of the impact of lower commodity prices and we remain alert to opportunities to further increase free cash flow," CEO Andrew Mackenzie said in a statement.
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BP argued Tuesday in a New Orleans courtroom that it should not have to pay huge government fines because it worked hard to clean up after one of the worst oil spills the US had ever seen, according to media reports. BP faces up to USD13.7 billion in government fines under the US Clean Water Act over the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill. US District Judge Carl Barbier opened the penalty phase of the trial of BP, which discharged 3.19 million barrels of oil into the Gulf waters, in a federal courtroom.
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Pearson said it expects to report 2014 results in line with its previous guidance, anticipating an adjusted operating profit of GBP720 million and adjusted earnings per share at the upper end of its guidance range at 66 pence. It is preliminarily guiding adjusted earnings per share of between 75 pence and 80 pence for 2015. The company did not detail how it is adjusting results. The Financial Times owner had guided adjusted earnings per share of between 62 to 67 pence for 2014.
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Electronics retailer Dixons Carphone said trading over the key Christmas trading period was like a "roller-coaster", but said market share gains and good sales growth over the festive season have left it confident of delivering a full-year profit ahead of market expectations. The group, formed from a merger of Dixons Retail and Carphone Warehouse in the summer last year, said UK and Ireland like-for-like sales were up 8% over the nine weeks to January 3 from the year before. Overall group like-for-like sales were up 7%, which the electronics retailer said was driven by further market shares gains across electrical and mobiles in the UK and Ireland, Nordics and Greece.
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Sports Direct International founder Mike Ashley is set to sell GBP115 million worth of his shares in the retailer, The Times reported. Brokers at Goldman Sachs confirmed they have been tasked with placing 15.4 million Sports Direct shares with City investors, the paper said. Though the reason for the sale has not been stated, it comes as Ashley is locked in a battle for control at Rangers International Football Club, where he has been steadily increasing his influence through loans and boardroom appointments, despite controversy over his growing power at the club due to his existing ownership of Newcastle United FC.
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Land Securities Group said its business and markets look in good shape, with rental values rising in London due to a shortage of new office space, and it expects interest in its schemes to remain strong despite the political uncertainty in the UK and abroad. The commercial property company focused on London and retail developments said it made GBP10.9 million of investment lettings in its fiscal third quarter to December 31, and there are a further GBP8.0 million of lettings currently in solicitors hands.
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COMPANIES - FTSE 250
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Bikes-to-car parts retailer Halfords Group said growth in its third quarter was driven by sales of car maintenance products and bikes, especially children's bikes bought as Christmas presents. The retail chain said like-for-like sales, which are sales from stores open more than a year, were up 6.7% in its 15-week third quarter to January 9, on the back of retail sales growth of 6.8% and an improved sales growth performance from its Autocentres, up 5.9%. Total revenue for the group in the quarter was up 6.5%, as was growth from its retail and autocentres divisions.
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Pets at Home Group said it remains on track to meet its full-year expectations, after reporting a rise in revenue in its financial third quarter. The FTSE 250-listed retailer said revenue in the 12 weeks to January 1 grew 7.8% to GBP182.2 million, buoyed by merchandise revenue growth of 6.5% to GBP168.2 million, with growth in its food segment continuing to outpace accessories, and services revenue growth of 26% to GBP14 million. On a like-for-like basis, revenue rose 4.1%, with merchandise revenue up 3.4% and services revenue up 15.6%.
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Discount retail chain Poundland Group said sales rose around 10% in the third quarter of its financial year, driven by both existing stores and new store openings, while it also said it saw a "record" Christmas trading period. The discount retailer said total revenue, excluding its trial stores in Spain, increased by 9.8% to GBP328.4 million in the 13 weeks to December 28. If exchange rates had stayed the same, it said sales in the period would have been up marginally more, at 10.2%.
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Workspace Group said it had bought two London properties for a combined GBP31.4 million, boosting its presence in two areas of the capital going through extensive regeneration.
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Diploma reported a rise in revenue in the first quarter of its financial year, albeit an increase held back by currency fluctuations. The FTSE 250-listed technical products and services company said group revenue for the first quarter to the end of December rose 4% year-on-year, in line with its expectations and on track with its guidance for underlying growth. On a constant currency basis, however, revenue for the group rose 14% year-on-year.
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British pub chain JD Wetherspoon said sales growth has slowed in recent weeks, while its operating margin for the first half of the year will be slightly lower than the year before, due to increases in staff pay and supplier costs. JD Wetherspoon said like-for-like sales for the first 12-weeks of its second quarter to January 18 were up 2.8%, while total sales grew by 6.8%. However, the group said like-for-like sales slowed to around 2% in December and and slowed even further in the past two weeks.
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Domino's Pizza Group said it has started looking for a new chief financial officer after Sean Wilkins resigned and stepped down with immediate effect, as it said that trading in the final quarter of its last financial year continued to be positive and pretax profit will be in line with, or even marginally ahead of, consensus forecasts.
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Cairn Energy said it has reduced its future capital expenditure to the end of 2017 by about USD380 million after it completed the farm out of an interest in the Catcher field in the North Sea, while it has also won interests in five licenses through the latest Norwegian licensing round.
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WH Smith reported a fall in group and like-for-like sales in the 20 weeks to January 17, though it said it is performing in line with its expectations. The FTSE 250-listed retailer said total group sales for the 20 weeks fell 1%, with like-for-like sales declining 2%.
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COMPANIES - LONDON MAIN MARKET AND AIM
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Quintain Estates & Development said it has hired British Land Co's Simon Carter as its new finance director. Carter will take up the role on May 26 and joins from his role as head of strategy and a member of the executive committee at British Land. Prior to this, he worked at Swiss bank UBS and now-defunct accountant Arthur Andersen.
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COMPANIES - INTERNATIONAL
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Toyota Motor said its global group sales will decline 1% to 10.15 million vehicles in 2015 due mainly to Japan's sluggish demand following a sales tax increase. The Toyota group, including Daihatsu Motor Co and Hino Motors Ltd, expects domestic sales to fall 9% to 2.1 million units while predicting sales outside Japan will rise 2% to 8.06 million, the carmaker said.
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Biopharmaceutical company Bristol-Myers Squibb has promoted Chief Operating Officer Giovanni Caforio to succeed Lamberto Andreotti as the new chief executive officer of the company, effective May 5, 2015. Andreotti will become executive chairman of board on the same day and will continue to serve as chairman after his retirement on August 3.
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International Business Machines said its fourth quarter profit fell 11.3% from last year, hurt by lower revenue and a higher effective tax rate. However, the company's quarterly earnings per share, excluding items, came in above analysts' expectations, but its quarterly revenue fell short of analysts' forecast. At the same time, the company gave a disappointing earnings outlook for the current year.
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Online video service provider Netflix reported a surge in profit for the fourth quarter, driven largely by higher revenues and better-than-expected increase in subscriber additions. Investors cheered the results, sending Netflix stock soaring 15% on the Nasdaq. The Los Gatos, California-based company added 4.33 million streaming subscribers in the fourth quarter, above its forecast of 4.05 million, to end the quarter with 57.39 million subscribers. Moving ahead, the company expects to end the first-quarter with 61.4 million global members.
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Space Exploration Technologies said it has raised USD1 billion in a financing round with two new investors, Google and Fidelity Investments. The two companies will collectively own just under 10% of SpaceX through the investment. The two new investors will join existing investors Founders Fund, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Valor Equity Partners and Capricorn. The latest investment would reportedly value Elon Musk's SpaceX at more than USD10 billion.
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Starboard Value, one of the largest shareholders of Staples, said it believes that the best way to maximize value for Staples' shareholders is through exploring and completing a business combination with Office Depot. Starboard owns about 6% stake in Staples and around 10% of Office Depot.
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Wednesday's Scheduled AGMs/EGMs

Superglass Holdings
Diploma
WH Smith
Troy Income & Growth Trust
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By Tom Waite; thomaslwaite@alliancenews.com; @thomaslwaite

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