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LONDON (Alliance News) - The following is a summary of top news stories Monday.
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COMPANIES
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Engineering software firm AVEVA Group said it has struck a deal with French energy group Schneider Electric SE to acquire industrial software assets from Schneider in a GBP1.3 billion reverse takeover. Under the terms of the deal, AVEVA will acquire Schneider Software on a debt-free, cash-free basis and will receive GBP550 million in cash from Schneider Electric for AVEVA shares, giving Schneider a 53.5% stake in AVEVA. AVEVA said that based on its share price before the market open - shares in the company closed at 1,770 pence on Friday - around 74.0 million shares will be issued to Schneider Electric having a market value of around GBP1.3 billion. Shares in the company soared following the announcement and were up 28% at 2,271.00 pence Monday morning, comfortably the best performer on the FTSE 250 and the highest price the stock has seen since June last year.
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Barclays plans to cut more than 30,000 jobs within two years as the British lender considers accelerating a cost-cutting program after firing chief executive Antony Jenkins in early July, The Sunday Times reported. The redundancy program could reduce Barclays' workforce to below 100,000 by the end of 2017 and is seen as the only way to address the bank's underperformance and double its share price, according to The Sunday Times. As Jenkins' successor, a potential candidate is reportedly expected to cut jobs at a much faster rate and more deeply than Jenkins. The job cuts are likely to impact staff at middle and back office operations in order to achieve largest savings.
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Standard Chartered Chief Executive Bill Winters has appointed a new management team reporting directly to him and made changes to the bank's structure as he tries to improve performance and cut USD1.8 billion in costs by the end of 2017. The new management team, which consists of 13 members, will be responsible for devising a plan by the end of the year to address the emerging markets banking group's performance, Standard Chartered said in a statement on Sunday.
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Rolls-Royce Holdings said it has struck two new deals, one covering TotalCare services in Saudi Arabia and one a Trent 700 engine order from International AirFinance Corp. The FTSE 100-listed aerospace and engineering company said it has been selected by SAUDIA, Saudi Arabia's national airline, to provide TotalCare engine service support for 20 Airbus A330 regional aircraft. The deal is worth USD1.3 billion. Rolls-Royce also said it has won a contract from International AirFinance to provide Trent 700 engines for 20 Airbus A330s. That deal is worth USD930 million.
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British Land said it has had a "good start" to its new financial year, with 129,000 square feet of retail lettings and renewals and 132,000 square feet of office lettings and renewals, as further space was let at the Cheesegrater skyscraper in the City of London. Chief Executive Chris Grigg said the London-based property investment company had a "good start" to the year, with "real progress" being made.
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Anglo American said it will book underlying earnings from Anglo American Platinum Ltd of USD175 million for the first half of 2015. The FTSE 100-listed multi-commodity miner said the underlying earnings from the company are substantially better than the USD1.0 million loss it booked in the same period a year earlier. Anglo American is the platinum miner's largest shareholder with a 77.3% stake.
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Royal Dutch Shell may cut its capital spending for the current year by several billion dollars from the previously announced spending of USD33 billion, reflecting project deferrals, the Financial Times reported. A substantial cut to this year's capital investment may be outlined at its interim results on July 30, the report said. The paper said that Shell expects billions of dollars more in savings from its proposed GBP55 billion takeover of BG Group than previously disclosed as it uses the enlarged company's scale to slash costs in its deepwater oil business and natural gas trading arm.
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Defence company BAE Systems has started the process of preparing to replace Chief Executive Ian King, Sky News reports. Roger Carr, BAE's chairman, has hired City headhunter Spencer Stuart to start a "horizon-scanning" exercise to identify potential successors to King, who has run the company since 2008, Sky said. King has no immediate plans to step down, and insiders told Sky that any change of leadership could be at least two years away.
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Alibaba Group and Unilever China announced a comprehensive strategic partnership that will enable Unilever to reach customers across China with unprecedented precision and effectiveness through Alibaba Group's data-driven ecosystem. The collaboration includes rural China penetration, cross-border e-commerce, consumer protection and Big Data. Alibaba noted that the agreement is a major milestone for a partnership that started five years ago with a single Tmall store, which has since grown steadily on a solid foundation of mutual trust and success over the years.
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Tullow Oil said gas exports from the Jubilee field to the Ghana gas plant at Atuabo have been suspended due to technical issues which will continue to impact exports until mid-August. The gas exports were suspended on July 3 due to technical issues with gas compression systems on the floating production, storage and offloading Kwame Nkrumah vessel. Oil production is currently constrained to 65,000 barrels of oil per day, but the company said there has been no affect on the field's reserves or resources.
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The owners of hotel chain Travelodge are understood to have hired Deutsche Bank to advise on a GBP1 billion sale or flotation of the business, The Daily Telegraph reports. Goldman Sachs Inc, GoldenTree Asset Management and Avenue Capital are thought to be planning to exit their investment in the budget hotel group this autumn. The Telegraph said an initial public offering of the business is thought to be less likely than a sale and said there is speculation that the business may draw the attention of an Asian investor.
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MARKETS
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UK stock indices are higher mid-morning Monday, with little in the economic calendar to drive sentiment and investors focusing on the sharp fall in gold price to a new five-year low.
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FTSE 100: up 0.5% at 6,808.83
FTSE 250: up 0.5% at 17,840.47
AIM ALL-SHARE: up 0.3% at 759.30
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The price of gold sunk below USD1,100 an ounce for the first time in five years, hitting a low of USD1,073.40 an ounce overnight before recovering some ground.
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GBP: down at USD1.5553
EUR: down at USD1.0834

GOLD: down at USD1,114.03 per ounce
OIL (Brent): down at USD56.75 a barrel

(changes since end of previous GMT day)
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ECONOMICS AND GENERAL
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The process of making payments to the European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund has begun, a Greek government official said. Greece owes EUR3.5 billion to the ECB and eurozone national central banks on government bonds that have matured, including EUR0.7 billion in interest that bring the payment to EUR4.2 billion. The payment due to the IMF comes to approximately EUR2.04 billion. The Greek official told dpa on condition of anonymity that all the payments will be completed by the close of business Monday.
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Banks in Greece re-opened for the first time in three weeks after the cash-strapped country received emergency liquidity, and Greeks formed queues in central Athens to take care of long-postponed transactions. Banks have been closed since June 29 as Greece has tried to reach a deal with international creditors and capital controls were put in place to prevent a run on the banks. Since then, Greeks have been able to withdraw EUR60 per day and other transactions have been suspended. Easing of the controls will be implemented incrementally, with Greeks able to withdraw EUR300 per week until Saturday. After that, they will be able to withdraw EUR420 per week.
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UK Prime Minister David Cameron planned to launch a campaign against Islamic extremist views on Monday including measures to address "failures of integration" among Britain's growing Muslim community. "I'll be making a major speech on extremism today - how we can tackle the poisonous Islamist ideology that is so hostile to British values," Cameron said on Twitter ahead of his speech in Birmingham. Cameron's five-year plan will aim to stop the "glamorization" of extremist groups and promise more resources for some of the country's poorest communities with large Muslim populations, according to advance excerpts published by British media.
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The average asking price for a house in the UK was up 0.1% on month in July, property tracking website Rightmove said - coming in at GBP294,542. That follows the 3.0% jump in June, which was a record high for one month. On a yearly basis, prices spiked 5.1% after climbing 4.5% in the previous month.
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US Defence Secretary Ash Carter met with his Israeli counterpart, promising Washington would help its "critical ally" in the Middle East to maintain its qualitative military edge over other hostile states in the region. Carter met Israeli Defence Minister Moshe Yaalon in Tel Aviv, a spokesman said, after which the two would tour Israel's northern border to review firsthand the threats that it faces there. "I'm not going to change anybody's mind in Israel (on the Iran deal). That's not the purpose of my trip," Carter told reporters on his plane, before landing in Tel Aviv. Countering vocal Israeli criticism of the "bad deal," which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says paves the way for Iran to acquire nuclear weapons after 10 years, Carter insisted it was a "good deal."
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The Obama administration sent the Iran nuclear accord to the US Congress, triggering a 60-day review period and intense lobbying efforts by advocates and opponents of the deal. US State Department spokesman John Kirby said the nuclear accord that was sealed on Tuesday between Iran and six world powers had been sent to Congress for consideration, as required by law. In New York, the UN Security Council was preparing to vote Monday to lift the economic sanctions on Iran that were aimed at forcing it to dismantle its nuclear programme.
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The Islamic State or IS militant group on Saturday claimed responsibility for Friday's huge suicide truck bomb explosion at a busy marketplace in Iraq's eastern province of Diyala, according to reports. The group reportedly said the attack was carried out by a suicide bomber who drove his truck bomb loaded with three tons of explosives and detonated it among Shiite militias near the Shiite mosque of al-Rasoul al-Aazam in the town of Khan Bani Saad in Diyala province.
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Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, whose popularity has faded after local election setbacks and a migration crisis, made a bid to revive his political fortunes Saturday by unveiling bold tax cuts for the next three years. Renzi pledged to scrap an unpopular levy on primary residences, as well as taxes on agricultural land and industrial machinery, in 2016. He also promised to cut corporate taxes in 2017 and income taxes in 2018.
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Pro-Russian separatists have said they will withdraw all of their heavy weapons from the conflict zones of eastern Ukraine in accordance with an agreement with the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. Separatist leader Vladislav Deynego was quoted by the Interfax news agency as confirming implementation of the agreement, which stipulates that weapons with a caliber of 100 millimetres will be withdrawn at least three kilometres from the front lines.
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Cuba and the US formally restored diplomatic ties more than five decades after they were severed.
Just past the stroke of midnight on Monday, the diplomatic missions of both the countries became full-fledged embassies. US President Obama announced on July 1 the historic decision to re-establish diplomatic relations between Cuba and the US. The US Department of State also notified Congress of its intent to convert the US Interests Section in Havana, Cuba to US Embassy Havana, effective on the same date.
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