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(Alliance News) - Stock prices in London were seen opening higher on Wednesday following an upbeat finish in New York on Tuesday, even as the World Bank lowered its global economic forecast.
In early UK company news, Aveva raised its annual dividend but cautioned over its prospects for financial 2023. Housebuilder Berkeley and retailer WH Smith appointed new chairs.
IG futures indicate the FTSE 100 index is to open 26.07 points higher at 7,625.00. The index closed down 9.29 points, or 0.1%, at 7,598.93 on Tuesday.
Aveva said it delivered a "solid" set of results for financial 2022 as the industrial software provider recovered following disruption caused by the Covid pandemic.
Aveva also said its integration of real-time data management manufacturer OSIsoft has progressed well, with both revenue and cost synergies in line, while strong progress was made on product integration, which will drive longer-term synergies.
For the financial year that ended March 31, revenue rose to GBP1.19 billion from GBP820.4 million the year before, but Aveva swung to a pretax loss of GBP18.6 million from a GBP34.2 million profit.
Annual adjusted earnings before interest and tax was GBP365.1 million, up from GBP354.7 million last year.
Aveva said the loss at the pretax level was largely due to the amortisation of intangible assets relating to its combinations with the Schneider Electric industrial software business and OSIsoft, the deferred revenue haircut taken on acquisition of OSIsoft, and other exceptional costs.
Aveva declared a final dividend of 24.5 pence per share, up 4.3% from 23.5p paid out in financial 2021.
Looking ahead, Aveva said adjusted Ebit for financial 2023 will be hurt by some additional costs. These include wage inflation due to "very competitive" software labour market conditions. Aveva said revenue growth is expected to be lower in financial 2023 than in 2022 on an organic constant currency basis, and its adjusted Ebit margin is expected to narrow, before resuming growth in 2024.
"While the additional investment in cloud was planned, the board has decided to pull this investment forward to accelerate AVEVA's transition and the impact of this acceleration in cloud will result in around GBP20 million of additional costs in the current financial year," it said.
Berkeley said it has appointed Michael Dobson as its new non-executive chair, taking up the role after the housebuilder's annual general meeting on September 6.
Berkeley said its current chair, Glyn Barker, will step down from the board following Dobson's arrival. Barker was appointed chair in July 2020 for a period of two years to oversee the transition that followed the death of founder Tony Pidgley.
Dobson recently stepped down as chair of fund manager Schroders after six years.
WH Smith said it has appointed Annette Court as a non-executive director and chair designate. Court will join the board on September 1 and will succeed Henry Staunton as chair on December 1. Staunton will retire from the board on November 30, after nine years as chair.
Court is currently chair of insurer Admiral and a non-executive director of accounting software provider Sage.
Wizz Air posted a widened annual loss, but the budget airline pledged extra resources to help deal with the chaotic travel disruption seen at airports.
For the financial year ended March 31, revenue was EUR1.66 billion, up from EUR739.0 million in financial 2021, but its pretax loss widened to EUR641.5 million from EUR566.5 million.
Looking ahead, Wizz Air said it sees strong consumer demand for the summer, but expects an operating loss for the first quarter of financial 2023.
"The industry is witnessing supply-chain issues across airports, including in our network. Shortages of staff in air traffic control, security and other parts of the supply-chain are impacting airlines, our employees and our customers directly. We are deploying extra resources to minimize disruptions and urge all other stakeholders to do the same, having customers' best interests always in mind," said Chief Executive Jozsef Varadi.
On Tuesday, Wall Street ended higher, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average up 0.8%, S&P 500 up 1.0% and Nasdaq Composite up 0.9%.
In Asia on Wednesday, the Nikkei 225 index in Tokyo closed up 1.0%. In China, the Shanghai Composite was up 0.5%, while the Hang Seng index in Hong Kong was up 2.0%. The S&P/ASX 200 in Sydney ended up 0.4%.
"It's been very much a case of rinse and repeat of the same narrative over the past few weeks, and while we've seen a modest rebound in equity markets, there remains a significant overhang of uncertainty as to how much further this rebound has to go," commented CMC Markets analyst Michael Hewson.
"After the strong finish in the US last night, European markets look set to open higher, with Asia markets also broadly positive," Hewson added.
The World Bank has sharply slashed its annual growth forecast for China, warning in a report Wednesday that Covid disruptions could further slow recovery in the world's second-largest economy.
China is the last major economy wedded to a zero-Covid policy, using rapid lockdowns, mass testing and strict movement restrictions to eliminate outbreaks – but it has tangled supply chains and dragged economic indicators to their lowest levels in around two years.
Economic growth in China is projected to slow to 4.3% in 2022, the World Bank said in a report on Wednesday, marking a steep 0.8 percentage-point drop from the December forecast.
The World Bank has also cut its global economic growth forecast to 2.9%, warning that the world economy risks falling into a harmful period of 1970s-style "stagflation" in the wake of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
In the UK, Prime Minister Boris Johnson is to face Parliament on Wednesday for the first time since the damaging revolt by Tory MPs in Monday's confidence vote.
Johnson's backers can be expected to stage a noisy show of support when he steps up for his weekly Commons questions.
But behind the scenes, tensions are running high after 40% of Conservative MPs refused to support him in the vote of confidence. Even though Johnson survived, by 211 votes to 148, critics warned that he had been severely wounded by the scale of the rebellion and could be gone before the end of the year.
After Johnson insisted on Tuesday it remained a "fundamental Conservative instinct" to cut taxes, UK Chancellor Rishi Sunak used a speech to the Onward think tank to reaffirm his intention to reduce taxes for business in the autumn.
The Daily Telegraph reported that allies of Johnson were urging him to replace Sunak with former foreign secretary Jeremy Hunt.
The pound was quoted at USD1.2577 early Wednesday, flat from USD1.2576 at the London equities close Tuesday. The euro was priced at USD1.0691, similarly unmoved from USD1.0692. Against the yen, the dollar was trading at JPY133.15 in London, higher against JPY132.57.
Brent oil was quoted at USD120.92 a barrel Wednesday morning, up from USD120.11 late Tuesday. Gold stood at USD1,849.55 an ounce, down from USD1,850.60.
Wednesday's economic calendar has eurozone GDP at 1000 BST.
By Arvind Bhunjun; arvindbhunjun@alliancenews.com
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