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LONDON (Alliance News) - Stocks listed in London were trading lower just after the open Friday, with South African focused financial companies continuing their declines from Thursday, and International Personal Finance was the worst FTSE 250 performer after new legislation in Slovakia.
The lender was traded down 14% after it warned late Thursday it could be hit by new legislation in Slovakia.
The company's Slovak business generated a pretax profit of about GBP6.0 million on revenue of about GBP43.0 million in the 12 months ended June 30, at which point it had a net receivables balance also of GBP43.0 million.
International Personal Finance's update came one day after the Slovak parliament voted to adopt "previously undiscussed" proposals to amend various pieces of consumer legislation.
The FTSE 100 index traded down 0.2% at 6,076.99, the FTSE 250 was down 0.3% at 17,032.88 and the AIM All-Share was down 0.2% at 729.89.
In Europe, the French CAC 40 was down 0.2% and the German DAX 30 was off 0.1%.
Asian equities ended mixed, with the Japanese Nikkei 225 index closing up 1.0%, while the Shanghai Composite ended down 0.6% and the Hang Seng closed down 1.1%.
Old Mutual, down 5.1%, and Investec, down 3.3%, were again amongst the worst performing stocks in the FTSE 100 and FTSE 250 respectively, continuing from their heavy declines on Thursday. The companies were down as the South African rand trades near record lows against the doallr following the dismissal of finance minister Nhlanhla Nene.
Both companies, which derive a great deal of their earnings from South Africa, have suffered from the weakness of the rand, and further depreciation of the currency is unhelpful when translating earnings to report accounts in sterling.
On Thursday, the two companies closed down 11% apiece.
Thomas Cook Group shares were down 3.6% after news that Guo Guangchang, owner of Fosun International and prominent Chinese businessman has been out of contact since Thursday morning.
Fosun took a 5% stake in Thomas Cook in March and the pair established a joint venture in June to develop domestic, inbound and outbound tourism activities for the Chinese market under Thomas Cook brands, a move that comes after the two companies in March formed a strategic partnership to look for opportunities in the Chinese market.
Bellway was one of the best performers in the midcap index, up 4.0%, after the housebuilder continued the positive newsflow from the sector as it said its reservation rate improved in the first months of its new financial year and that its total completions and average selling price are both set to rise in the full year.
The company said its reservation rate in the 18 weeks from August 1 to December 6 has increased 12% year-on-year to 165 homes per week. The strong start to the year led the group to forecast its total completions for the full year to the end of July 2016 will rise around 10% year-on-year, from the 7,752 it completed in its 2015 financial year.
Bellway added the average price of those completions will also rise by around 10%, meaning it expects its operating margin for the current financial year to increase about 21%, contributing to another anticipated improvement in its return on capital employed.
In the AIM All-Share, Surgical Innovations Group was up 22% after it said its finance director will no longer depart, while trading has improved and the company's banking facilities have been extended.
Melanie Ross will remain the finance director of the company, withdrawing her notice to resign on April 15, 2016, taking on the position of managing director of Surgical Innovations Ltd in addition to her existing responsibilities. Surgical Innovations Ltd is one of the London-listed company's main trading subsidiaries.
The company, which designs and makes medical technology for minimally invasive surgery, said trading in the second half of 2015 has "continued to demonstrate the improvement reported in the interim results". Further details will be released in due course, the company said.
Still ahead in the economic calendar, the results of the Bank of England's consumer inflation expectations survey is at 0930 GMT. In the afternoon, US retail sales and producer price index are at 1330 GMT and the Reuters/Michigan consumer sentiment index is at 1500 GMT.
By Neil Thakrar; neilthakrar@alliancenews.com; @NeilThakrar1
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