Vodafone Share News (VOD)

LONDON (Alliance News) - The FTSE 100 was outperforming its European peers at midday on Wednesday as Brent traded around its best levels since late 2014, boosting oil stocks.The oil surge comes after US President Donald Trump on Tuesday said he would withdraw from the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran.Trump said the "decaying and rotten structure of the current deal" was not firm enough to prevent Iran developing a nuclear bomb, without giving any details on a potential alternative to the agreement.Iran is a founding member of the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, more commonly known as OPEC, and is among the organisation's main oil producers.Back in London, Imperial Brands was the best blue-chip performer at midday, while Burberry and Compass were found at the bottom of the index.Renishaw and Provident Financial gained in the FTSE 250, though this was largely offset by a 16% drop for baker Greggs.The FTSE 100 index was up 0.5%, or 40.70 points, at 7,606.45 Wednesday midday. The mid-cap FTSE 250 index was flat, up just 1.06 points at 20,593.66. The AIM All-Share index was up 0.2% at 1,072.98.The Cboe UK 100 index was up 0.6% at 12,907.58. The Cboe UK 250 was up 0.1% at 18,882.73, and the Cboe UK Small Companies up 0.2% at 12,635.18.In mainland Europe, the CAC 40 in Paris and DAX 30 in Frankfurt were up 0.1% and 0.2% respectively at Wednesday midday."The impact on oil prices going forward is expected to be far from direct, though uncertainty, combined with speculation - ideal states for the market's fall-back term, 'momentum' - seem capable of taking prices even higher in the near-term. The watch is likely to keep dominating market attention for the remainder of the week at least," said City Index analyst Ken Odeluga."The FTSE 100 had further cause to extend its recent outperformance of many global equity gauges given weight of oil majors BP and Shell," Odeluga added.Brent oil was quoted at USD76.71 a barrel Wednesday midday - having hit a high of USD77.18 earlier in the session, its best price since late 2014 - up from USD74.15 at the London equities close on Tuesday.On the back of this, Royal Dutch Shell 'A' shares were 2.3% higher, 'B' shares 2.4% higher and BP up 2.2%.Stocks in New York on Wednesday were pointed to a positive open, having finished flat on Tuesday after Trump's Iran decision.The Dow Jones Industrial Average was seen 0.5% higher, the S&P 500 up 0.4% and the Nasdaq Composite gaining 0.3%. Oanda senior market analyst Craig Erlam said Wall Street is likely to be driven by energy stocks, given the rise in the price of oil."While this is providing near-term support for US indices, I wonder whether it will help in the longer-term with the US' decision to pull out potentially increasing geopolitical risk," Erlam commented.To come in the economic calendar in the US, the producer price index is due at 1330 BST and EIA crude oil stocks change at 1530 BST. In the corporate calendar, Twenty-First Century Fox is due to report earnings after Wall Street closes.Fox is currently in the middle of a complicated takeover attempt of London-listed Sky, with Comcast having also thrown its hat into the ring and beating Fox with a higher bid for the FTSE 100-listed pay-TV provider.At the same time, Disney is currently planning to acquire a large part of Fox, comprising the Twentieth Century Fox movie and televison studio, cable channels including regional sports networks and Fox's 39% stake in Sky.Comcast is also reportedly considering bidding for the Fox assets, worth USD60 billion in total.Back in London at midday, Imperial Brands was the best performer in the FTSE 100, up 4.8% after it said interim profit fell, though it continues to make "significant progress" in its next generation products and upped its dividend.The tobacco giant reported a 7.6% decrease in operating profit to GBP833 million for the six months to March 31, compared to GBP902 million last year.Imperial declared an interim dividend of 56.87p per share, an increase of 10% from 51.70p last year. "Imperial Brands had a low hurdle to navigate with its first half numbers and the company cleared it. After a torrid spell for the share price centred on US regulatory changes and under-representation in certain parts of the vaping market, earnings estimates had been pitched fairly low," said Russ Mould, investment director at AJ Bell.Vodafone was 1.2% higher after the telecommunications firm said it has agreed to acquire certain European operations from Liberty Global for EUR18.4 billion.The FTSE 100-listed company will buy Liberty's operations in Germany, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Romania. These include Unitymedia in Germany, UPC Czech, UPC Hungary and UPC Romania."The combination of Vodafone and Unitymedia's non-overlapping regional operations will establish a strong second national provider of digital infrastructure in the German market," Vodafone said.The purchase price is expected to comprise EUR10.8 billion in cash paid to Liberty Global and the assumption of EUR7.6 billion in existing Liberty debt, subject to completion adjustments.At the bottom of the index was fashion house Burberry, down 5.3% on news Groupe Bruxelles Lambert has sold its entire holding in the company.GBL sold its 6.6% stake - representing 27.6 million shares - in Burberry via an accelerated bookbuild, which was first announced after the market close on Tuesday. Proceeds from the disposal amounted to approximately GBP498 million.Compass was 4.4% lower after it said revenue and profit fell for its recently-ended first-half.Revenue for the six months to March 31 slipped 0.8% to GBP11.4 billion from GBP11.5 billion, while operating profit fell 2.7% to GBP853 million from GBP877 million. On an underlying basis, however, these two figures were up 4.8% and 4.5% respectively.The FTSE 100-listed caterer said that, excluding the timing of Easter and extreme weather in the UK in the period, revenue was up 5.3% on an organic basis. The decrease in operating profit included a 5.3% hit from adverse foreign currency translation.Remaining slumped at the bottom of the FTSE 250 was Greggs, 16% lower at midday, having fallen as much as 19% earlier in the session.Greggs on Wednesday said weak customer footfall and severe weather conditions dented its sales performance for the first 18 weeks of 2018, turning from an upbeat outlook in February."In the period that followed [the February update] market data confirms weak customer footfall in retail locations, which has impacted demand for food-on-the-go. The impact was especially significant in the weeks of severe weather when many shops, including our own, could not be opened," the sausage roll maker said on Wednesday.Sales in May have started "more strongly" than that experienced in March and April, Greggs said, but added it is "cautious" in its sales outlook given uncertainties over market footfall.It was a more positive day for Renishaw, however, climbing 13% to the top of the mid-cap index.The engineering company said revenue for the nine months ended March 31 was up 12% to GBP429.9 million, with pretax profit up 50% to GBP104.4 million, as it raised its expectations for the full year.Renishaw now expects full-year revenue to be in the range of GBP585 million to GBP610 million, up from the GBP575 million to GBP605 million as guided previously. Pretax profit is expected to be in the range of GBP145 million to GBP160 million.Provident Financial was in second place, 8.3% higher after the subprime lender said its businesses performed in line during the first quarter of 2018, remaining on track for its annual results.Provident said Home Credit's collections performance during the "important" first quarter of the year continued its "progressive improvement". The shortfall in underlying performance against historic levels narrowed to 10% at March from 12% at December 2017.Collections performance is expected to return to historic levels during the first half of 2019, Provident added.