Vodafone Share News (VOD)

LONDON (Alliance News) - Stock prices in London are seen opening lower on Tuesday following a long weekend in the UK, tracking a fall in US equity markets overnight after the Trump administration accused China of reneging on trade promises.In early UK company news, Purplebricks announced the departure of its founder & chief executive and the decision to close its Australian operations, Domino's Pizza delivered a robust domestic first-quarter performance but warned on its International operation, and Vodafone signed a deal in Germany. IG futures indicate the FTSE 100 index is to open 29.14 points lower at 7,351.50. The blue chip index closed up 29.33 points, or 0.4% at 7,380.64 on Friday. Financial markets in the UK reopen Tuesday after being closed for the early May bank holiday on Monday.Domino's Pizza Group said it saw a robust performance in the first quarter, but international sales "remain disappointing". In the 13 weeks to March 31, group system sales rose 4.3% to GBP324.4 million from GBP311.1 million last year. In the UK and Republic of Ireland, system sales were up 4.8% at GBP299.3 million from GBP285.5 million. International system sales were down 2.0% at GBP25.1 million from GBP25.6 million in the first quarter last year. Chief Executive David Wild said: "Internationally, performance remains disappointing and trading visibility is limited. As we outlined at the full-year results, we have new management in Norway, Sweden and Switzerland, and a heightened focus on store-level performance. However, given persistently weak system sales in all our International markets, we no longer expect this part of our business to break-even this year. We are therefore further tightening our focus on International costs and capital deployment. We will provide a further update at our first-half results."Purplebricks Group said Founder & Chief Executive Michael Bruce will step down immediately and be replaced by Chief Operating Officer Vic Darvey. The company confirmed that it expects annual revenue for the financial year ended April 30 to be within the GBP130 million to GBP140 million range guided back in February. Cash balances will be "not less" than GBP62 million, the company added. Back in February, the online estate agent had cut its annual guidance by GBP35 million and warned that its revenue in Australia and the US will fail to meet expectations. After two and a half years in Australia, market conditions have become increasingly challenging, the company said on Tuesday. This, alongside some execution errors, resulted in the business not delivering the progress the board expected. As such, Purplebricks has decided to exit Australia and put the business into an orderly run down with immediate effect, pending closure.Moreover, Purplebricks has started a strategic review of its US business in a bid to deliver growth in a cost-efficient way.Chair Paul Pindar said; "We are very conscious that the group's performance has been disappointing over the last 12 months and we sincerely apologise to shareholders for that. With hindsight, our rate of geographic expansion was too rapid and as a result the quality of execution has suffered. We have also made sub-optimal decisions in allocating capital. We will learn from these errors and will not make them again."Telecommunications firm Vodafone said it has signed a cable wholesale agreement with Telefonica Deutschland for Telefonica DE to offer broadband services via Vodafone's network in Germany. Vodafone noted the Telefonica deal is dependent on the approval of Vodafone's Liberty Global assets acquisition. Vodafone said it expects a European Commission decision on the Liberty Global transaction by July.CEO Nick Read said: "Our deal with Liberty Global is transformational in many ways. It is a significant step towards a gigabit society, which will enable consumers & businesses to access the world of content & digital services at high speeds. It also creates a converged national challenger in four important European countries, bringing innovation & greater choice. We are very pleased to announce today our cable wholesale access agreement with Telefonica DE, enabling them to bring faster broadband speeds to their customers and further enhancing infrastructure competition across Germany."Construction company Kier Group said Finance Director Bev Dew will stand down and leave the company by September 30.In the US on Monday, Wall Street ended lower, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average down 0.3% and the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite down 0.5%.In China on Tuesday, the Shanghai Composite is up 0.5%, while the Hang Seng index in Hong Kong is down 0.1%. Financial markets in Japan reopened on Tuesday after 10 days following the Golden Week holiday. The Nikkei 225 index closed down 1.5%.Top economics advisers to US President Donald Trump accused China of going back on promises made in an attempt to resolve their trade dispute and have vowed to implement fresh tariffs, US media reported on Monday."Over the course of the last week or so, we've seen an erosion in commitments by China, I would say retreating from commitments that have already been made," the Wall Street Journal quoted US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer as saying.Lighthizer told reporters that the US would begin implementing a rise in tariffs on USD200 billion worth of Chinese goods from 10% to 25% from Friday.His comments came after Trump made an initial threat to China on Sunday, tweeting that talks were moving "too slowly" and that the Chinese were attempting to renegotiate."For 10 months, China has been paying Tariffs to the USA of 25% on 50 Billion Dollars of High Tech, and 10% on 200 Billion Dollars of other goods," Trump said in a tweet. "The 10% will go up to 25% on Friday".London Capital Group's Jasper Lawler commented: "What has become clear is that there is still a lot of work to be done before a trade deal between the world two largest economies is achieved. That doesn't mean its impossible, just that it could take longer than the two sides were initially letting on and the market was pricing in. Whilst the tariffs could be in place quite quickly, given the fluid nature of these negotiations and Trump's volatile nature, they could also be removed or reduced quickly. This optimism is offering some support to stocks."The pound was quoted at USD1.3121 early Tuesday, lower than USD1.3150 at the London equities close Friday.The economic events calendar on Tuesday has UK Halifax house prices at 0830 BST.