Vodafone Share News (VOD)

LONDON (Alliance News) - The following is a summary of top news stories Friday.
----------
COMPANIES
----------
Barclays ended months of speculation about its next chairman, saying David Walker will be replaced by John McFarlane at the company's annual general meeting next year. The bank has lured McFarlane from his current chairmanships at insurer Aviva and transport company FirstGroup. Media have been speculating for months about who would replace Walker.
----------
Fresnillo has a binding agreement to buy Newmont Mining Corp's 44% stake in their Penmont joint venture for USD450 million in cash, a deal that gives it full control of the gold mining venture in Mexico. The London-listed miner said the move will allow it continue an aggressive expansion programme in the region, and will immediately add to its earnings. It will add 2.0 million ounces to Fresnillo's reserve and 5.1 million ounces to its resource base, and it has raised its target of 500,000 ounces of attributable gold production by 2018 to 750,000 ounces as a result.
----------
The chief executive of Vodafone Group has said the UK telecoms group would consider making a bid for Liberty Global PLC "for the right price", Bloomberg reported on Thursday. Speaking following an investor conference in New York, Vittorio Colao said Vodafone may consider a "transformational" acquisition in the "longer term", Bloomberg said, citing a note from Goldman Sachs analyst Tim Boddy.
----------
British pub chain JD Wetherspoon has posted strong profit and revenue growth in its last financial year, boosted by new pub openings and impressive sales of its food and beverages, but said investment it's making in the business continues to squeeze its profit margin. The strong growth momentum continued into the new financial year, and as always, the company said it's aiming for a "reasonable outcome" for the year without elaborating. Pretax profit was GBP78.4 million for the 52 weeks ended July 27, up from GBP57.1 million a year earlier, boosted by a 10% rise in revenue to GBP1.41 billion, up from GBP1.28 billion. Like-for-like sales were up 5.5%, and have accelerated to 6.3% in the six weeks to September 7.
----------
AVEVA Group has warned that it now expects its revenue to be between GBP84 million to GBP90 million in the first half of its current financial year, as results have been hit by the strength of sterling and the timing of key engineering, procurement and construction rental renewals. The engineering data and design IT system provider had previously noted these issues at the time of its first quarter update in July, and on Friday said it expects them to hit first half revenues by about GBP14 million. The company reported revenue of GBP108.5 million in the first half of its last financial year.
----------
Polymetal International has acquired all of the North Kaluga deposit in the Sverdlovsk region of Russia following the restructuring of the Ural-Polymetal joint venture. Under the terms of the restructuring, the Ural-Polymetal joint venture was dissolved, with the assets and liabilities held by the unit distributed to the joint venture partners. Polymetal, which owned a 49.99% stake in the joint venture, will take a 100% interest in the North Kaluga deposit as part of the restructuring and will assume GBP20 million in debt.
-----------
Great Portland Estates has exchanged contracts on the sale of 125 apartments at the Rathbone Square development in London for GBP207.2 million in total. The sale price for the apartments reflects an average capital value of GBP1,856 per square foot, with the price range from GBP1,548 per square foot and GBP2,624 per square foot, the FTSE 250-listed real estate company said. The 125 apartments sold so far represent 78% of the total private residential property on the site by area and 73% by value.
-----------
Galliford Try and Costain Group have been appointed by Southern Water to help deliver its 2015 - 2020 investment programme. The work is expected to be worth about GBP215 million to Galliford Try and GBP200 million to Costain.
----------
MARKETS
----------
FTSE 100: up 0.1% at 6,806.61
FTSE 250: up 0.5% at 15,707.59
AIM ALL-SHARE: up 0.1% at 776.71
----------
GBP-USD: down at USD1.6254
EUR-USD: flat at USD1.2923

GOLD: down at USD1237.29 per ounce
OIL (Brent): up at USD98.34 a barrel

(changes since end of previous GMT day)
----------
ECONOMICS AND GENERAL
----------
An opinion poll published Friday showed next week's referendum on Scottish independence on a knife edge, with 52% of people against ending the nation's 300-year-old union with the rest of the UK and 48% in favour. However, the poll of 1,300 people - conducted by YouGov for the Times and Sun newspapers - did appear to show that the pro-independence campaign's momentum has slowed.
The company's previous poll, published Sunday, had put the independence camp ahead for the first time, with 51% of respondents in favour and 49% supporting the union.
----------
Construction output in the UK was unchanged over the month in July, defying expectations for an increase, a report from the Office for National Statistics showed. Construction sector output stagnated in July following the 1.2% growth in June. Economists had expected construction output to rise 0.6%. Among the sub-categories, infrastructure output rose 3.3% and private commercial output climbed 1%. Total housing output increased 0.8%.
----------
Eurozone countries were meeting in Milan on Friday under strong pressure to find ways to revive flagging growth in the currency bloc without compromising budget discipline. While the US and Japan have recovered from the post-2008 global slump, the eurozone is stagnating. Gross domestic product growth is flat, while inflation is at a five-year low of 0.3%. "The big debate of course is what kind of policy you need to get growth and jobs, and how that policy mix sticks together," the head of the Eurogroup panel of finance ministers, the Netherlands' Jeroen Dijsselbloem, said before the talks.
----------
European Central Bank President Mario Draghi urged governments to revive investment that is essential to bring in a sustainable recovery in the bloc. "A decisive rise in investment is essential to bring inflation where we would want to see it, to kick-start the economy and to bring down unemployment," he said at Eurofi Financial Forum in Milan late Thursday. The central banker said the governments should make the regulatory environment more favorable to economic growth and also give companies easy access to diversified source of financing. He also called for government guarantees to support lending to small and medium sized enterprises.
----------
Austria late Thursday became the third country to report that its gas deliveries from Russia had dropped significantly, after Poland and Slovakia reported similar reductions earlier in the day. Russian energy giant Gazprom gave no reason why supplies were 45% lower to Poland, Polish energy supplier PGNiG said. Russia, embroiled in a dispute with the US and EU over its presence in eastern Ukraine to back separatists, has in the past used its energy resources for political leverage.
----------
The EU and US Thursday signalled another round of sanctions against Russia, some of which could come into effect as early as Friday. "We will deepen and broaden sanctions in Russia's financial, energy, and defense sectors," US President Barack Obama said. The US said details of the sanctions would be announced on Friday, while the EU was more specific. The new EU sanctions will target five state-owned banks, three major defence companies, oil-exploration projects and 24 individuals, including "Russian decision-makers."
----------
Forty-three Israeli intelligence officers publicly refused to contribute to missions targeting Palestinians, in an act of resistance to a conflict they deem unconscionable. The move comes amid sharp criticism from human rights groups of Israel's tactics during the recent 50-day conflict in Gaza, in which more than 2,100 Palestinians and 70 Israelis died. "We cannot, in good conscience, continue to serve in this system and to violate the rights of millions of people," the soldiers said in a letter published by Israeli media on Friday.
----------
Chinese bank lending surged in August after declining sharply a month ago, while money supply growth slowed from last year, data published by the People's Bank of China showed Friday. Banks lent CNY 702.5 billion in August, which was much larger than July's CNY 385.2 billion lending. Social aggregate financing, a broad measure of credit, totaled CNY 957.4 billion in August, versus CNY 273.1 billion a month ago. Nonetheless, it remained above the expected level of CNY 1.13 trillion.
----------
Argentina's National Congress passed a measure to allow the government to repay defaulted bonds through its own bank instead of a New York account, in an attempt to circumvent a US court that blocked renegotiated payments to some investors. After a 15-hour debate on legislation passed last week in the Senate, the lower Chamber of Deputies approved the measure 134-99 on Thursday to deposit payments to bondholders in state-controlled Banco de la Nacion Argentina, instead of Bank of New York Mellon Corp. The measure awaits President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner's signature into law.
----------
Japan's industrial production rose more than initially estimated in July, final data from the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry showed Friday. Industrial output climbed 0.4% month-over-month in July, which was faster than the initial estimate of 0.2% rise. On a year-over-year basis, production fell 0.7%. Initially, a 0.9% drop was estimated.
----------
South African judge Thokozile Masipa found athlete Oscar Pistorius guilty of manslaughter in the shooting death of his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp, one day after clearing him of murder charges. A verdict of manslaughter - known as culpable homicide in South Africa - could land Pistorius in prison for several years. He could also get a suspended sentence, depending on the discretion of the judge. It was expected to take several weeks for the judge to issue the sentence, with a prison term of between five and 10 years deemed likely.
----------
By Arvind Bhunjun; arvindbhunjun@alliancenews.com; @ArvindBhunjun

Copyright 2014 Alliance News Limited. All Rights Reserved.