Vodafone Share News (VOD)

LONDON (Alliance News) - The following is a summary of top news stories Thursday.
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COMPANIES
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BT Group said it has agreed a deal to acquire mobile network EE for GBP12.5 billion in cash and shares, a deal that will give EE's joint owners Deutsche Telekom and Orange stakes in BT. BT will pay the cash amount through a combination of new debt financing and around GBP1 billion from the placing of new BT shares. It said this placing will be launched in due course. BT also will issue shares to EE's two current owners. It will issue around 1.2 billion new shares, valued at around GBP5.1 billion to Deutsche Telekom for a 12% stake in BT, along with a small cash payment, and 400 million new shares to Orange value at around GBP1.7 billion and GBP3.4 billion in cash, giving it a 4% stake.
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Vodafone Group confirmed its full-year earnings guidance as it said a decline in its service revenue slowed to 0.4% year-on-year in its third quarter, and said its GBP19 billion investment programme dubbed Project Spring is "well advanced". The company continues to expect to post full-year earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation of GBP11.6 billion to GBP11.9 billion, and it expects to be free cash flow positive after all capital expenditure. In the year to end-March 2014 the company posted Ebitda excluding restructuring costs of GBP12.83 billion. Vodafone's guidance excludes its acquisition of Grupo Corporativo Ono SA, which it acquired in a EUR7.2 billion deal last March.
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AstraZeneca moved to further bolster its respiratory drug pipeline by acquiring the rights to Actavis' branded respiratory business in the US and Canada, as it reported lower earnings for 2014 due to increased investments it is making in accelerating its existing portfolio. The pharmaceutical giant said it will buy they rights to Actavis' North American respiratory business for an initial USD600 million plus low single-digit royalties above a certain revenue threshold. It didn't give any further details of the amendments.
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GlaxoSmithKline said late Wednesday it was selling its 7.9% stake in Danish biotechnology company Genmab via a share placing. GlaxoSmithKline held 4.47 million shares in Copenhagen-listed Genmab. The final offer price was set at DKK430.00 a share Thursday, meaning gross proceeds were about GBP194 million. In its statement Wednesday, Glaxo said that since its decision to sell its marketed Oncology portfolio to healthcare provider Novartis Pharma AG in April last year, it has considered its stake in Genmab to be a "non-core asset".
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Medical devices company Smith & Nephew reported higher revenue and trading profit for 2014, although earnings per share were hit by restructuring and acquisition costs. Its trading profit rose to USD1.06 billion for the year as a whole, from USD987 million in 2013, as revenue rose to USD4.62 billion, from USD4.35 billion. Trading profit rose to USD325 million in the fourth quarter, from USD292 million a year earlier, as revenue rose to USD1.25 billion, from USD1.18 billion.
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EasyJet reported flat passenger numbers in January and a slight year-on-year decline in its load factor, while Aer Lingus posted a fall in passengers but an uptick in its load factor in the month. easyJet said it carried 4 million passengers in January 2015, flat year-on-year, while its load factor fell by 0.3 percentage point to 85.1% from 85.4%. Aer Lingus' said it carried 546,000 passengers in January, down 4.5% from the 572,000 carried a year earlier. But its load factor in the month was up by 2.4 percentage points to 68.9% from 66.5%.
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Catering company Compass Group said it made a strong start to its new financial year, citing like-for-like revenue growth, with modest pricing and sales volume improvements in its first quarter. The company said organic revenue grew by 5.7% in the three months to end-December, whilst it also improved its operating margin.
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Tesco became the subject of another investigation related to its profit overstatement as the UK's newly-empowered Groceries Code Adjudicator said it will launch a probe after concluding it has sufficient reason to suspect the retailer has breached the Groceries Supply Code of Practice. UK Business Secretary Vince Cable last week tabled measures in Parliament, passed by MPs, which will give the Groceries Code Adjudicator powers to fine supermarkets in the UK that breach the Groceries Code in their relationships with their suppliers. The adjudicator, Christine Tacon, said she had made the decision to launch an investigation into Tesco after considering information submitted regarding practices associated with the FTSE 100-listed supermarket's profit overstatement in September 2014.
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Premier Farnell said it expects to report an increase in sales for its full financial year on the back of higher sales in the fourth quarter, but said its operating margin has come under pressure. The group said its average sales per day for the year to February 1 rose 3.3% overall. Sales in the second half rose by the same amount, with third quarter sales up 2.7% but fourth quarter sales increasing 4.4%.
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Specialist insurer Beazley reported a 16% drop in pretax profit in 2014, citing reserve releases lower than its five-year average and higher foreign exchange losses due to the strength of its US dollar reporting currency, compared to currencies it uses in operations and to pay staff. Beazley increased its dividend for the year to 9.3 pence from 8.8 pence, though its special dividend to shareholders was lowered to 11.8 pence from 16.1 pence for the prior year. In a statement, Beazley said it made a USD261.9 pretax profit in 2014, compared with USD313.3 million in the prior year, as revenue grew by 4% to USD1.77 billion and expenses swelled by 11% to USD1.49 billion.
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UK pub operator Enterprise Inns said it maintained the "positive momentum" of its previous financial year into the first 18 weeks of its new financial year, reporting like-for-like net income growth for its leased and tenanted estate of 0.3%. However, that growth is slightly lower than the 0.5% like-for-like net income it reported for the fourth quarter of its financial year that ended in September, with Enterprise Inns citing a softening in beer volumes during January.
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Grainger said its average sale prices rose in the first four months of its financial year, but said the start date for its new chairman has been delayed and said it is considering its options regarding the money it is owed from the sale of its Equity Release (Increments) Ltd business last year. The residential property company said its average sales price in the fourth months to the end of January was up 3.9% against September 2014 vacant possession value. The rise is slower than for the same period last year, when its reported a 7.1% rise in its average sales value for the four months to the end of January 2014. The group said it completed GBP102.3 million in sales in the four months, again lower than the GBP104 million reported a year earlier.
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MARKETS
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UK shares trade flat to lower - though with BT shares rising on the confirmation of its EE acquisition - as the European Central Bank turns up the pressure on Greece over its vow to renegotiate the terms of its debt bailout.
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FTSE 100: down 0.3% at 6,842.00
FTSE 250: up 0.1% at 16,588.62
AIM ALL-SHARE: up 0.01% at 694.10
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The euro is higher against the dollar after the European Commission raised its economic growth forecast for the Eurozone for 2015 and 2016.
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GBP-USD: up at USD1.5245
EUR-USD: up at USD1.1437

GOLD: down at USD1264.10 per ounce
OIL (Brent): up at USD55.63 a barrel

(changes since end of previous GMT day)
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ECONOMICS AND GENERAL
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UK house prices increased for the third straight month in January, survey data from Lloyds Banking Group's Halifax division showed. House prices climbed 2.0% month-on-month in January, faster than the 1.1% rise in the previous month. Economists had expected house prices to remain flat during the month. The latest monthly increase was the highest January growth since 2009, when it went up 2.4%. On a quarterly basis, house prices rose at a faster rate of 1.9% in the three months ended January after increasing 0.3% in the three months ended December. This was the first increase in the quarterly growth rate since July.
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The European Commission raised its growth forecasts for Eurozone for this year and next, citing strengthened domestic and foreign demand, very accommodative monetary policy and a broadly neutral fiscal stance. In its winter forecast, the executive arm of the EU forecast 1.3% growth in the euro area for this year, which was higher than the 1.1% predicted in November. The growth outlook for 2016 was also raised to 1.9% from 1.7%. The EU economy as a whole was forecast to expand 1.7% this year and 2.1% in 2016.
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The Greek finance minister's push to renegotiate the country's bailout stands to face a tough opponent on Thursday when he holds talks with German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble. The meeting between Yanis Varoufakis and Schaeuble comes after the European Central Bank decided to turn up the pressure on Greece over its vow to renegotiate the terms of its bailout by refusing to accept Greek government bonds as security for loans. The ECB had previously given the Greek government a waiver on the use of its bonds as security, but said in a statement that it would lift that exemption as of February 11.
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German factory orders recovered and increased at a faster-than-expected pace in December, figures from Destatis showed. Factory orders grew a seasonally and working-day adjusted 4.2% month-on-month in December, much faster than economists' expectations for a 1.5% increase. In November, orders declined a revised 2.4%, the same rate of decline as in October.
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Switzerland's consumer sentiment increased unexpectedly in January, the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs said. The overall consumer confidence rose to -6 from -11 in October. The score was expected to fall to -13.
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US Secretary of State John Kerry visits Kiev on Thursday amid worries that the fighting in eastern Ukraine will escalate further. Kerry was to meet Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk, Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin and members of Ukraine's parliament, the US Embassy in Kiev said. The visit kicks off another round of diplomacy in the ongoing crisis, as Kerry travels to Germany later in the day to attend the annual Munich Security Conference.
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Billionaire Warren Buffett said he does not expect the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates anytime in 2015 due to the strong US dollar and the global uncertainty. He made the comment while discussing several topics in an interview on the Fox Business Network. "It'd be very tough for the Fed to raise rates. That would exacerbate the problem. I don't think it'll be very feasible to do. I think it would have a lot of international repercussions," Buffett said.
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