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LONDON (Alliance News) - The following is a summary of top news stories Tuesday.
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COMPANIES
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Shares in Sky hit a 14-year high, after it posted a rise in operating profit for the first nine months of its financial year, boosted by strong customer growth across its businesses and strong performances from the UK, Ireland and Germany. The broadcaster posted an operating profit of GBP1.03 billion in the nine months to the end of March, up from GBP854 million a year before, as revenue grew to GBP8.45 billion from GBP8.05 billion. In the UK and Ireland, revenue was up 6% to GBP5.82 billion from GBP5.49 billion, while revenue in Germany were up 9% to GBP1.04 billion from GBP951 million, offsetting a slight decline in Italy were revenue fell to GBP1.59 billion from GBP1.61 billion.
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Shares in ARM Holdings hit an all-time high as it reiterated its expectations to "at least" meet current market expectations for dollar revenue in 2015, and it posted a rise in pretax profit in the first quarter of the year as royalty revenue continued to grow on strong demand for its customers' mobile devices, particularly 4G smartphone handsets. Shares are trading up 6.5% at 1,224.49 pence Tuesday morning, the top gainer on the FTSE 100 and clearing the previous all-time high of 1,205.00p hit last month. ARM posted a pretax profit of GBP103.4 million, up from GBP78.0 million in the first quarter of 2014, as revenue grew to GBP227.5 million from GBP186.7 million.
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Rio Tinto said iron ore production and shipments increased in the first quarter of 2015 year-on-year but fell from the preceding quarter, yet the company reiterated its full-year production targets across all of its segments. The world's second-largest iron-ore producer said global iron ore production for the first quarter increased 12% on a 100% basis from last year to 74.7 million tonnes, reflecting the expansion of its mining operations in the Pilbara region with Rio Tinto's share rising 14% to 59.4 million tonnes. But the company's iron-ore production declined 6% from the preceding quarter. Iron ore sales account for roughly 90% of the company's profit, which has been hit by the fall in iron ore prices, which have slumped from about USD130 per tonne at the start of 2014 to about USD50 per tonne recently.
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Associated British Foods reported a drop in profit in the first half of its financial year as its food business, particularly the struggling AB Sugar, made lower sales due to food price deflation and the strength of sterling. The group reported a 51% drop in pretax profit in the 24 weeks to February 28 to GBP213 million from GBP434 million the year before, but a revenue increase of 1% to GBP6.2 billion. AB Foods said that while it made "significant progress" in operating profit for Primark, Agriculture and Ingredients and further improvement in the Grocery division's margin, profitability at AB Sugar was substantially lower as a result of much weaker EU sugar prices.
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Vodafone said it has signed a collaboration deal with MTN Group that will allow the companies' customers to transfer money to each other using their mobile wallets. The deal covers Vodafone M-Pesa customers in Kenya, Tanzania, Democratic Republic of Congo and Mozambique, and MTN Mobile Money customers in Uganda, Rwanda and Zambia.
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Consumer credit company International Personal Finance said Polish authorities have concluded an investigation into the calculation of fees for loan products and it will not face a fine following the probe. IPF said the Polish Office of Consumer Protection and Competition has concluded that Provident Polska, IPF's Polish business, has made the required commitment to replace variable administrative and home service fees on loans with fixed rates by the implementation deadline of August 1 set by the regulator.
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Informa said it is maintaining its full year guidance after a solid trading performance in the first quarter. The FTSE 250-listed company said underlying growth in the first quarter to the end of March was solid, though including one-off non-annual events and the planned movement of events between quarters, revenue fell 0.5%. The group said the underlying trends in its academic publishing business remain robust, with the integration of the Medical Journals business on track. It added the performance of its business intelligence unit has stabilised amid a focus on customer and subscription management in the division under Informa's 2014-2017 Growth Acceleration Plan.
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Tate & Lyle reported its exit from the substantial part of its European Bulk Ingredients business and the re-structuring of its SPLENDA Sucralose business to further focus on and strengthen Speciality Food Ingredients. The company has signed an agreement with Archer Daniels Midland to re-align their Eaststarch corn wet milling joint venture in Europe. Eaststarch CV is ADM's 50-50 joint venture with Tate & Lyle. ADM will take full ownership of corn wet mills in Bulgaria and Turkey, and will own a 50% stake in a wet mill in Hungary. Tate & Lyle will receive a cash consideration of EUR240 million. Tate & Lyle will acquire full ownership of the more speciality-focused plant in Slovakia.
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Pets at Home Group reported growth in revenue for its recently completed financial year as it saw sales rise in all areas of its business, and said its full year underlying earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation are expected to be in line with market consensus. In a trading statement, the pet products and services company reported sales growth of 9.6% for the year ended March 26 to GBP729.1 million, and like-for-like sales growth of 4.2%, driven by strength in advanced nutrition, health and hygiene, VIP club, services and omnichannel.
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MARKETS
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UK stock indices are mixed as earnings from Sky, ARM Holdings and Associated British Foods take centre stage with little in the way of economic data.
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FTSE 100: down 0.1% at 7,045.33
FTSE 250: up 0.2% at 17,634.14
AIM ALL-SHARE: down 0.2% at 750.42
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GBP: down at USD1.4884
EUR: down at USD1.0686

GOLD: up at USD1197.62 per ounce
OIL (Brent): down at USD62.92 a barrel

(changes since end of previous GMT day)
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ECONOMICS AND GENERAL
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The British Chambers of Commerce waded into the election debate, calling on parties to put the long-term economic health of the country before chasing positive headlines, as former Tory prime minister John Major claimed the Scottish National Party will cripple the UK with "blackmail" following the launch of the Scottish nationalists' manifesto. John Longworth, director-general of the British Chambers of Commerce, published an open letter to the leaders of the UK's political parties on Tuesday, voicing frustration over what he considers broken promises to the business community.
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The Conservatives pushed into the lead in one poll and retained top spot in another on Tuesday, as two polls of polls now have the party in a marginal lead ahead of the UK General Election next month. Both the BBC and Sky News polls of polls. In both the BBC and Sky polls, the Tories are at 34% to Labour's 33%.
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The UK government's Department of Energy and Climate Change said it will force LetterOne, the investment vehicle controlled by Russian billionaire Mikhail Fridman, to sell a dozen North Sea oil field stakes. LetterOne will be given three months to comply with the order or lose the operating rights for the fields. LetterOne acquired the fields in March as part of a EUR5.1 billion acquisition of the oil and gas arm of German utility RWE.
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UK consumer body Which? has asked the UK competition regulator to act over "misleading and confusing" supermarket pricing tactics, launching a so-called "super-complaint" that means the Competition and Markets Authority must respond within 90 days. Which? said it had found that the supermarket retailers are confusing consumers "with tactics that exaggerate discounts and manipulate shoppers", using promotions like multi-buys, seasonal offers, and marking large packs as value when buying more of the smaller packs would actually be cheaper.
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EU foreign and interior ministers gave their political backing to a 10-point action plan to counter deadly migration flows in the Mediterranean Sea, drawing lessons from what could prove to have been the most deadly shipwreck in recent years. Their meeting came less than 48 hours after the capsizing of a vessel off the coast of Libya, in which more than 900 migrants are feared to have died. Previous tragedies in the Mediterranean have prompted pledges but little action to tackle migration, which is a touchy subject in the 28-member EU.
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Greece significantly shrunk its deficit in 2014 but stopped short of expectations, according to data released, as the crisis-battered country is locked in bailout negotiations with its international creditors. Athens is trying to pull together a list of credible reforms and cost-cutting measures in return for urgently needed bailout funding, with loan repayment deadlines looming. Eurozone finance ministers are due to review progress at talks in Riga later this week. Relations between Greece and its creditors have been difficult since a leftist-led government took over in January, vowing to end bailout-related austerity.
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