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LONDON (Alliance News) - Tesco said Monday that Chief Executive Philip Clarke is to leave the retailer on October 1, and that it has recruited Dave Lewis from Unilever as his replacement.

The FTSE 100 retailer leads the blue chip index heading into afternoon trading, up 2.3%, after the company also warned that current trading conditions are "more challenging" than it had anticipated in early June, and warned that first-half sales and trading profit are "somewhat below expectations".

Clarke's departure comes amid a difficult time for the food retail giant, which has been trying to stave off increased competition in the UK by cutting prices. His departure follows the resignation of former Chief Financial Officer Laurie McIlwee, whose replacement, Alan Stewart, was poached from Marks and Spencer earlier this month. Clarke has led Tesco since 2011.

Housebuilders have taken a knock Monday after the latest figures from property tracking website Rightmove said that the average asking price for a house in the UK was down 0.8% month on month in July, coming in at GBP270,159. This follows the 0.1% increase in June, and it marks the first decline in seven months. Barratt Developments trades down 1.8%. Persimmon trades 1.0% lower.
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MARKETS: The UK's main stock indices are trading lower Monday as all early positivity has given way to concern over the economic impact on the European economy of a possible fresh round of sanctions against Russia, which are likely to be announced this week.

Futures markets indicate US stocks will open a little softer, with the DJIA and the S&P 500 both pointing down about 0.2%.

FTSE 100: down 0.3% at 6,726.75
FTSE 250: down 0.6% at 15,465.92
AIM ALL-SHARE: down 0.01% at 768.16
GBP-USD: down at 1.7077
EUR-USD: flat at 1.3522
GOLD: up at USD1,313.48 an ounce
OIL (Brent): down at USD106.91 a barrel
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Other Top UK Corporate News
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Babcock International Group said it remains confident the company will continue to make strong progress during this year and that its results for the 2014/15 financial year will be in line with its expectations after recording high activity levels since the beginning of the year. In an interim management statement for the period since April 1, the support services company said the financial year has started well across all of its business, as activity levels remain high and that trading is in line with its expectations.
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Anglo American's subsidiary Anglo American Platinum unveiled plans to sell off major platinum mines in South Africa, as part of its ongoing platinum review, after it provided the group with a loss in the first half of 2014. The company said the decision has been made to exit its Union and Rustenberg mines, along with its Pandora joint venture operation through sales or public market exits. It is also contemplating an exit from its Bokoni joint venture operations. The new divestment programme could cut staff in South Africa by 20,000, only a month after five month long strikes ended in the country, according to The Sunday Times.
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Anglo American also said Anglo American Platinum will contribute an underlying loss of USD1 million for the six months ended June 30, which is adjusted to remove special items and remeasurements, and any related tax and non-controlling interests. In the prior year period, Anglo American Platinum Limited contributed an underlying profit of USD92 million to Anglo American results.
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Tullow Oil said its Lupus exploration well at the production licence PL 507 in the Norwegian North Sea has failed to find hydrocarbons and will now be plugged and abandoned. The FTSE 100 oil and gas exploration company said the well, which is located 35 kilometres from Statoil ASA's major Oseberg Sør Field, had a primary target of finding hydrocarbons in the Aleocene Hermod Formation in a stratigraphic trap and a secondary target of reservoir quality sandstones in the Paleocene Ty Formation. The company said the well was drilled to a total depth of 2,357 metres and found good quality sandstones in the Paleocene Hermod Formation, but no hydrocarbons were encountered, while no sandstones were found in the Paleocene Ty Formation.
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Rupert Murdoch's 2st Century Fox is considering using the proceeds from the sale of its Italian and German pay-television assets to help bolster its takeover bid for Time Warner, Bloomberg reported Monday citing people familiar with the matter. Fox may sell its Sky Italia unit and its 57% interest in Sky Deutschland to British Sky Broadcasting Group in the next two weeks, the report said. The proceeds would boost Fox's bid without it having to borrow more.
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Separately, BSkyB said it has acquired a 70% interest in independent production company Love Productions, for an undisclosed amount. Love Productions is known for producing shows such as "The Great British Bake-Off" and "Benefits Street" and was founded in 2004. It has production bases in London, Bristol, New York and Los Angeles.
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Vodafone Group said Vodafone Portugal has inked an agreement with Portugal Telecom SGPS SA to deploy and share fibre networks to 900,000 homes in Portugal. The deal begins in December and will run for five years. It will allow each company to offer services to an additional 450,000 homes and businesses. Vodafone said the agreement it compliments its unified communication strategy and fibre-to-the-home deployment programme in Portugal. The deployment programme aims to reach 1.5 million homes by the middle of 2015 and has already reached 1 million, Vodafone said.
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AIM MOVERS
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Shares in Oilex have jumped after the company said that following successful mill-out operations, the Cambay-77H well has started controlled flow back of fracking fluids with oil and condensate being recovered to surface. FinnAust Mining is also trading higher; the miner said it has found a new high-grade multi-metals region at its Hammaslahti target in Finland following drilling at the site. Sefton Resources has also risen after the company said it has settled a range of fees and expenses through share issuances as part of its ongoing plan to refinance and jump start its operations following a disastrous 2013. Kodal Minerals is up. The company said it has been granted three new exploration licences in western Norway, linked to the historic Grimeli copper mine. Stratex International shares have risen after the firm said it has conditionally agreed to acquire up to 33.4% of African gold exploration company Goldstone Resources Ltd for GBP1.3 million. At the other end of the market, Uranium Resources shares have tumbled after the company said it has decided to delay any further drilling at its Mtonya uranium project in Tanzania until market fundamentals improve. Hume Capital Securities is down; fellow AIM-listed broker European Wealth Group has revealed that its European Wealth Management Group subsidiary has appointed Adam Suggett as a financial controller, poaching him from Hume. All Leisure Group also trades lower after the company said that Chris Gadsby has decided to step down from his role as finance director.
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Top Economics And General
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The average asking price for a house in the UK was down 0.8% on month in July, property tracking website Rightmove said - coming in at GBP270,159. That follows the 0.1% increase in June, and it marks the first decline in seven months. On a yearly basis, house prices climbed 6.5% - slowing from the 7.7% increase in the previous month. Rightmove now forecasts that house prices will rise 8% for all of 2014.
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German producer prices continued to decline in June, albeit at a slower pace, data from the German statistical office Destatis showed. Producer prices fell 0.7% year-over-year in June, confirming consensus estimates, following the 0.8% drop in May. The latest decline was the smallest since December.
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The Netherlands is set to take the lead into the investigation of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17, which crashed in eastern Ukraine last week, as Dutch investigators arrived at the incident site to take over from their Ukrainian counterparts. However, as has been the case since the Thursday crash, the way forward remained unclear, with Ukraine's government and much of the West accusing the separatists who control the region of hampering the investigation. Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk said victims would be flown to Amsterdam to be examined at a leading forensics institute. The majority of flight MH17's passengers were Dutch citizens.
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Ukraine has failed to establish a safe corridor for investigators to reach the wreckage of a Malaysia Airlines plane that crashed with 298 people on board, a senior official said. "The Ukrainian government has said it cannot guarantee the safety of the international team in and around the crash site," said Malaysian Transport Minister Liow Tiong Lai, who arrived in Kiev on Sunday. Liow said there are different separatist groups controlling the area "with no clear leader or chain of command." Malaysia is "deeply concerned that the international team is effectively being prevented from entering the crash site," he said.
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The number of Palestinian dead rose to more than 500 in the Israeli attacks on Gaza, a spokesman for the Health Ministry said. Since the beginning of the offensive with coastal attacks around two weeks ago, 501 Palestinians have been killed and 3,150 injured, Ashraf al-Qedra said on Twitter. On the Israeli side, 18 soldiers and two civilians have died. About 80 Israeli solders have been wounded, according to reports on Israel radio.
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The 2014 Commonwealth Games get underway Wednesday with a lavish opening ceremony at Celtic Park in Glasgow featuring veteran rock star Rod Stewart and a host of other Scottish acts. Up to 40,000 spectators are expected to attend the ceremony, which will also include the traditional parade of the 71 nations and territories competing in the 10-day sporting event. Although significantly less than the 204 countries that competed at the 2012 London Olympics, an estimated 4,250 sports stars have still made the journey to Glasgow to compete in the Games' 261 medal events.
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Afternoon Watchlist (all times British Summer Time)
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13:30 US Chicago Fed National Activity Index
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Tuesday's Key UK Corporate Events
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Arbuthnot Banking Group Half Year Results
Secure Trust Bank Half Year Results
IG Group Half Year Results
Future Interim Management Statement
Beazley Half Year Results
Croda International Half Year Results
Petropavlovsk Trading statement
Premier Foods Half Year Results
Scapa Group Trading statement
ARM Holdings Q2 Results
IQE Trading statement
QinetiQ Group Interim Management Statement
McColl's Retail Group Half Year Results
Royal Mail Group Interim Management Statement
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Tuesday's Key Economic Events (all times British Summer Time)
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All Day G20 Meeting
n/a UK 10-y Bond Auction
03:00 China CB Leading Economic Index
05:30 Japan All Industry Activity Index
06:00 Japan Leading Economic Index and Coincident Index
09:30 UK Public Sector Net Borrowing
11:00 UK CBI Industrial Trends Survey
13:30 US Consumer Price Index
13:55 US Redbook index
14:00 US Housing Price Index
15:00 US Existing Home Sales
15:00 US Richmond Fed Manufacturing Index
16:30 US 4-Week and 52-Week Bill Auction
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