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LONDON (Alliance News) - The following is a summary of top news stories Thursday.
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COMPANIES
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Irish building materials company CRH said its pretax profit for the first half rose slightly, held back by the cost of a bond repayment, but its earnings and revenue both surged, boosted by the weak euro, and it said it has struck a USD1.3 billion deal to acquire US windows group CR Laurence Co. The FTSE 100 company said its pretax profit for the first half to the end of June was EUR63.0 million, compared to EUR61.0 million a year earlier. The pretax figure was held back by a EUR38.0 million charge the company booked related to an early bond redemption during the half. CRH said it will maintain its interim dividend at 18.5 euro cents per share. CR Laurence is a Los Angeles-based manufacturer of customer hardware and installation products for the professional glazing industry.
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Barclays and seven major US stock exchanges won the dismissal of nationwide litigation in which pension funds and other investors had accused them of rigging markets in order to benefit high-frequency traders, Reuters reported. US District Judge Jesse Furman in Manhattan, New York said federal law gives exchanges "absolute immunity" from the key claims made by the plaintiffs, including allegations over the creation of "complex order types" and proprietary data feeds which can benefit high-frequency traders due to their status as self-regulating organisations. Furman also said the plaintiffs did not show they reasonably relied on misrepresentations made by Barclays about the safety of its "dark pool".
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Advertising and marketing group WPP said its J Walter Thompson Australia arm has acquired a majority stake in Webling Interactive for an undisclosed sum. WPP said Webling is a Sydney-based digital agency which counts the likes of American Expresss and Coca-Cola amongst its clients. For the year to the end of June, Webling posted revenue of AUD4.4 million.
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J Sainsbury said that it will increase the pay of 137,000 in-store members of staff by 4%, following the introduction of the national living wage recently announced by the UK government. The pay rise will take Sainsbury's standard rate of pay to GBP7.36 per hour, effective from August 30, above the GBP7.20 per hour living wage set to be introduced by the government. The supermarket also said that the rate of pay will apply to employees of all ages, as opposed to only those over the age of 25 as recommended by the government.
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Telecom giant Vodafone Group said Vodafone Turkey has secured 82.8 MHz of spectrum for enhanced mobile data and voice services in the Information and Communication Technology Authority's auction for EUR778 million. Vodafone stated that the spectrum acquired will enable Vodafone Turkey to improve significantly the speed, coverage and capacity of its mobile data services.
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Playtech reported a rise in pretax profit for its first half, and expressed confidence in further growth in 2015 "any beyond", based on progress in its Gaming business and steps it has made to form and bolster its new Financials division. The gambling software and services provider proposed an interim dividend of 9.6 euro cents, up from 8.9 cents a year before. For the half year to end-June the company posted a pretax profit of EUR85.8 million, up from EUR76.9 million a year before, as revenue rose to EUR286.0 million from EUR214.4 million, although this was partly offset by a jump up in distribution costs before depreciation and amortisation.
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Amec Foster Wheeler reported a dip in pretax profit in the first half of 2015 as market conditions remained challenging, but the company said it is confident it can meet full-year expectations. The oil and gas services company reported a GBP73.0 million pretax profit in the six months to June 30, falling from a GBP83.0 million profit a year earlier, as revenue rose to GBP2.66 billion from GBP1.85 billion. However, scope revenue, which is revenue less pass-through procurement revenue, fell to GBP2.58 billion from GBP2.61 billion. The company kept its interim dividend flat at 14.8 pence per share.
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Builders' merchant and DIY company Grafton Group reported a big rise in pretax profit for the first half to the end of June, as the group's revenue was pushed higher by improving conditions in its key markets. The group said its pretax profit for the first half was GBP57.9 million, up from GBP45.9 million a year earlier, as revenue increased to GBP1.08 billion from GBP1.02 billion a year earlier. On the back of the robust results, Grafton hiked its interim dividend by 20% to 4.50 pence per share, up from 3.75 pence.
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Recruitment company Hays said its pretax profit surged in its recent financial year, despite it taking a hit from the weaker euro and Australian dollar, as net fee income rose and its conversion rate rose to the highest level since 2009. The group said its pretax profit for the financial year to the end of June was GBP156.1 million, up from GBP132.3 million a year earlier, an 18% increase despite the group taking a GBP9.6 million hit from the depreciation of the euro and the Australian dollar against sterling. The group's net fee income in the year was up to GBP764.2 million from GBP724.9 million, with like-for-like growth, which strips out the currency translation effects, up by 9.0%. Hays said increased its total dividend to 2.76 pence per share from 2.63p.
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Hunting said it swung to a pretax loss in the first half of 2015 as revenue plummeted due to reduced activity in the oil and gas sector, leading the company to slash its interim dividend by more than half. Hunting is following the market trend of slashing costs to battle the downturn in the market, with the company reducing its workforce by 25%. The FTSE 250-listed oil service company reported a USD65.8 million pretax loss in the first half ended June 30, swinging from a USD68.9 million profit after revenue plummeted to USD463.6 million from USD664.1 million a year earlier due to reduced activity in North America and a decline in the amount of well construction and well completion projects.
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Aldermore Group reported a jump in profit in the first half and said it is on track to deliver its goals for 2015. The retail bank listed on the London Stock Exchange in March, when it raised GBP75 million, and has since become a member of the FTSE 250 index. It is looking to serve customers such as smaller businesses and some homeowners in the UK that it deems to be underserved by the traditional high street lenders. Pretax profit amounted to GBP39.5 million in the six months to the end of June, up from GBP18.6 million in the corresponding period the prior year. Excluding the costs of its initial public offering, the bank's pretax profit increased to GBP43.6 million from GBP20.8 million.
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MARKETS
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UK shares are trading higher following a much higher close on Wall Street on Wednesday and after New York Federal Reserve President William Dudley said a US interest rate hike in September looks "less compelling".
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FTSE 100: up 2.4% at 6,119.55
FTSE 250: up 1.5% at 16,848.25
AIM ALL-SHARE: up 1.0% at 723.55
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GBP: flat at USD1.5472
EUR: down at USD1.1294

GOLD: up at USD1128.33 per ounce
OIL (Brent): up at USD44.89 a barrel

(changes since end of previous GMT day)
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ECONOMICS AND GENERAL
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UK house price inflation eased to its lowest level in more than two years in August, but construction activity should increase to keep pace with demand, the Nationwide Building Society said. House prices rose 3.2% year-on-year in August, slower than the 3.5% increase seen in July, data showed. Nonetheless, it was faster than the expected 3.1% increase. The annual rate of price growth was the weakest since June 2013, when it rose 1.9%. The slowdown in annual increase partly reflects the high base for comparison, since prices increased at a particularly strong rate in August 2014, Robert Gardner, Nationwide's chief economist, said.
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The case for a US interest rate hike in September is "less compelling" given problems with the global economy and plunging stocks, said William Dudley, the president of the New York Federal Reserve, on Wednesday. "From my perspective, at this moment, the decision to begin the normalisation process at the September FOMC meeting seems less compelling to me than it was a few weeks ago," he said. "But normalisation could become more compelling by the time of the meeting as we get additional information on how the US economy is performing and more information on international and financial market developments, all of which are important in shaping the US economic outlook," he added.
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A television reporter and cameraman were shot dead Wednesday by a disgruntled former co-worker while filming a live interview near the town of Moneta, Virginia. Vester Lee Flanagan, a 41-year-old African-American former employee of the station who had alleged racial discrimination by fellow employees, approached the pair as cameras rolled and started shooting, Franklin County Sheriff Bill Overton said. Cameraman Adam Ward, 27, and reporter Alison Parker, 24, both white, were shot and killed at about 6:45 am during an interview for a story on local tourism with a Chamber of Commerce employee, their broadcaster WDBJ reported. When police tried to arrest Flanagan, he shot himself, police said. He died later in a hospital outside Washington.
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Eleven port and transport officials are being prosecuted for the chemical blasts that killed 139 people and left 34 missing in Tianjin, China, state media reported. Officials working for the port company, transport, work safety, land and customs departments are being probed for "dereliction of duty" and "abuse of power," the Xinhua news agency reported, citing a statement from the Supreme People's Procuratorate.
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By Arvind Bhunjun; arvindbhunjun@alliancenews.com; @ArvindBhunjun

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