LONDON MARKET OPEN: Investors Welcome Smiths Group Medical Demerger

LONDON (Alliance News) - Stocks in London were mixed early Friday, with Smiths Group rising as it announced a spin-off and listing of its Medical unit, while Pearson benefited from a broker upgrade.The FTSE 100 index was 5.60 points, or 0.1%, lower at 7,349.71. The FTSE 250 was up 50.94 points, or 0.3%, at 19,398.51 , while the AIM All-Share index was marginally higher at 922.92.The Cboe UK 100 index was 0.2% lower at 12,462.84. The Cboe UK 250 was up 0.3% at 17,354.61, and the Cboe UK Small Companies up 0.1% at 11,254.17.On mainland Europe, the CAC 40 in Paris and the DAX 30 in Frankfurt were up 0.4% and 0.5% respectively.On the London Stock Exchange, FTSE 100 engineer Smiths Group was 3.5% higher, the best large-cap performer, as it announced the demerger of its Medical business and a plan to list it in the UK.Smiths expects the process will complete during the first half of 2020, as long as it gets shareholder approval.This will lead to "two stronger companies", Smiths Chief Executive Andy Reynolds Smith said. Smiths is currently looking to hire a new Medical unit CEO.Smiths also posted interim results, showing revenue for the six months to January 31 rose 2% to GBP1.57 billion. Excluding the Medical arm, revenue was up 3%.Pretax profit, however, declined 13% to GBP174 million from the prior year. On an underlying basis, pretax profit fell 1% to GBP216 million year-on-year.Smiths increased its interim dividend by 2.2% to 14.1 pence per share.Smiths said it was a "good" first-half performance, and it has reaffirmed full-year expectations of underlying revenue growth of at least 2%.Publisher Pearson was 0.7% higher, as JPMorgan raised its rating on the stock to Overweight from Neutral. In the FTSE 250, hedge fund administrator Sanne Group rose 0.2% after posting strong revenue growth in 2018, while it said it is confident on another strong outturn in 2019.Revenue for 2018 rose 27% to GBP143.0 million, and on an organic basis by 12%.Sanne's pretax profit climbed 5.8% year-on-year to GBP23.7 million, and on an underlying basis the figure increased 12% to GBP42.6 million.Sanne is paying a final return to shareholders of 9.2 pence per share, taking the total for 2018 to 13.8p from 12.6p."The group's future prospects remain very positive, underpinned by long-term, sticky contracts and driven by the strong structural growth of the addressable global alternatives market," said Sanne."We expect to continue to build on our success as a high growth sustainable business whilst benefiting from the investment we have made, and continue to make, in our people and infrastructure. Against this background, we expect to deliver a good performance in 2019 and remain confident in the medium and long-term prospects for the group."In the US on Thursday, Wall Street ended higher, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average closing up 0.8%, the S&P 500 up 1.1%, and the Nasdaq Composite 1.4% higher.Wall Street was helped by a successful first day for blue jeans originator Levi Strauss, whose shares rose 32% from its USD17.00 initial public offering price to USD22.41 at the New York close. The company, founded by German-born Levi Strauss, first went public in 1971, but was privatised again in the mid-1980s.After the New York market close, sports apparel firm Nike said third-quarter profit of USD1.10 billion or USD0.68 per share, compared with last year's loss of USD921 million or USD0.57 per share. Revenue for the quarter rose 7% to USD9.61 billion from USD8.98 billion last year. Analysts had a consensus revenue estimate of USD9.61 billion for the quarter.The Japanese Nikkei 225 index closed 0.1% higher on Friday. In China, the Shanghai Composite finished up 0.1%, while the Hang Seng index in Hong Kong also ended 0.1% higher.Sterling was quoted at USD1.3132 early Friday, recovering from USD1.3048 at the London equities close Thursday, after the pound had slumped amid increased Brexit uncertainty. Late on Wednesday, the pound had been up at USD1.3205.UK Prime Minister Theresa May is to make a last-ditch drive to persuade MPs to back her EU withdrawal plan after Brussels agreed to delay Brexit to May 22 if she can secure support from the Commons for the deal next week.If MPs reject the prime minister's Withdrawal Agreement for a third time, the UK will have until April 12 to set out its next steps, with a longer extension on offer only if Britain takes part in European Parliament elections in May.Leaders of the remaining 27 EU member states drew up the deal in a mammoth eight-hour meeting in Brussels, after turning down the PM's plea to postpone Brexit from March 29 to June 30.May spoke with European Council President Donald Tusk during and after the meeting, but aides declined to say whether she was able to feed into the discussions taking place in her absence.In a midnight press conference in Brussels, the prime minister said the "flextension" plan offered MPs a clear choice.Still to come in the economic calendar Friday are flash services and manufacturing PMI readings from the eurozone and the US at 0900 GMT and 1345 GMT respectively.