LONDON MARKET OPEN: OneSavings And Charter Court Rise On Merger Talks

LONDON (Alliance News) - Stock prices in London opened higher on Monday, with the FTSE 100 tracking strong gains in Asian markets and weakness in the pound, ahead of a crucial week on the UK political front. In the FTSE 250, lenders OneSavings Bank and Charter Court Financial Services Group were the best performers amid "advanced" merger discussions between the pair of lenders. The FTSE 100 index was 59.09 points higher, or 0.8%, at 7,163.40 early Monday. The mid-cap FTSE 250 was up 67.40 points, or 0.4%, at 19,115.07, while the AIM All-Share index was 0.3% higher at 907.31.The Cboe UK 100 index was up 0.5% at 12,138.35, while the Cboe UK 250 was up 0.1% at 17,067.07, and the Cboe UK Small Companies up 0.3% at 11,087.01."Adding 50 points, the UK index returned to 7,160 having dipped under 7,100 at points last Friday. That puts the FTSE back at the level that's become its settling point for most of March, despite the swings either side of that price," said Spreadex analyst Connor Campbell. In mainland Europe, the CAC 40 in Paris was up 0.3% while the DAX 30 in Frankfurt was 0.2% higher. The Japanese Nikkei 225 stock index closed up 0.5%. In China, the Shanghai Composite closed up 1.9%, while the Hang Seng index in Hong Kong closed up 0.9%.In economic news, China's consumer price index rose 1.5% year-on-year in February, the National Bureau of Statistics said Saturday. The increase represented a slowdown in inflation from 1.7% in January.In the FTSE 100, NMC Health was the performer at the London open, up 1.8%, The United Arab Emirates-focused private hospital operator was rebounding after ending last week down 4.2%. At the other end of the large cap index, Experian was the worst performer, down 0.8% after Deutsche Bank downgraded the credit checking agency to Sell from Hold. In the FTSE 250, OneSavings Bank and Charter Court Financial Services were the best performers, up 8.4% and 6.7% respectively, after confirming merger talks.Charter Court said it is in "advanced" talks for a takeover by larger peer OneSavings Bank to create a GBP1.64 billion specialist mortgage lender.OneSavings, which has not yet released its own statement, would offer 0.8253 of a share per Charter Court share, leading to OneSavings Bank shareholders owning 55% of the new group and Charter Court's the rest.Leading the combined group would be current OneSavings Chief Executive Andy Golding.The "highly compelling" deal, Charter Court said, would create a "leading" specialist mortgage lender in the UK and a strong retail-wholesale funding platform. A deal has not yet been agreed, Charter Court stressed, but both boards would recommend one to its shareholders if a final agreement can be reached. Provident Financial was up 2.2% after the subprime lender reiterated its view that the offer for the company received by smaller peer Non-Standard Finance is "strategically and financially flawed".Furthermore, Provident argued that the offer presents significant risk in terms of both execution and shareholder value. As such, Provident's board continued to "strongly" urge shareholders to take no action in respect of the offer.Non-Standard Finance was up 0.7%.At the other end of the midcap index, Clarkson was the worst performer, down 4.9% after the shipping services company said challenging market conditions continued as it reported a fall in annual profit. For 2018, the company posted pretax profit of GBP42.9 million, 5.5% lower compared to GBP45.4 million a year ago. Revenue meanwhile rose 4.2% to GBP337.6 million from GBP324.0 million. The dip in profit was mainly due to higher administrative expenses of GBP282.1 million compared to GBP269.3 million a year ago.The pound was quoted at USD1.292 early Monday, marginally lower against USD1.3000 at the London equities close Monday.UK Prime Minister Theresa May is battling to save her Brexit strategy amid warnings she is heading for another crushing defeat in Tuesday's crunch Commons vote.Tory Brexiteers said rejection of the Withdrawal Agreement was "inevitable" unless the prime minister was able to secure significant changes to the Northern Ireland backstop."Technical" talks between officials took place in Brussels over the weekend, although a Downing Street source said the negotiations were "deadlocked".Some senior Conservatives said on Sunday that the PM should postpone the "meaningful vote" rather than risk another damaging reverse. Instead May was being urged to table a "conditional" motion setting out the terms for dealing with the backstop issue which Parliament would be prepared to accept."The pound is likely to rally if the deal is accepted. If the deal is rejected again, however, the prime minister has said that there would be a vote on Wednesday on whether to accept a 'no deal' Brexit and, if not, then another on Thursday on whether Article 50 should be extended. Parliament has previously indicated that a majority of lawmakers do not favour a 'no deal' Brexit so logically in this scenario MPs would be expected to vote to delay Brexit. However, nothing can be taken for granted and the range of political options above will keep markets on edge," said analysts at Lloyds. Ahead this week, Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond will deliver his spring statement on Wednesday.The economic events calendar on Monday has US retail sales figures at 1230 GMT.