LONDON MARKET PRE-OPEN: Centrica Cuts Dividend As CEO Conn Set To Exit

(Alliance News) - Stock prices in London are seen opening sharply higher on Tuesday, with the FTSE 100 benefiting from a severely depressed pound.In company news, British Gas parent Centrica said its chief executive will step down next year, as it slashed its dividend, while health and consumer products firm Reckitt Benckiser cut sales guidance. Sausage roll king Greggs rewarded shareholders with a special payout.IG futures indicate the FTSE 100 index is to open 43.09 points higher at 7,729.70. The blue-chip index closed up 137.55 points, or 1.8%, at 7,686.61 on Monday.Centrica said a challenging environment in the first half dented adjusted earnings and adjusted operating cash flow and it will exit its energy production business.For the six months to June 30, revenue was down 2% at GBP11.57 billion from GBP12.10 billion the same time last year, the company swung to a pretax loss of GBP569 million from a profit of GBP415 million the year before. Adjusted operating cash flow fell to GBP744 million from GB[1.10 billion the year before.The company as expected took the "regrettable" decision to cut its interim dividend 58% to 1.5 pence from 3.6p. The company also announced that Chief Executive Iain Conn has agreed to step down from his role and retire from the board next year. Centrica said it expects Conn to remain with the company at least until the 2020 annual general meeting to help with the transition. The board will plan succession accordingly and provide updates in due course, it added. Conn said: "Centrica faced an exceptionally challenging environment in the first half of 2019, which impacted earnings and cash flows. We have also regrettably had to make the decision to rebase the dividend due to our changed circumstances including the UK energy price cap and increased demands on our cash flows, including additional pension contributions. The outlook is more positive for the second half of the year and we expect this momentum to continue into 2020, while we expect to meet our cash flow and net debt targets for 2019."Today we have announced our intention to exit oil and gas production. This will complete our shift towards the customer, as we focus on our distinctive strengths, with an emphasis on helping our customers transition to a lower carbon future. This major refocusing of our portfolio will unlock further efficiencies enabling us to be even more cost-competitive, as we focus on being a leading Energy Services and Solutions provider." Greggs's stellar progress continued as the food-on-the-go retailer declared a special dividend.For the half year to June 29, Greggs reported total sales up 15% to GBP546 million. Pretax profit rose to GBP36.7 million, from GBP24.1 million the year before.Greggs upped its interim dividend 11% to 11.9p and declared a 35.0p special dividend."Given the strength of our year to date and the outlook, we have decided to increase investment in strategic initiatives in the second half of the year to help to deliver an even stronger customer proposition and further growth in the years ahead. Our expectations for underlying profits for the year as a whole remain unchanged," said CEO Roger Whiteside.Reckitt Benckiser reported a mixed first half as it said like-for-like performance was "somewhat below our expectations". The company's Hygiene Home unit delivered another quarter of consistent top line growth but progress in Health unit was "disappointing".For the half year to June 30, revenue was up to GBP6.24 billion, up from GBP6.14 billion last year and pretax profit was up to GBP1.26 billion from GBP1.11 billion the year before. However, Reckitt said sales growth in the first half was below expectations and cut its annual like-for-like sales guidance to a range of 2% to 3%, from a previously expected target of 3% to 4%. Outgoing CEO Rakesh Kapoor said; "We have now been operating in RB 2.0 for 18 months and have made some important achievements. Hygiene Home has been unleashed and is delivering consistently. But on our journey to be a world leader in consumer health, we have work to do to deliver consistent financial performance."However, we believe that much of this is behind us and strong plans are in place to restore growth, including an exciting innovation pipeline such as Mucinex Night Relief and Enfa Grass Fed. We therefore expect the second half to be back to our more normal level of growth."Oil major BP reported a "resilient" second-quarter performance, with profit climbing sharply on the prior three months.Underlying replacement cost profit, BP's preferred metric, for the three months to June rose 19% on the first quarter to USD2.81 billion, though it was 0.4% lower year-on-yearBP's underlying RC profit for the six months to June was USD5.17 billion, down 4.4% on the year before. Reported RC profit fell 7.4% to USD3.87 billion in the half year, while interim profit attributable to shareholders declined 9.7% to USD4.76 billion.The FTSE 100 company said the second quarter's profit performance reflected a "good" operating performance, offsetting lower oil prices year-on-year. Elsewhere, the UK Competition & Market Authority has decided not to refer the acquisition of Charter Court Financial Services by OneSavings Bank for Phase 2 probe. Charter Court noted that the OneSavings Bank merger still needs Financial Conduct Authority and Prudential Regulation Authority approvals.The pound was quoted at USD1.2124 early Tuesday, down from USD1.2224 at the London equities close Monday. Sterling hit its lowest level in two years of USD1.2119 overnight, amid no-deal Brexit fears.CMC Markets analyst Michael Hewson said: "The pound hasn't exactly been flavour of the month in recent weeks anyway, but these losses have accelerated further since the weekend, after Prime Minister Boris Johnson said he had no intention of meeting EU leaders in person until they showed a willingness to change their position on the Irish backstop, and withdrawal agreement."This hard line, so late in the day, appears to have prompted a sudden realisation that a no-deal Brexit has suddenly become a much more likely event."The economic calendar on Tuesday has inflation readings from Germany at 1300 BST and the US personal consumption expenditure index at 1330 BST - the core reading of this is the US Fed Reserve's preferred gauge of inflation. The Fed's two-day policy meeting starts on Tuesday.The Japanese Nikkei 225 index is up 0.3%. In China, the Shanghai Composite is up 0.6%, while the Hang Seng index in Hong Kong is up 0.4%.The Bank of Japan decided at its July meeting on Tuesday to keep its ultra-loose monetary policy despite growing pressure to introduce more easing measures.The BoJ maintained its short-term interest rate target at -0.1%. It also left its guidance on interest rates unchanged.The central bank has been under pressure to enhance its monetary easing policy as other central banks have indicated they will cut interest rates to prop up growth. However, the bank vowed to provide more easing steps if downside risks to economic activity and prices are significant especially due to overseas developments.In the US on Monday, Wall Street ended mixed, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average up 0.1%, the S&P 500 down 0.2% and the Nasdaq Composite down 0.4%.Top Chinese and US officials were set to meet face to face for the first time since May on Tuesday in an attempt to resolve the US-China trade war, although there was little expectation for progress to be made.US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin were due to meet with Chinese Vice Premier Liu He in Shanghai for two days of talks.The meeting follows a trade war detente brokered by US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping at the G20 summit in Osaka last month.