(Alliance News) - Stock prices in London are seen opening flat on Tuesday after only modest gains by Asian equity markets, as investors look ahead to the US Federal Reserve's Jackson Hole Symposium later this week. In UK company news, housebuilder Persimmon reported slightly lower interim profit while warning on cost pressure ahead. Oilfield services firm John Wood sold its nuclear unit for GBP250 million. Miner BHP said it will pay a record dividend. IG futures indicate the FTSE 100 index is to open 5.35 points higher at 7,195.00. The blue-chip index closed up 72.50 points, or 1.0%, at 7,189.65 on Monday. The Japanese Nikkei 225 index is up 0.5%. In China, the Shanghai Composite is up 0.1%, while the Hang Seng index in Hong Kong is up 0.1%.Persimmon reported a drop in half-year earnings and warned over cost pressures. For the half year to June 30, pretax profit slipped 1.4% to GBP509.3 million from GBP516.3 million the year before, as revenue declined 4.5% to GBP1.75 billion, from GBP1.84 billion. The housebuilder said it sold 7,584 new homes in the first half, down from 8,072 homes a year before, but the average selling price of a new home rose slightly GBP216,942 from GBP215,813.Looking ahead to the second half of 2019, Chair Roger Devlin said: "We have continued to experience some pressure with respect to the cost and availability of certain materials in the supply chain as the output from the industry continues to expand. We currently anticipate that cost inflation for the group will be around 4% for the current year. The group remains focused on self-help measures to mitigate these challenges. These include the use of the group's standard house types, utilisation of in-house manufactured brick and our collaborative approach to working with our sub-contractors and suppliers."John Wood Group has sold its nuclear business to a subsidiary of US firm Jacobs Engineering Group for GBP250 million in cash, representing a multiple of 12.4 times 2018 earnings before interest tax deprecation and amortisation. The company said the sale proceeds will be used to cut debt.For the half year to June 30, revenue for John Wood Group was down 2.6% to USD4.79 billion from USD4.92 billion the year before. Pretax profit came in at USD13 million - which included exceptional costs of USD47 million related to cost synergy delivery, investigation support costs and loss on disposal of Terra Nova Technologies in May - swinging from a loss of USD52 million.John Wood reported adjusted earnings before interest depreciation tax and amortisation of USD314.0 million, up 7.2% from USD293.0 million a year before. John Wood lifted its interim dividend 1% to 11.4 cents."Strong margin improvement and profit growth in the first half was led by activities in energy markets in the eastern hemisphere and our environment and infrastructure operations in North America, together with cost synergies. We also made substantial progress on our non core asset disposal programme and have agreed the sale of our nuclear business for USD305 million, with completion anticipated in Q1 2020. This will result in significant deleveraging and bring us close to our target leverage. With 87% of 2019 revenues delivered or secured we remain confident in our full year outlook and guidance is unchanged. Looking further ahead, we remain well positioned for growth across the energy and built environment markets," John Wood Group Chief Executive Officer Robin Watson said. BHP Group reported an improvement in performance in its most recently ended financial year, but results were mostly below what the market had expected.For the 12 months to June, the mining giant's pretax profit rose 2.0% to USD15.05 billion the prior year, while underlying earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortisation were broadly flat year-on-year at USD23.16 billion compared to USD23.18 billion. The underlying Ebitda figure fell short of the USD23.71 billion expected by analysts.BHP's annual revenue from continuing operations was USD44.29 billion, up 2.7% from a year earlier, but again below consensus of USD44.74 billion.BHP is paying a "record" final dividend of 78 US cents a share, 25 cents above its policy of paying 50% of underlying attributable profit.The total dividend for BHP's financial year was 133 cents, 13% higher than the 118 cents paid out a year earlier. However, it is below analyst consensus of a 236 cents return, with the market having expected BHP to double the annual payout.BHP shares were down 0.5% in Sydney on Tuesday at AUD36.07.The pound was quoted at USD1.2121 early Tuesday, lower than USD1.2139 at the London equities close Monday.UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson has faced fresh calls to ensure there is no return to a hard border on the island of Ireland in the event of a no-deal Brexit.Johnson wrote to EU Council President Donald Tusk on Monday evening outlining his opposition to what he called the "anti-democratic" Northern Ireland backstop.In the letter, Johnson said while he wants the UK to leave the EU with a deal, he could not support any withdrawal agreement that "locks the UK, potentially indefinitely, into an international treaty which will bind us into a customs union and which applies large areas of single market legislation in Northern Ireland".Shadow Northern Ireland secretary Tony Lloyd said pursuing a no-deal Brexit would put "jobs, rights, prosperity or peace in Northern Ireland at risk".The economic events calendar on Tuesday has eurozone construction output at 1000 BST.
Wood Group (J) (WG.)
Persimmon (PSN)
