LONDON MARKET PRE-OPEN: United Utilities Profit Up; A&J Mucklow Buyout

LONDON (Alliance News) - Stocks in London are set to open lower on Thursday, following a pull-back in US and Asian equities overnight.Meanwhile, the pound dipped as pressure mounts on UK Prime Minister Theresa May to resign. Voting in the European elections gets underway in the UK on Thursday, with the ruling Conservative party braced for a bruising set of results.In early UK company news, United Utilities lifted its dividend as it reported annual profit growth, LondonMetric and A&J Mucklow agreed to a cash-and-share combination, and Serco is raising equity in order to buy a provider of engineering services to the US Navy.IG says futures indicate the FTSE 100 index of large-caps to open 40.89 points lower at 7,293.30 on Thursday. The FTSE 100 index closed up 5.27 points, or 0.1%, at 7,334.19 on Wednesday.The pound overnight declined after Commons Leader Andrea Leadsom quit the Cabinet over May's Brexit plan. Leadsom resigned with a "heavy heart", saying she no longer believes the UK government's approach will deliver on the referendum result to leave the EU.The prime minister will meet Graham Brady, the representative of Tory backbench MPs, on Friday for a meeting which could seal her fate. She has previously agreed to set out the timetable for the contest to replace her after a crunch vote on her Brexit deal, widely expected on June 7.That deadline appears to have been brought forward with the announcement she will meet Brady, chairman of the backbench 1922 Committee, the day after polling day for the European elections, which are expected to be disastrous for the Conservatives.Sterling was quoted at USD1.2645 early Thursday, lower than USD1.2657 at the London equities close on Wednesday.In early UK company news, United Utilities said annual profit and revenue rose amid a "strong" performance against tough regulatory targets.For the year ended March, pretax profit widened 0.9% to GBP436.2 million from GBP432.1 million the year prior. This was after revenue rose 4.6% to GBP1.82 billion from GBP1.74 billion the year before.United Utilities proposed a 27.52 pence per share final dividend, up 3.9% from 26.49p the year prior. For the full year, the dividend also rose 3.9%, to 41.28p from 39.73p the year before.Product testing firm Intertek said it has seen a good start to the year with "robust" revenue growth. Revenue was up 5.3% at constant currency to GBP924.3 million in the four months to April, with organic revenue growth of 3.3%. At reported rates, revenue was up 7.3%. Within divisions, Products saw the strongest revenue growth, up 8.2%. This was followed by Trade, up 7.6%, and then Resources, up 4.1%. "We are on track to deliver our 2019 targets of good organic revenue growth at constant rates, with moderate margin expansion and strong cash conversion. Given a good start to the year, we expect good organic revenue growth at constant currency rates in each of our three divisions: Products, Trade and Resources," said Chief Executive Andre Lacroix.LondonMetric Property said it has agreed a cash-and-shares takeover of A&J Mucklow, in a deal which values A&J Mucklow at nearly GBP415 million. LondonMetric has agreed to exchange 2.19 new LondonMetric shares plus 204.5p in cash for each A&J Mucklow share, valuing A&J Mucklow shares at 655.2p each. This represents a 20% premium to A&J Mucklow's closing price on Wednesday.The combined group will be a "larger and more resilient company", with gross property assets of GBP2.3 billion.Separately, LondonMetric announced its results on Thursday, with EPRA net asset value per share up to 174.9p as at the end of March from 165.2p a year before.B&M European Value Retail reported a rise in annual profit and said it has just seen its "best ever" Easter trading season.Revenue was up 17% to GBP3.49 billion in the year to March 30, with UK B&M stores recording like-for-like growth of 0.7%, including 5.8% in the fourth quarter. Pretax profit was up 8.7% to GBP249.4 million, as the discount retailer said it has made "important progress" clearing out slow-moving inventory in Germany and France. B&M recommended a final dividend of 4.9p per share, bringing its total payout for the year up to 7.6p, 5.7% higher year-on-year.B&M said its positive momentum has continued into the new financial year."We just achieved our best ever Easter trading season, with healthy positive like-for-likes, but it would be prudent to expect more moderate like-for-like growth in the full year as a whole," said Chief Executive Simon Arora.TalkTalk Telecom expressed confidence in the year ahead as it reported a narrowed annual loss. Revenue slipped 1.3% to GBP1.63 billion in the year to March 31, though the company's pretax loss narrowed to just GBP5 million from GBP100 million the year before. This was as operating expenses reduced to GBP659 million from GBP731 million, and cost of sales was down 5.2% to GBP770 million.Looking ahead, the telecommunications provider said it remains confident in earnings growth in the recently commenced financial year. TalkTalk said its outlook is underpinned by accelerated fibre growth, lower fibre wholesale costs due to commercial discounts, and "significant cost savings" from the firm's move to Salford.Outsourcer Serco said it will raise around GBP130 million to fund its acquisition of Alion Science & Technology Corp's Naval Systems Business Unit.Serco is paying USD225 million for the Alion division, which will be part-funded by a share placing. Serco plans to place up to 111.2 million shares - representing up to 10% of its existing share cpaital - via an accelerated bookbuild. The Naval Systems Business Unit is a provider of naval design, systems engineering and production and lifecycle support services to the US an Canadian navies and the US Army. In the US on Wednesday, Wall Street ended in the red, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average ending down 0.4%, the S&P 500 down 0.3% and Nasdaq Composite sliding 0.5%.US Federal Reserve policy makers are in no rush to alter the path of interest rates, according to the minutes of the central bank's latest monetary policy meeting.The minutes showed members of the Federal Open Market Committee agreed that a patient approach to determining future adjustments to rates would likely remain appropriate for "some time".Citing an environment of moderate US economic growth and muted inflation pressures, the Fed expects to remain patient even if global economic and financial conditions continued to improve."It is worth noting, these are the minutes from a meeting that took place before US-China trade tensions took a turn for the worst, so the Fed are less likely to make a move in either direction until the China situation has stabilised," commented David Madden at CMC Markets."The major US indices finished in the red last night as the Fed update failed to inspire the buyers," he added.Following the US lead, stocks in Asia declined overnight, with the Japanese Nikkei 225 index ending down 0.7%. In China, the Shanghai Composite is down 1.2%, while the Hang Seng index in Hong Kong is down 1.6%.Manufacturing output in Japan shrank in May as demand remained "fragile" in both domestic and international markets, according to a survey by Nikkei and IHS Markit.Japan's May manufacturing purchasing managers' index slipped to 49.6, from 50.2 April. This was below the no-change mark of 50.0, signalling a slowdown.The economic events calendar on Thursday has manufacturing and services PMI figures from France, Germany and the eurozone at 0815 BST, 0830 BST, and 0900 BST respectively.