London open: Quiet start for blue chips

Footsie is subdued with the company results schedule a bit threadbare and January non-farm payrolls data from the US due out this afternoon.Utilities are one bright spot, with United Utilities, Severn Trent and International Power all higher. Wm Morrison has been upgraded to 'buy' from 'neutral' by UBS, which suggests the the supermarket chain has at least £1bn to hand out either in a one-off distribution or through higher dividends."In our view, Morrison's balance sheet strength and ongoing cash generative capabilities could support both, although we think the latter is marginally more likely," UBS said.Sales continue to surge ahead at component distributor Electrocomponents with an improvement of nearly a fifth over the past four months. Overall, sales grew by 19% in the period to January, as the International business grew by around 23% and the UK by around 11%.The US Food and Drug Administration has accepted the AstraZeneca's resubmission of a new drug application for its blood-thinning drug BRILINTA, and set a review date of 20 July. Dairy Crest, the company responsible for Cathedral cheese and Country Life butter, reckons full-year profits will be in line with expectations following a "strong" third quarter. In a statement for the nine months to 31 December, it said sales were "broadly unchanged" from last year when the contribution from the offloaded stake in Wexford Creamery is taken out.Power systems developer Rolls-Royce has signed a £20m contract to supply engines and propulsion equipment for four gas-fuelled ferries to be built for the Norwegian operator Torghatten Nord.Budget airline easyJet flew 19.1% more passengers on its orange liveried planes this January than a year ago. More than 3.74m people took to the skies with the carrier last month, up from 3.14m in January 2010. The load factor, which measures how well planes are filled, slipped from 79.3% to 78.9%. French Connection's ongoing businesses staged a strong profit recovery over the past six months and the fashion chain now expects to post at least £6.8m, up from £1m, for the year to January just ended. SuperGroup, owner of the raidly growing Superdry clothes chain, has splashed out €40m in cash and shares to buy out its Benelux and France franchisee CNC Collections from its owner Luc Clément. CNC is the leading franchisee globally for the Superdry brand.Shares in Accsys Technologies took a battering on Friday morning after the company announced a deeply discounted placing of shares. The wood products company is to raise €30m by way of an underwritten firm placing and open offer of 200m shares. The shares are being offered at €0.15 each, representing a discount of 58.9% to the closing mid-market share price on the day before the announcement.