London pre-open: BP and Voda in asset sales

The market looks set to open slightly lower with City traders predicting the FTSE 100 index will open around 7 points down from Friday's close.It has been a morning for asset sales with both telecoms giant Vodafone and oil colossus BP pressing on with their respective asset sale programmes. Vodafone's sale of what it considers non-core minority stakes continues with the sale of its 44% holding in French mobile phone group SFR to French media group Vivendi for €7.75bn (£6.8bn) in cash.BP is to sell its wholly owned subsidiary ARCO Aluminium to a consortium of Japanese companies for $680m in cash.Elsewhere in the oil and gas sector BG Group has made a third gas discovery in Tanzania. The oil and gas group made the discovery about 18km off southern Tanzania at a depth of about 950 metres. The discovery is about 200km south of BG's previously announced Pweza and Chewa discoveries.---jh