London pre-open: Small loss forecast

Wall Street's failure to reclaim any lost ground Friday is expected to dampen the mood in London Monday.Futures prices point to an early 10-point decline for the FTSE 100 after the Dow Jones ended 90 lower in the US at the end of last week.Big news over here is BHP Billiton's decision to end its battle to buy Canada's Potash Corp for around US$40bn and sweeten shareholders with a $4.2b share buyback instead. Earlier this month, Canadian Minister of Industry Tony Clement said he wasn't satisfied the offer for the world's largest fertiliser maker was likely to be of net benefit to Canada and gave the company 30 days to prove otherwise. Today, BHP decided it couldn't satisfy the politicians and has withdrawn the offer, but not before racking up US$350m worth of costs.Platinum miner Lonmin bounced back into profit and recommenced dividend payments as higher metals prices offset the ongoing technical problems at its main furnace. Profits in the year to September came in at $240m, compared to a loss of $272m last time. Revenues rose from $1.06bn to $1.59bn. A final dividend of 15c is proposed.The trimming of the BP empire continued Monday morning with the oil giant completing the sale of five southern African marketing businesses. The company has agreed to sell its fuels marketing businesses in Namibia, Botswana and Zambia to Swiss company Puma Energy, a subsidiary of Trafigura Beheer. Autumn did not bring the usual increase in visitor numbers for Persimmon but the housebuilder said sales volumes have remained stable in the second half of the year. The company reiterated its previous guidance of an increase in full year sales revenues of around 10% more than last year, but said total borrowings at the end of the year are expected to be less than £80m, lower than previous guidance.Serco, the outsourcing company that recently got a telling off for asking suppliers to subsidise the group's contribution to the government's spending cuts, is on track to deliver on its financial guidance for 2010. At the half year Serco had an order book of £16.7bn, since when it has been awarded £2.3bn of contracts, bringing the total for the year to date to £4.5bn, comprising signed contracts valued at £3.7bn and preferred bidder appointments valued at £0.8bn.