TOP NEWS: Coca-Cola HBC And Intertek Have Difficult Starts To 2014

LONDON (Alliance News) - The following is a summary of top news stories Friday.
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COMPANIES
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Coca-Cola HBC AG, the second largest bottler of the brands of The Coca-Cola Co, said its full-year expectations for the year ahead remain unchanged, despite a challenging first quarter, which saw a drop in both volume and sales and an increase in losses. For the three months to March 28, the FTSE 100 group's net loss widened to EUR39.2 million, compared with EUR24.4 million last year, hit by volume declines and what it said were "adverse foreign exchange movements" in the period. Net sales revenue fell 7.0% to EUR1.33 billion from EUR1.43 billion a year earlier, as volume fell by 4.0% to 409.6 million unit cases, from 426.7 million last year.
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Intertek said variable market conditions, weaker-than-expected activity in its energy infrastructure market, and the appreciation of sterling hit its revenue. In an interim management statement for the period from January 1, 2014 to April 30, 2014, the company said total revenue grew 3.6% at constant exchange rates, comprising organic growth of 0.3% and 3.3% growth from acquisitions made in 2013 and 2014. At actual exchange rates, total revenue declined by 4.9% as sterling appreciated against many of its currencies. "Variable market conditions in the second half of 2013 continued into the first four months of 2014, resulting in good growth in our key product-related business lines but weaker than anticipated activity in the energy infrastructure market," it said.
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Petrofac Ltd said it has been awarded a contract worth more than USD970 million for the gas gathering, treatment and export facilities package of the Reggane North Development Project in Algiers. The international oil and gas services provider said the contract, which will run for 36 months, was awarded by Groupement Reggane, a partnership comprising Algerian state-owned company Sonatrach at 40%, Spain's Repsol at 29.25%, Germany's RWE Dea AG at 19.5% and Edison of Italy at 11.25%. Under the terms of the contract, Petrofac will be undertaking the engineering, procurement, construction, commissioning and start-up of the gas treatment plant, gathering system and export pipeline. The Reggane North Development Project is located in the Reggane basin of the Algerian Sahara desert 1,500 km south-west of Algiers.
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Carphone Warehouse Group PLC said it has agreed to sell its 46% share in joint venture Virgin Mobile France to Numericable Group SA for EUR325 Million, following the announcement of its merger with fellow FTSE 250-constituent Dixons Retail PLC Thursday. Numericable is a French telecommunications and broadband services provider, formed in 2007 by the merger of competitors Noos and NC Numericable Networks.
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Bovis Homes PLC said it has ramped up house building in 2014 with 80% more homes built in the first four months of the year, compared with the same period in 2013, while it is now confident of achieving a strong increase in return on capital employed to at least 15% this year, assuming stable market conditions. The housebuilder said it achieved 1,151 net private reservations in the 18 weeks of 2014 to May 9, up from 927 reservations a year earlier, while net private reservations per site per week improved 21% to 0.69 from 0.57 a year ago.
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Engineering and construction group Kentz Corp Ltd said trading in the year-to-date has been in line with management expectations, having recorded an increase in order intake, order backlog and prospect pipeline. It said that in the first four months to end of April, order intake was USD1.8 billion, while its prospect pipeline increased to USD16.3 billion, higher than the previous quarter and the USD13.7 billion recorded for the same period last year. The group said that backlog at the end of April was USD4.5 billion, compared with USD2.8 billion a year earlier.
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St Modwen Properties PLC said its 50:50 joint venture with VINCI PLC, VINCI St. Modwen, has submitted its planning application for the regeneration of the 57 acre New Covent Garden Market site in Nine Elms, London with its partner, Covent Garden Market Authority. The project is currently the largest proposed regeneration scheme in Nine Elms on the South Bank, one of London's key development areas for new mixed-use development. It will secure the future of New Covent Garden Market, the UK's largest fruit, vegetable and flower market, through the delivery of upgraded facilities, said St. Modwen.
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Inchcape PLC said it delivered "robust" revenue growth in the first four months of its new financial year, boosted by demand for its premium and luxury cars and strong growth in its used car and after-sales division. The automotive retail and services company said group revenue increased to GBP2.21 billion in the four months to April 30, up 2.5% at actual exchange rates, and up 11% on a constant currency basis. Like-for-like revenue was up 0.8% at actual exchange rates and 9.5% at constant currency. "Benefiting from broad-based growth across our markets and categories, we continue to expect to deliver a robust constant currency performance in 2014," said Chief Executive André Lacroix in a statement ahead of the Inchcape's annual general meeting Friday.
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MARKETS
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UK stocks trade lower, with a notable divergence continuing between the UK's leading index, the FTSE 100, and its mid-cap peer, the FTSE 250 which is heavily underperforming.
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FTSE 100: down 0.2% at 6824.3
FTSE 250: down 1.9% at 15312.9
AIM ALL-SHARE: down 0.5% at 797.4
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The euro is up against the dollar after data showed Eurozone trade surplus rose more than expected.
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GBP-USD: up at USD1.6807
EUR-USD: up at USD1.3713

GOLD: down at USD1294.5 per ounce
OIL (Brent): up at USD109.06 a barrel

(changes since end of previous GMT day)
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ECONOMICS AND GENERAL
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Euro area foreign trade surplus rose more-than-expected in March from the previous month, figures from Eurostat showed. The trade surplus came in at a non-seasonally adjusted EUR 17.1 billion, which exceeded economists' expectations for EUR 16 billion. A year ago, the trade surplus was EUR 21.9 billion. The February trade surplus was revised up to EUR 14.2 billion from EUR 13.6 billion.
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Foreign direct investment in China recovered in April, figures from the Ministry of Commerce showed. China attracted USD8.7 billion of foreign direct investment in April, up 3.4%. This was followed by a 1.47% drop in March. During January to April, FDI advanced 5% from same period of last year to USD40.3 billion. Investment from South Korea increased the most in four months to April, up 138.5%. Meanwhile, FDI from Japan plunged 46.8% annually and that from US slid 11.4%. In the first four months, China's non-financial direct outbound investment declined 12.9% to USD25.7 billion.
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Revised estimates released by Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry showed that month-over-month growth in industrial production for March was upwardly revised to 0.7%. Earlier, the ministry estimated the industrial production growth for March at 0.3%. The March reading represented a rebound from the 2.3% drop recorded for February. Annually, industrial production was up an unadjusted 7.4% in March compared with a 7.0% rise in February.
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The Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party won a historic majority in India's parliamentary polls, early vote counts indicated, with its leader Narendra Modi set to become the country's next prime minister. The BJP was ahead in 277 of the 537 parliamentary constituencies where counting was under way, according to figures from the Election Commission. Just 272 seats in the 543-strong parliament are needed for a party or grouping to form a government. The Indian National Congress, that has been in power for two terms over the last decade, was ahead in only 46 seats. "India has won!" Modi wrote in English on his Twitter account. "Acche Din aane wale hain," (Good days are coming) said Modi, who led with substantial margins in the two constituencies he contested: Vadodara and Varanasi.
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A fresh round of talks aimed at achieving reconciliation in crisis-hit Ukraine would take place in the coming days, former president Leonid Kravchuk was reported as saying. Kravchuk, who co-chaired round-table talks earlier this week, said Saturday was a possible date for the next session of a national unity dialogue, Russian news agency Itar-Tass reported. The eastern Ukrainian cities of Donetsk or Kharkiv were likely venues, he said. The US called the first round of talks in Kiev "a success," and dismissed criticism that they did not involve pro-Russian separatists.
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The company that owns the coal pit that was the site of Turkey's worst mining accident denied that it was negligent, saying it had followed the rules. "I feel bad," Soma Holding chief executive Alp Gurkan said. "I have great grief. Legally, we've done the maximum for safety." Gurkan said safe rooms are not required under Turkey's mining law but his company was constructing one at the mine in Soma, about 230 kilometres south of Istanbul, when Tuesday's explosion and fire occurred. The death toll stood Friday at 284, the company said. Eighteen people were still missing, it and Energy Minister Taner Yildiz said, while 122 are in hospital and 363 miners were rescued.
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