TOP NEWS: Greek Finance Minister Quits With Parting Shot At Creditors

LONDON (Alliance News) - The following is a summary of top news stories Monday.
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COMPANIES
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Rolls-Royce Holdings maintained its revenue guidance for 2015 but cut its underlying profit forecast as it said it is facing more challenges in its Civil Aerospace and Marine divisions and said it expects to take a significant hit in 2016 from the transition of its Trent 700 engine programme, while adding it will halt its GBP1 billion share buyback amid deteriorating free cash flow. The profit warning and curtailment of the share buyback sent the FTSE 100 stock earthward on Monday, down 9.6% to 773.90 pence and comfortably the worst blue-chip performer. Shares in Rolls-Royce have fallen by 11% so far in 2015 and are down 27% in the past 12 months, pushed lower by a slew of profit warnings in 2014 and a big drop in reported pretax profit for that year.
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London-listed airlines easyJet, Wizz Air Holdings and Aer Lingus Group all said customer traffic and load factors improved in June. EasyJet said it carried 6.6 million passengers in June, up from 6.1 million a year earlier, for a 7.6% rise. It said its load factor for the month improved, up by 0.7 percentage point to 92.7% from 92.0% a year earlier. Wizz Air, the Central and Eastern European low-cost airline, said its passenger numbers in June rose by 18% to 1.7 million from 1.5 million a year earlier. Irish flag carrier Aer Lingus, which reports traffic figures measured in revenue passenger kilometres, said traffic increased by 10% in the month to 1.9 million, up from 1.7 million, with robust growth in long haul traffic and a more muted but still improved performance in short haul. The airline said its load factor in the month improved by 0.3 percentage point to 85.8% from 85.5% a year earlier.
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Dutch financial services company ING Groep has entered exclusive talks to acquire the Turkish arm of HSBC Holdings, the Financial Times reports. HSBC outlined plans to sell the loss-making Turkish business as part of a strategic overhaul it announced last month, which also includes plans to sell its Brazilian business, cut 25,000 jobs, and cut assets in its investment bank. For ING, the deal would mark a return to deal-making, having been banned from doing acquisitions under European state aid rules until only a few weeks ago.
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Housebuilder Bovis Homes Group outlined plans to increase its interim dividend after it said home sales rose in the first half of 2015 at higher prices. Bovis said it is planning to hike its interim dividend for the six months to June 30 to 13.7 pence per share, up 14% from the 12.0 pence per share payout it made a year earlier. The bigger payout to shareholders follows a rise in legal completions in the first half to 1,525 homes, up from 1,487 a year earlier and a record sales volume for the company in the half. The average sales price of those homes sold also increased for Bovis, up by 6% to GBP222,000 from GBP210,000 a year earlier.
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Ophir Energy said its expects to meet its financial and production targets for the full year and said it has a healthy cash balance as it continues to reduce costs. The FTSE 250-listed oil and gas company said revenue, cash flow and capital expenditure all are expected to be in line with expectations for the full year.
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Lender Shawbrook Group named Iain Cornish as its new chairman, replacing former Royal Bank of Scotland Group boss George Mathewson. Cornish, a founding member of the Bank of England's Prudential Regulation Authority, is currently a senior independent director of debt manager Arrow Global Group and of FTSE 100 wealth manager St James's Place. He was the chief executive of Yorkshire Building Society for eight years to 2011.
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MARKETS
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UK stocks are trading lower mid-morning following the 'no' vote in Greece's referendum on Sunday but the resignation of Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis meant initial indications for a heavier fall in stocks never materialised.
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FTSE 100: down 0.6% at 6,548.31
FTSE 250: down 0.6% at 17,503.61
AIM ALL-SHARE: down 0.6% at 759.73
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Oil fell below the key psychological level USD60 a barrel, hitting its lowest level in nearly three months at USD58.89.
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GBP: flat at USD1.5565
EUR: down at USD1.1055

GOLD: down at USD1164.16 per ounce
OIL (Brent): down at USD58.89 a barrel

(changes since end of previous GMT day)
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ECONOMICS AND GENERAL
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In a surprise move, Greece Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis said he is resigning despite the Greek people rejecting proposals by the creditors in Sunday's referendum, as requested by his government. "Soon after the announcement of the referendum results, I was made aware of a certain preference by some Eurogroup participants, and assorted 'partners', for my... 'absence' from its meetings; an idea that the Prime Minister judged to be potentially helpful to him in reaching an agreement," Varoufakis wrote in a blog. "For this reason I am leaving the Ministry of Finance today," he said. "And I shall wear the creditors’ loathing with pride," he added.
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The European Central Bank is holding a conference call on Monday to consider whether to provide Greece's crisis-hit financial system with further emergency support. Greek banks are fast running out of money despite been propped up for months by funds provided to the nation's central bank through the ECB's Emergency Liquidity Assistance (ELA) scheme. Under the ELA, the Greek central bank then lends money at a higher rate than standard ECB loans to its national financial houses. Greece bears the risk attached to the loans.
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Eurozone finance ministers expect new proposals from Greece ahead of their meeting on Tuesday, said Eurogroup chief Jeroen Dijsselbloem. "Tuesday's Eurogroup to start at 1300 local time; ministers expect new proposals from the Greek authorities," Dijsselbloem writes on Twitter. The ministers are due Tuesday to "discuss the situation following the referendum in Greece," according to a statement.
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After Greek voters resoundingly rejected bailout terms in a referendum, Athens said it was willing to resume talks with international creditors. "We are ready to continue negotiations," Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras said. In the Tsipras government's hastily arranged referendum Sunday, the "no" vote got 61.3% of the vote, according to the Interior Ministry in Athens. In an address on national television, Tsipras said the referendum was a mandate not against Europe but for "a sustainable solution," saying that renegotiating Greece's debt must now be on the table in renewed talks.
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A string of measures to reverse the stock market free-fall in China were announced over the weekend. Twenty-eight Chinese companies said they were postponing initial public offerings and will refund money already paid, the official Xinhua news agency reported late Saturday. China's major securities brokers also vowed Saturday to spend no less than CNY120 billion for a fund to invest in blue chip-based exchange traded funds. The announcements followed government measures, such as a cut in interest rates last month, that had failed to reverse the slump.
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Germany's factory orders decreased at a slower-than-expected pace in May, preliminary figures from Destatis showed. New orders in the manufacturing sector fell a seasonally and working-day-adjusted 0.2% monthly in May, in contrast to a 2.2% climb in April, which was revised up from a 1.4% growth. Economists had expected a 0.4% drop for the month.
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Western chief diplomats urged Iran to seize the opportunity to end the long stand-off over the its nuclear programme, as they started a last effort to clinch a broad agreement with the Islamic republic. Both sides had overcome several differences but remain apart on some decisive points, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said. Foreign ministers from Britain, China, France, Russia, the US and Germany gathered Sunday evening in Vienna ahead of a self-imposed Tuesday deadline to strike a deal with Iran.
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The situation in eastern Ukraine has deteriorated significantly in the last week, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe warned Sunday, with heavy weaponry such as tanks and howitzers spotted along the front lines. Such weapons were supposed to have been removed according to an agreement signed by the government and pro-Russian separatists in February, the deputy head of the Ukraine mission, Alexander Hug, said during a visit to the port city of Mariupol.
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An attempt Saturday by migrants to storm the tunnel connecting France and Britain led to renewed calls for action to solve a worsening migrant crisis in Calais. Disruptions occurred after about 150 migrants tried to storm the terminal on the French side, authorities said. Freight services through the tunnel had been suspended, the Highways England agency said, resulting in long queues of lorries on the British side. Passenger service was not affected.
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By Arvind Bhunjun; arvindbhunjun@alliancenews.com; @ArvindBhunjun

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