TOP NEWS: Reckitt Benckiser Will Spin Off Pharmaceutical Arm

LONDON (Alliance News) - The following is a summary of top news stories Monday.
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COMPANIES
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Reckitt Benckiser Group PLC jumped to lead the FTSE 100 at the market open after it said that pretax profit in its first half rose and as the consumer goods company said it is pursuing a UK listed de-merger of its Reckitt Benckiser Pharmaceuticals business. The company said pretax profit for the half year was GBP1.04 billion, up from the GBP898 million reported in the comparable period last year. The company also said that it is considering the sell-off of the RBP business due to its potential to deliver long-term value as a stand-alone business. "We have therefore decided to pursue a demerger of RB Pharmaceuticals with a separate UK listing. We expect this to take place over the next 12 months. This will also allow RB to focus on its core strategy to be a global leader in consumer health and hygiene," said Kapoor.
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National Grid PLC said it is on track to meet its targets for the full financial year ending March 31, 2015, benefiting from improvements made to its UK and US businesses. In an interim management statement for the period April 1 to date, the company said it expects capital expenditure for 2014/15 to be at a similar level to the GBP3.4 billion it invested in 2013/14, which contributed to the 5% growth in regulated assets during the period.
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Aberdeen Asset Management PLC said its assets under management fell by 0.6% in the third-quarter, hit by a GBP4.0 billion withdrawal by a single client of low margin assets under management from its Asia Pacific and global equities strategies. In a statement, FTSE 100 constituent Aberdeen said that assets under management fell to GBP322.5 billion at the end of June from GBP324.5 billion at the end of March. Net outflows from the main business, recently acquired Scottish Widows Investment Partnership, and negative foreign exchange movements were in the main compensated for by positive market movements and performance in the quarter.
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British Sky Broadcasting Group PLC said it has made a USD400,000 investment in California-based early-stage technology company Jaunt Inc. The company specialises in video capture and display. The investment follows a USD350,000 equity investment that BSkyB previously made in the company during an earlier round of funding in December 2013.
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Deutsche Bank, HSBC Holdings PLC and Bank of Nova Scotia have been accused of attempting to rig the price of silver, the Guardian reported online on Sunday. According to the Guardian, the accusation is contained in a lawsuit filed in New York. The plaintiff alleges that the banks unlawfully manipulated the price of the metal and its derivatives.
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GlaxoSmithKline PLC Chief Executive Andrew Witty has opened up the possibility of the company being broken up, the Financial Times reported Sunday. Witty said Glaxo had the option to spin-off its consumer healthcare business if a time came when it offered more value as a standalone company. However, he made it clear there were no plans to do this in the near term.
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AstraZeneca PLC said it is working with Roche Holding AG and QIAGEN N.V to develop companion diagnostic tests to support its portfolio of lung cancer medicines. The pharmaceutical giant said it was working with QIAGEN to develop a test that analyses DNA from a patients tumour circulating in their blood to identify non-small cell lung cancer for patients whose tumours have the EGFR mutation and may be able to be treated with IRESSA.
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Great Portland Estates PLC said the value of its portfolio rose 3.8% quarter-on-quarter, as it continues to make good progress across its 2.3 million square feet development programme. The central London property development company said at the end of June its portfolio, including its share of joint venture assets, was valued at GBP2.80 billion compared with GBP2.69 billion at March 31. Great Portland said the main drivers of the quarterly valuation uplift was its 'Rest of West End' properties and its development schemes, which rose in value by 4.0% and 6.2%, respectively. Overall, the portfolio was valued 18% higher at June 30 than a year earlier.
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Debenhams PLC said it has appointed Mothercare PLC CFO Matt Smith as its own chief financial officer. Smith will also join the retailer's board upon his appointment. He had served as CFO at Mothercare only since 2013 and before this held a number of finance positions at Home Retail PLC. Debenhams said Smith will join "upon the satisfaction of his existing contractual obligations".
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Pace PLC said that Chief Financial Officer Roddy Murray has stepped down from his position with immediate effect, as the company raised its interim dividend for the half year to end-June and raised its guidance for full-year profits and cash flow. Murray will be replaced by Belinda Ellis, current financial controller at the company. The set-top box developer, which provides technology for Sky Italia and Sky Deutschland, said it expects to generate USD200 million of free cash flow for the full year. It maintained its expectations for USD2.7 billion in revenue, and said it expects an operating margin of no less than 8.5% for 2014.
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MARKETS
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Individual UK company updates are driving a mixed performance among London stocks, with very little in the way of overall market drivers scheduled until later in the week.
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FTSE 100: up 0.1% at 6799.28
FTSE 250: down 0.2% at 15655.05
AIM ALL-SHARE: down 0.1% at 772.45
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GBP-USD: up at USD1.6984
EUR-USD: up at USD1.3435

GOLD: down at USD1304.01 per ounce
OIL (Brent): down at USD107.48 a barrel

(changes since end of previous GMT day)
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ECONOMICS AND GENERAL
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UK house prices increased at a slower rate in June, data from the Land Registry showed. House prices rose 6.4% year-over-year in June following the 6.7% increase in May. The average house price in England and Wales was at GBP 172,011, down from its peak of GBP 181,466 hit in November 2007. House prices in London, where property prices rose the most in the last twelve months, grew 16.4% in June, slower than the 17.8% growth in May. Meanwhile, house prices in the North East witnessed the smallest increase of 0.8%. On a month-over-month basis, property prices in the UK remained unchanged in June following the 0.3% increase in the previous month.
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British homebuyers' confidence deteriorated in the second quarter, a survey from mortgage lender Halifax showed. The balance of people who believe now is 'a good time to buy' fell to 5 percentage points from 34 in the previous quarter. This was the largest fall since April 2011. Meanwhile, about 57% felt it would be a good time to sell and 32% think it is a bad time, giving a balance of 25 percentage points.
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Pro-Russian separatists have subjected the eastern Ukrainian population to "a reign of intimidation and terror", resulting in a complete breakdown of law and order in the region, the UN human rights office says. The rebels are abducting, torturing and killing civilians, and are deliberately targeting public infrastructure, the office says in a report, adding that the Ukrainian army is not doing enough to distinguish between civilian and military targets. Since the Ukrainian army started its military operation against the rebels in mid-April, at least 1,129 people have been killed and more than 3,400 injured, the report finds.
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The US on Sunday released what it said was evidence that Russia had supplied weapons to separatists in Ukraine. The surveillance images taken by satellite cameras also showed that Russia has fired artillery rounds at Ukrainian military units from its side of the border. The photographs were taken between Wednesday and Saturday, the White House said. The photos show "ground scarring" at a multiple rocket-launch site on the Russian side of the border, a statement accompanying the images said.
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Malaysia is attempting to negotiate a ceasefire between pro-Russian separatist rebels and the Ukrainian government in the area where a Malaysia Airlines jetliner crashed, a senior official was quoted as saying Monday. Khairil Hilmi Mokhtar, chief of the Malaysia special investigation team in Utrecht, said a ceasefire would cover a 35-kilometre radius including the area where the aircraft wreckage had been found.
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The Israeli military rejected blame for the killing of Palestinian civilians in a school run by the United Nations north of Gaza City late last week. Witnesses said that four or five shells hit the school in Beit Hanoun Thursday, where some 800 displaced civilians had taken refuge. Specifics of the casualties remained unclear. Gaza Health Ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Qedra said 16 Palestinians were killed, among them seven children, and some 200 injured, while Gaza-based Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) said 11 Palestinian civilians were killed.
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The UN Security Council called for an immediate halt to fighting in the Gaza Strip to allow the delivery of humanitarian aid Monday. It also urged all parties to achieve "a durable and fully respected ceasefire."
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Profits of Chinese industrial firms increased at an accelerated pace in June, a report from the National Bureau of Statistics showed Sunday. Industrial profit rose 18% year-over-year in June, following the 9% increase in May. Total industrial profit in the January to June period rose 11% compared to the corresponding period of the previous year. For the January to May period, profits had increased 9.8%.
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Thousands of protesters took to the streets in the Philippine capital on Monday, police said, ahead of President Benigno Aquino's annual state of the nation address. Police blocked off a main road leading to the House of Representatives compound in the Manila suburban city of Quezon, forcing the demonstrators to gather about three kilometres away. They brought an effigy of Aquino as a thief, accusing him of reneging on a vow to fight corruption by implementing an economic stimulus programme that allows for the discretionary distribution of state funds.
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The US shut down its embassy in Libya and relocated all its staff to Tunisia, the State Department said Saturday, citing the deteriorating security situation and infighting between rival militias in Tripoli. "Regrettably, we had to take this step because the location of our embassy is in very close proximity to intense fighting and ongoing violence between armed Libyan factions," said Marie Harf, deputy spokeswoman. The relocation was done over land, with personnel arriving in Tunisia from where they will fly home, the statement said.
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Militants from Nigeria's radical Islamist group Boko Haram kidnapped the wife of Cameroon's Vice Prime Minister Amadou Ali during an attack on the northern border town of Kolofata on Sunday, a government minister said. The town's Muslim religious leader, called the lamido, was also seized along with his entire family, Communications Minister Issa Tchiroma Bakary told dpa. The overnight assault by the Nigerian fighters follows cross-border attacks into neighbouring Cameroon on Friday and Saturday that left four Cameroonian soldiers dead and ten wounded.
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The United Nations said it recovered the second black box from the site of the Air Algerie plane crash in Mali, reports said. A team from the UN mission to Mali assisting local authorities investigating the crash found the recording device, spokeswoman Radhia Achouri said, according to Bloomberg news. Troops from France and Burkina Faso are also assisting in the recovery efforts. There were no survivors among the 116 people on board the flight, which took off Thursday from Burkina Faso bound for Algeria. It crashed in a semi-arid area near the border with Burkina Faso.
About half of the passengers were from France.
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The skies in Glasgow were overcast, as athletes prepared to vie for another 27 gold medals on the fifth day of competition at the 2014 Commonwealth Games. Finals of the men's and women's 100m sprint take place at Hampden Park, while the first gold medals in badminton, in the mixed team event, and in squash, in the men's and women's singles, were also to be handed out. England and Singapore were due to battle it out for the top prize in the men's table tennis team match, while another eight gold medals were available in the pool, with highlights including the women's 100m freestyle final.
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By Arvind Bhunjun; arvindbhunjun@alliancenews.com; @ArvindBhunjun

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