TOP NEWS SUMMARY: Grocers Sainsbury's And Ocado Report Sales Growth

LONDON (Alliance News) - The following is a summary of top news stories Tuesday.
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COMPANIES
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J Sainsbury reported growth in sales in the fourth quarter of its financial year and said that, while the market remains competitive, it is confident it will outperform its major peers. The supermarket chain said total retail sales in the nine weeks ended March 12 increased by 1.2% excluding fuel and by 0.5% including fuel, both year-on-year. On a like-for-like basis, retail sales were up by 0.1% excluding fuel, but declined by 0.4% including fuel. Sainsbury's made no mention of its takeover bid for Argos retail chain owner Home Retail Group.
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Legal & General Group, the life insurer and investment manager, said profit and cash generation improved in 2015, prompting a higher dividend, though future increases in the payment to shareholders will be more strongly informed by underlying business growth. Pretax profit rose to GBP1.36 billion in 2015 from GBP1.24 billion in 2014, slightly ahead of company-supplied analyst consensus of GBP1.34 billion. Legal & General lifted its total dividend per share for the year to 13.40 pence from 11.25p in 2014, beating the 13.34p expected by analysts. The group posted a capital surplus of GBP5.5 billion over regulatory requirements under new Solvency II insurance rules in the EU, with a coverage ratio of 169%.
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Antofagasta confirmed suspicions it will skip its final dividend for 2015 after earnings were slashed by lower commodity prices and a fall in production. The Chilean copper miner reported net earnings from continuing operations of only USD5.5 million in 2015, a dramatic fall from the USD422.4 million reported in 2014, as revenue dropped 34% to USD3.39 billion as a result of weaker copper prices and lower production. Antofagasta said it will not pay a final dividend for the year, leaving shareholders with the 3.1 pence interim dividend paid for the first half. That is a huge drop from the 21.5 cents full-year dividend paid in 2014.
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Car distributor Inchcape said its pretax profit and revenue both edged up in 2015, driven by a robust performance in its emerging markets business. The company said pretax profit rose 2.7% to GBP262.6 million from GBP255.8 million a year earlier, as revenue inched up to GBP6.8 billion from GBP6.7 billion. Inchcape will pay a final dividend of 14.1 pence per share, up from 13.8p a year earlier, taking its total dividend to 20.9p, a 4.0% rise on its 20.1p payout in 2014.
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Construction and infrastructure group Balfour Beatty said it plans to reinstate its dividend this year following its significant restructuring, as its pretax loss narrowed in 2015. The FTSE 250-listed company, which undertook a significant restructuring in 2014 to deal with troublesome legacy contracts in its construction division, said its pretax loss for the year to the end of December narrowed to GBP199.0 million from GBP304.0 million, mainly due to fewer losses booked on its legacy book. The group scrapped its dividend as part of its restructuring but said it intends to reinstate payouts at its interim results, due to be published in August.
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Ocado Group reported growth in sales in the first quarter of its financial year, boosted by a rise in average orders per week and said it expects to continue growing ahead of the online grocery market. The grocery delivery company said group sales in the 12 weeks to February 21 grew to GBP312.4 million from GBP271.1 million in the same period the year before, as retail sales rose to GBP286.7 million from GBP252.0 million. Average orders per week increased to 214,000 from 183,000, but the average order size slipped to GBP111.41 from GBP114.72.
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Veterinary pharmaceuticals company Dechra Pharmaceuticals said it has acquired Portland, Maine-based generic animal drugs developer Putney Inc for USD200.0 million in total. Dechra will pay USD200.0 million in cash to acquire Putney, which will be backed by an extension to its existing credit facility and by the group raising GBP47.1 million via a share placing. Dechra has issued 4.4 million shares at 1,100 pence per share to raise the funds.
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Industrial property investor Hansteen Holdings said pretax profit grew in 2015 and it pushed up its dividend as it made gains on the sale of property assets over the course of the year. Hansteen said its pretax profit for 2015 grew to GBP171.4 million, up 31% from the GBP131.2 million posted in 2014. The group generated GBP8.7 million in profit from the sale of GBP86.3 million worth of property over the course of the year, while it acquired GBP68.0 million for its portfolio. The group will pay a second interim dividend for the year of 3.15 pence per share, meaning its total payout rises to 5.25p, a 5.0% rise year-on-year.
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Hastings Group Holdings, the FTSE 250 motor insurer which went public in October, declared its first dividend since listing in London. Operating profit rose to GBP126.1 million in 2015, up from GBP103.5 million in 2014, as net earned premiums increased to GBP255.9 million from GBP199.1 million. Pretax profit, which took into account amortisation and depreciation of GBP27.6 million and finance costs of GBP91.1 million, amounted to GBP5.0 million in 2015, versus a pretax loss of GBP1.4 million in 2014. Hastings declared a dividend of 2.2 pence per share.
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MARKETS
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Share prices were slightly lower in London at midday, with Legal & General joining miners as the biggest blue-chip fallers. Royal Bank of Scotland was the top FTSE 100 gainer, benefiting from a substantial upgrade from Goldman Sachs. Wall Street stock indices were pointed 0.5% to 0.6% lower. The pound slipped below USD1.42. The two-day meeting of the US Federal Reserve's policy makers begins Tuesday.
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FTSE 100: down 0.6% at 6,137.65
FTSE 250: down 0.2% at 16,657.12
AIM ALL-SHARE: flat at 713.01

GBP: down at USD1.4153 (USD1.4322)
EUR: down at USD1.1081 (USD1.1111)

GOLD: down at USD1,233.47 per ounce (USD1,243.00)
OIL (Brent): down at USD38.50 a barrel (USD39.11)

(changes since previous London equities close)
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ECONOMICS AND GENERAL
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The first group of Russian aircraft have left Syria to return to Russia, the Defence Ministry in Moscow said. The warplanes departed from Russia's long-standing Khmeimim airbase and weapons storage facility in the coastal Mediterranean province of Latakia, the ministry said, according to the state-run TASS news agency. The ministry said earlier that preparations to remove aircraft and equipment were underway following an order by Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday to withdraw the majority of troops from the country because their task had been "completely fulfilled."
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UK Chancellor George Osborne is set to give the green light to major rail developments in the north of England and London in his Budget on Wednesday. The Chancellor is expected to confirm government backing for the HS3 high-speed rail link between Manchester and Leeds, and the Crossrail 2 project to connect Surrey and Hertfordshire via stations in central London like King's Cross, Victoria, Chelsea and Clapham Junction.
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UK Prime Minister David Cameron has warned Britain has "100 days to secure our future" as the mastermind behind his general election victory said the EU referendum is hanging in the balance. In a new campaign video, the Prime Minister repeated assertions that leaving the EU would push up prices in the shops, put jobs at risks and make the country's streets more dangerous. An ORB poll for the Daily Telegraph has suggested that battle is currently deadlocked, with Remain on 47% and Leave on 48%. However, when likelihood to vote is taken into account, the Brexit camp would win by 52% to 44%.
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The Bank of Japan refrained from expanding its monetary stimulus as policymakers await to see the impact of the negative interest rate introduced in January. Governor Haruhiko Kuroda and his board members decided by an 8-1 majority vote to hold its target of raising the monetary base at an annual pace of about JPY80 trillion. Policymakers voted 7-2 to maintain the -0.1% interest rate on current accounts that financial institutions maintain at the bank. The bank said it would take additional easing measures if needed for achieving the price stability target.
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Members of the Reserve Bank of Australia's monetary policy board said that the country's economic growth remained slightly below trend, minutes from the bank's March 1 meeting revealed. With that in mind, the bank said additional easing measures remain a possibility - especially in light of persistent low inflation. At the meeting, the RBA held its benchmark lending rate at the record low 2.00% for the ninth straight meeting.
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Eurozone employment continued to increase in the fourth quarter, figures from Eurostat showed.
The number of employed persons grew 0.3% sequentially, the same rate of growth as seen in the third quarter. There were 151.9 million employed in the euro area. On a yearly basis, employment climbed 1.2% in the fourth quarter after rising 1.1% in the prior three months.
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Hundreds of migrants were back in Greece Tuesday, returned by Macedonian authorities a day after they left a refugee camp in Greece and crossed the sealed border. "Some 600-700 migrants who illegally entered Macedonia...were returned to Greece," the Makfaks news agency reported, citing the Macedonian Interior Ministry. Between 700 and 2,000 people from the refugee camp at Idomeni on the Greek side of the border on Monday waded through a river to walk around the fence, which Macedonia had erected to keep them out. Last week Macedonia declared its borders closed to all without valid passports and visas, matching similar measures from Serbia, Croatia and Slovenia.
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