UK MIDDAY BRIEFING: Carphone In Talks To Sell French Mobile Venture

LONDON (Alliance News) - Carphone Warehouse and Virgin Group are in exclusive talks to sell their Virgin Mobile France joint venture to Numericable Group for EUR325 million, just a day after Carphone announced its GBP3.6 billion merger with Dixons Retail.

The joint venture, in which Carphone Warehouse has a 46% stake, has been hit by competition in the French market, and its revenue dropped 8.6% in the 13 weeks to March 29 as its contract customer base continued to decline.

Kentz Corporation is having to go into talks with its shareholders after the majority voted against its remuneration proposals at its annual general meeting Friday.

The oil services company had earlier said trading in the year-to-date has been in line with management expectations, with order intake, order backlog and its prospect pipeline all higher than a year ago.

Investment company P2P Global Investments says it intends to list on the main market in London at the end of May, as it sets out to be the first UK-listed company dedicated to investing in loans originated by peer-to-peer and online lending platforms worldwide.

The company said it is expecting to raise GBP200 million in the initial public offering, although it has reserved the right to increase the size of the issue to GBP230 million.

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FTSE 100: down 0.2% at 6,830.42
FTSE 250: down 1.9% at 15,322.83
AIM ALL-SHARE: down 0.9% at 794.54
GBP-USD: up at 1.6808
EUR-USD: down at 1.3700
GOLD: down at USD1,295.60 an ounce
OIL (Brent): up at USD109.43 a barrel
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Key UK Corporate News
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FTSE 100: Intertek said revenue was down 4.9% in the first four months of the year, due mainly to the strength of sterling, but also due to weaker-than-expected activity in its energy infrastructure market. Revenue was up 3.6% at constant exchange rates, mainly due to acquisitions. It saw strong growth in its consumer goods and commercial, electrical businesses. Petrofac has been awarded a contract worth more than USD970 million to build the gas gathering, treatment and export facilities package of the Reggane North Development Project in Algiers. Coca-Cola HBC 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, which it blamed on the late timing of Easter, and an increased loss. It expects an improvement in the rest of the year. Fresnillo has promised to return to full capacity at its Herradura Mine in the second half of the year.

FTSE 250: Grainger reported an increase in profit and revenue for the first-half, boosted by profit from its joint ventures. Its revenue also jumped, as a big increase from its retirement properties more than offset a decline at its UK residential homes building unit. Bovis Homes has ramped up house building in 2014 with 80% more homes built in the first four months of the year than a year earlier, and it is now confident of achieving a strong increase in return on capital employed to at least 15% this year, assuming stable market conditions. St. Modwen Properties' joint venture with VINCI has submitted a planning application for the regeneration of the 57 acre New Covent Garden Market site in Nine Elms, London. Hansteen Holdings' total annual rent roll and total occupancy across its portfolio is up in the year to date. Synergy Health has acquired Italian peer Bioster SpA for EUR29.0 million, a deal that it expects to boost earnings this year and which it will fund from existing debt facilities. Inchcape revenue rose 2.5% 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. Constant currency revenue growth was 11%. SIG revenue from continuing operations rose 9.4% on the year in the first four months of 2014, buoyed by acquisitions and a slight gross margin improvement. EnQuest has reiterated its production guidance for 2014, as it saw average production of barrels of oil equivalent per day rise in the 4 months to end-April. It expects to see an average production between 25,000 to 30,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day for the full year. Heritage Oil has recommended the GBP924 million cash offer from Al Mirqab Capital, an investment vehicle controlled by the royal family of Qatar, and expects the deal to complete this summer. Keller Group says it is trading in line with expectations so far in 2014, despite a decline in public construction expenditure in the US and a lull in activity levels for major project awards in Canada's oil sands market. Private expenditure on construction is up significantly, it said. Bwin.party Digital Entertainment has commenced a search for three new independent directors, as its continued to urge shareholders to vote against active investor SpringOwl's nominations for additional directors.

AIM All-Share: Rose Petroleum is a big gainer after it said it has increased its acreage in the shale gas prospective western Paradox Block in Utah by 35,000 acres. Its part of an ongoing deal by which the company can acquire 75% of some oil, gas and hydrocarbon leases in the region, bringing its total acreage to 230,000 acres. The company said the new leases are for 10-years and were supposed to be a part of its original agreement for leases in the region but were withheld due to an accounting error by the US Bureau of Land Management, which has now been solved. LED International Holdings has seen more than half its value wiped out after it warned that it still hasn't received a CNY100 million investment from mainly Taiwanese investors it announced in March, and it continues to experience difficult trading conditions. It's the second time a potential investment in the company has been announced, but not turned up. Falcon Oil & Gas is also down after it said its second exploration well at the Mako Trough in Hungary had gone into test drilling, but results from its first well at the site failed to show commercial levels of hydrocarbons and is no longer being tested.
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Top Economics And General
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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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Separatists in eastern Ukraine kidnapped three election officials, local media reports said Friday, in what seemed another attempt to prevent the upcoming presidential vote. Armed men on Thursday seized Dmytro Naboka, the head of Luhansk's polling precinct 106, and two computer programmers, city council deputy Serhiy Davidov told the local 0642.ua news site. The men also took all the precinct's computers and documents, Davidov said. He added that the victims were taken to the city's State Security Building, which has been occupied by separatist protesters since early April.
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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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The death toll in the sinking of a Bangladesh ferry rose to 29 Friday, officials said. The MV Miraz, with more than 200 passengers believed on board, sank in the Meghna River during a storm on Thursday. The authorities handed dozens of bodies over to relatives after an overnight rescue operation, but they failed to salvage the ferry that sank in Munshiganj district, 40 kilometres south of Dhaka, while en route to southern Shariatpur district.
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Afternoon Watchlist (all times British Summer Time)

13:30 US Housing Starts
14:55 US Reuters/Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index Preliminary
16:50 US Fed's Bullard speech
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Monday's Key UK Corporate Events

MITIE Full Year Results
Shaftesbury Half Year Results
DRS Data & Research Services Interim Management Statement
Chesnara Interim Management Statement
IFG Group Interim Management Statement
Ricardo Interim Management Statement
Cranswick Full Year Results
e2v technologies Full Year Results
Bioquell Interim Management Statement
Mears Group Interim Management Statement
ITE Group Half Year Results
Innovation Group Half Year Results
Gable Holdings Full Year Results
Tissue Regenix Group Full Year Results
Babcock International Group Full Year Results
Irish Continental Group Interim Management Statement
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Monday's Key Economic Events (all times British Summer Time)

00:01 UK Rightmove House Price Index
00:50 Japan Machinery Orders
15:00 Russia Industrial Output
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By Steve McGrath; steve.mcgrath@alliancenews.com; @stevemcgrath1

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