July 4 (Reuters) - Britain's FTSE 100 index is seenopening 15 points lower at 7,578 on Wednesday, according tofinancial bookmakers, with futures down 0.10 percentahead of the cash market open.
* SAINSBURY'S: Sainsbury's, Britain's secondbiggest supermarket group which agreed a 7.3 billion pound ($9.7billion) takeover of rival Asda in April, saw salesgrowth slow in its latest quarter, reflecting price cuts in acompetitive market.
* NATIONAL EXPRESS: British transport company NationalExpress said its Spanish and Moroccan business has won a1 billion euro ($1.17 billion) contract in Morocco to run busservices on 61 routes for 15 years.
* SIG: British building products supplier SIG Plcsaid on Wednesday it appointed Ernst & Young LLP as its externalauditor, a week after UK's accounting watchdog began aninvestigation into Deloitte LLP's audit of the company's twofinancial statements.
* BP: BP and ConocoPhillips announced onTuesday a swap deal that will see the British oil giant increaseits stake in a major North Sea development while its U.S. peerwill grow in Alaska.
* GLENCORE: U.S. authorities have demanded Glencorehand over documents about its business in the DemocraticRepublic of Congo, Venezuela and Nigeria as part of a corruptionprobe, sending the mining company's shares down more than 8percent.
* VEDANTA RESOURCES: Billionaire Anil Agarwal faces investorresistance to his $1 billion bid to buy out minorityshareholders in Vedanta Resources and take theLondon-listed Indian miner private.
* ROLLS-ROYCE: Rolls-Royce Corp, a unit of Rolls-RoyceHoldings Plc, has won a $420 million contract for AE3007H (military designation F137) engine-sustainment services,the Pentagon said in a statement on Tuesday.
* SHELL: A planned overhaul of the gasoline-producing unitat Royal Dutch Shell Plc's 209,787 barrel-per-day (bpd)Convent, Louisiana, refinery is on schedule to finish in thefirst week of August, sources familiar with plant operationssaid.
* VEDANTA: Vedanta Ltd has sought a permanentinjunction against the Tamil Nadu state government frominterfering with the operations of its copper smelter, accordingto a petition filed with the country's environmental court.
* RYANAIR: Pilots directly employed by Ryanair andwho are members of its Irish trade union will go on strike forthe first time on July 12 after the union said on Tuesday theairline had failed to meet demands over new working practices.
* GOLD: Gold prices rose to a one-week high early onWednesday, rebounding from a seven-month low touched in theprevious session, as the dollar softened, stoking some demandfor the yellow metal.
* OIL: Oil prices edged up on Wednesday following a reportof tightening U.S. fuel inventories amid an outage at SyncrudeCanada oil sands facility in Alberta, which usually supplies theUnited States.
* The UK blue chip FTSE 100 index closed 0.6 percenthigher at 7,593.29 points on Tuesday, making back some ofMonday's 1.2 percent loss when concerns over global trade hitrisky assets.
* For more on the factors affecting European stocks, pleaseclick on: cpurl://apps.cp./cms/?pageId=livemarkets
TODAY'S UK PAPERS
> Financial Times
> Other business headlines(Reporting by Siju Varghese)
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