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Hammerson sells Sheffield’s biggest retail park for £62 million: Hammerson said it has sold Drakehouse Retail in Sheffield as it looks to focus on its other major developments in Croydon and Brent Cross.

Mortgage lull ends as March registers upturn: Mortgage lending has picked up in March following a slow start to 2015, data released by the Council for Mortgage Lenders (CML) show.

Pace Chairman Leighton to exit after takeover: Pace Chairman Allan Leighton is set to leave the U.K. group once its £1.4 billion takeover by a U.S. rival is finalised, as shares in the set-top box maker closed 34% higher.

North Sea-focused Trapoil highlights risk it could collapse: North Sea-focused Trapoil has said it is highly likely the company will go bust unless it can raise further funding fast after what it called a disastrous 2014.

BP sells stake in major North Sea gas pipeline for £324 million: Oil firm BP has agreed to sell its stake in a major North Sea gas pipeline system in a £324 million deal.

Election is sure to cause political uncertainty - whoever wins, warns WPP as it posts first quarter slowdown: WPP, the world’s leading advertising agency, warned the result of May’s General Election would spark uncertainty no matter the winner as it reported a slowdown in first quarter trading.

Petrobras counts cost of corruption scandal as 2014 losses exceed $7 billion: Brazil’s state-run oil company, Petrobras, has said it lost billions of dollars because of Executives taking bribes for awarding inflated contracts to suppliers.

Anglo American adds to woes with De Beers diamond worry: Of the Big Three mining groups listed on the FTSE-100, Anglo American is arguably under the most pressure to perform, especially when it comes to maintaining what investors care about most - its dividend. Although its quarterly production report published (Thurs)) was broadly in line with the market’s expectations, Anglo remains far behind rivals BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto in terms of future-proofing its business for a world of lower commodity prices. De Beers had said in its previous market report that demand for diamond jewellery grew by 3% last year to $81 billion (£54 billion) last year. Anglo followed rivals BHP and Rio in reporting higher iron ore production, which is in line with the industry trend of maximising returns from existing mines. Prior to the release of its production report, Barclays also warned about the headwinds facing the company’s iron ore business. Like other miners in this sector Anglo continues to struggle to adapt to the continuing slump in iron ore prices. The steel-making ingredient has recovered to around $52 per tonne since prices hit a 10-year-low earlier in the month. As expected, Anglo’s copper production fell by 17% to 171,800 tonnes in the first quarter and nickel output was down by 27%. Both commodities have seen dramatic declines in prices amid a slowdown in industrial demand from China. One bright spot was platinum, which has suffered from strike disruption. Output rose by 50% in the first quarter to 536,000 ounces. Anglo remains the major mining conglomerate which concerns investors most in the current downturn. Questor shares this concern. Questor Says “Sell”.

Ride a grey swan: Sir Martin Sorrell, Boss of ad group WPP, is scared of grey swans. Pub bores insist a swan can “break a man’s arm with its wing”. They themselves can break a man’s spirit with a single anecdote. However, Sir Martin’s anxiety concerns economic grey swans — likely events with uncertain consequences — rather than the kind that mug joggers on riverbanks. Such worries underpin a cautious take on business confidence that, in turn, raises questions about the sustainability of U.K. earnings. It takes a Boss of Sir Martin’s confidence to add such a gloomy rider to creditable first quarter sales, up 7.4% in constant currencies at £2.8 billion. The subdued appetite for promotion reported by Sir Martin is part of a wider picture of weak U.K. investment accompanied by faltering earnings. Higher dividends are a way to paper over the cracks. Without payback on new ventures — or a surprise global economic rally — these payouts must plateau and then fall. Simon French, senior economist at Panmure Gordon, expects earnings per share for U.K. stocks to drop 10-15% this year. Dividends per share are meanwhile rising about 5%. This long-run trend has left the ratio of the former to the latter at 20-year lows.

Antofagasta sells Chile water business for $1 billion: Miner Antofagasta has sold its water business in Chile for almost $1 billion, strengthening its balance sheet as it tries to develop various projects amid volatile copper prices

Tullow braced for tribunal’s ruling over key Ghana oil block: Tullow Oil, the U.K. exploration and production company, is braced for a crucial decision on Saturday over an oil block at the centre of a dispute between Ghana and the Ivory Coast.

U.K. growth rate set to fall in final official update before election: The recovery is likely to have lost some momentum in the first quarter after retail sales figures disappointed in March, potentially creating a setback for Coalition parties in the final stages of the election campaign.

House price rises in the regions overtake London: House price growth in regional cities including Manchester and Glasgow has outperformed some of central London’s most exclusive boroughs for the first time in a decade

At 0330GMT today, Brent crude oil one month futures contract is trading 0.43% or $0.28 lower at $64.57 per barrel. Yesterday, the contract climbed 3.38% or $2.12, to settle at $64.85 per barrel, after supply concerns rose following reports of renewed violence in Yemen.

British households perceive that the value of their home increased in April, a survey from Knight Frank and Markit Economic showed Friday. The house price sentiment index, or HPSI, rose to 58.2 in March from 57.5 in the previous month. This marked the twenty-fifth consecutive month of the index remaining above 50. A reading above 50 signals a rise in house prices, while a figure below 50 indicates a decline. The latest increase was only moderate as compared to March, suggesting that households believe prices continued to rise in spite of the uncertainty surrounding the outcome of next month's General Election. The future HPSI, a measure of expectations on house prices, climbed for the second straight month to 70.2 in April from 69.6 in March.

Hedge funds bet on rise in sterling Trades contradict Goldman Sachs view that hung parliament would hit UK assets

Hedge funds bet big on oil price rally Move comes as energy companies expect ‘lower for longer’ oil

Qatar buys Claridge's from Barclay brothers Deal ends four years of litigation over control of group including The Berkeley and Connaught

J Sainsbury on Thursday revealed plans to slash 800 jobs as part of a restructuring amid the price war between the UK's biggest supermarkets. The proposals include the loss of department and deputy manager positions which the grocer said to would achieve about £500m of cost savings over the next three years. "Reducing the number of department manager roles will give colleagues who serve customers on tills and restock the shelves the opportunity to extend their hours or take additional shifts," the group said in a statement. "This means more customer-facing colleagues will be on hand to offer service, with the right leadership and structures in place." The company is also looking into replacing night shifts with early morning and evening shifts at more than 100 of its stores to improve availability and service for customers. Changes were made in 33 stores last year. It comes just months after Sainsbury's announced plans to cut 500 jobs at its Manchester, Coventry and Holborn offices. The UK's big four supermarkets, including Sainsbury's, Tesco, Asda and Morrison, have been lowering prices of goods to regain market share from popular smaller discounters including Aldi and Lidl. Last week, Morrison's announced it was cutting 720 head office jobs in order to recruit 5,000 shop floor staff.

Gross lending rose year-on-year for the first time in five months in March, according to the Council of Mortgage Lenders. Lending hit an estimated £16.5bn in March, up 7 per cent on the £15.4bn advanced a year earlier. Not since October has lending been up on an annual basis. An estimated £44.9bn was lent in the first quarter, which is 3 per cent down on Q1 2014. CML chief economist Bob Pannell says: “The underlying lending picture is stabilising. Sentiment and activity are showing early signs of improvement, and should be further supported by the effects of stamp duty reform. “We expect to see lending strengthen over the next few months, albeit from a relatively sluggish start in 2015.”