LONDON (Alliance News) - The following is a summary of top news stories Wednesday.
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COMPANIES
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J Sainsbury PLC Wednesday said Chief Executive Officer Justin King will step down in July after 10 years at the helm and will be succeeded by Mike Coupe, currently the group's commercial director. The supermarket chain said King will stand down at the company's annual general meeting on July 9, and Coupe will continue as group commercial director and chief executive officer designate in the interim. It said John Rogers will continue in his role as chief financial officer.
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Royal Dutch Shell PLC announced an agreement to sell a 23% stake in the Parque das Conchas project offshore Brazil for USD1 billion. The major oil and gas company said the sale of the interest is to Qatar Petroleum International and is subject to approval by certain agencies in Brazil. Shell will continue to hold a 50% working interest in the site and be the operator, retaining a significant presence in Brazil. Shell currently operates two floating, production, storage and offloading vessels in Brazil's offshore fields.
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Anglo American PLC said it has increased production in its fourth quarter for all of its major metals. The major mining company said its Kumba Iron Ore Production in South Africa increased by 25% to 11.3 million tonnes in the three months ending 2013, compared from the previous year, mainly due to a strike in the fourth quarter of 2012 which slowed operations.
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Antofagasta PLC said it has achieved record copper production in the full year 2013, but said its gold and molybdenum production fell during the year. The major mining company with operations in Chile also guided that 2014 production of all three metals will be below 2013 levels. Antofagasta said its copper production increased 1.6% during the year ended December 31, 2013 to 721,200 tonnes from 709,600 tonnes the previous year, with a particularly strong fourth quarter which saw a 4.9% increase in production to 182,900 tonnes compared to its third quarter.
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ITV PLC said it will be launching a new pay TV channel, ITV Encore, as part of a wider four-year partnership with British Sky Broadcasting Group PLC. Additionally, ITV's content will be made available across BSkyB's platforms including Sky+HD, Sky Go, Sky Store and its on demand service NOW TV. The new channel is ITV's first new channel launch in eight years, and it will show ITV's drama series as well as new original commissions.
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Wealth manager Brewin Dolphin Holdings PLC said the funds it manages rose in the first quarter, while total income increased by 6.5% to GBP69.6 million because of strong growth in its core income from discretionary, advisory and execution only services. In a statement, Brewin Dolphin said the total funds it manages or advises on rose to GBP28.9 billion from GBP28.2 billion during the three months to December 29, 2013.
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Samsung Electronics Co Ltd said it had signed a deal for Carphone Warehouse Group PLC to operate over 60 of its Samsung stand-alone stores across Europe, and said there was the potential to further expand the store partnership in the future. The deal comes after Samsung opened three stand-alone stores in Spain run by Carphone Warehouse in 2013. The new stores, which will sell Samsung mobile products including phones, tablets, and laptops, will be rolled out in the next three months across seven European markets: the UK, Ireland, Germany, Spain, Portugal, Sweden and the Netherlands.
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Luxury goods provider Mulberry Group PLC issued a profit warning after reporting a fall in retail sales in the last 8 weeks as it was hit by the discounting seen in the UK sector over Christmas, and a challenging Korean wholesale market. The maker of women's bags, clothes and accessories, among other luxury items, said total retail sales fell 3% in the 17 weeks to January 25, even though its international retail sales were up 40% over the period. Total retail sales had been up 3% in the nine weeks to end-November, but then fell 7% in the following 8 weeks.
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MARKETS
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The UK's main stock indices are gaining, led higher by mining stocks after two of the world's biggest miners, Anglo American and Antofagasta, announced positive production numbers. Global sentiment in equities in general has also been shored up, ahead of the FOMC decision later Wednesday, by the dramatic action of the Turkish central bank, which sharply raised its interest rates to shore up its currency.
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FTSE 100: up 23.35 at 6,595.82
FTSE 250: up 127.62 at 15,843.45
AIM ALL-SHARE: up 4.14 at 863.25
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GBP-USD: up at USD1.6581
EUR-USD: up at USD1.3678
GOLD: up at USD1,257.27 per ounce
OIL (Brent): down at USD107.16 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 the fastest pace in more than three-and-half years in January, supported by strong growth in employment, record low mortgage rates and rising confidence, data from a survey by the Nationwide Housing Society showed. The house price index climbed 8.8% annually in January, marking the fastest growth since May 2010, when prices rose by 9.8%. Prices are around 4% below their 2007 peak. Economists were looking for an 8.5% gain for January. In December, the index recorded an 8.4% increase.
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Turkey's central bank lifted its key interest rates aggressively at an emergency midnight policy meeting to combat the weakness in the lira and high inflation. The one-week repo rate was more than doubled to 10% from 4.5%, the central bank, led by Erdem Basci, announced late Tuesday. The Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey raised its overnight lending rate to 12% from 7.75% and the overnight borrowing rate to 8% from 3.5%. Last week, the central bank left its main policy rates unchanged, apparently yielding to political pressure.
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Europe was bracing Wednesday for flight disruptions, as air traffic controllers launched two days of work stoppages to protest plans by the EU to liberalize airspace control. The biggest disruptions were expected in France, Italy and Portugal. A range of different labour actions were also expected in Austria, Bulgaria, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Greece, Hungary, Malta, Slovakia and Slovenia, according to the Eurocontrol association. Air traffic controllers in Germany had also initially been expected to strike, but their industrial action was cancelled.
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New commercial vehicle sales in Europe grew modestly last year and was the third lowest in the series, the European Automobile Manufacturers Association (ACEA) said. Commercial vehicle registrations rose 1% to 1,711,843 units from 1,695,294 units in 2012. Despite the increase, this was the third lowest level since the start of the series in 1997 in absolute figures, the Brussels-based ACEA said.
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There is no panic situation as seen in May when talks of scaling back of bond purchases by Federal Reserve rattled global capital markets, a top International Monetary Fund official said Tuesday. The recent instability stems from problems in a subset of emerging market countries, Jose Vinals, financial counselor and head of the Monetary and Capital Markets Department at the IMF said. Vinals said, "So far this is the combination of idiosyncratic factors." He said emerging markets should take more steps to cushion their economies from external shocks.
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US President Barack Obama Tuesday called for "a year of action" to make progress in the recovering US economy while combatting inequality and expanding opportunity for Americans. In his annual State of the Union message to Congress, Obama promised action against inequality, even if he has to act on his own without Congressional action. He asked Congress to raise the income floor to USD10.10 an hour.
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Ukraine's parliament was Wednesday due to debate an amnesty for protesters, a day after the country's prime minister and cabinet resigned and legislators repealed stringent protest laws to appease anti-government demonstrators. Parliament was expected to agree to free people detained in connection with the protests that have hit the capital and other cities for more than a week, according to Radio Svoboda, the Ukraine service of US-based Radio Liberty. President Viktor Yanukovych has said he wants the amnesty to be conditional on protesters leaving occupied public buildings and removing barricades.
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The Syrian opposition said it was determined to keep the focus of direct peace talks with the government on the establishment of a transitional governing body. Sources in the Syrian National Coalition told dpa that they would be tabling a paper on establishing the transitional authority in line with the framework for the talks agreed by sponsoring powers the US and Russia. Negotiations stalled on Monday and Tuesday as the opposition accused the government delegation of failing to engage with the key elements of the so-called 2012 Geneva I communique.
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2 Sep 2014 10:18
