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LONDON (Alliance News) - The following is a summary of top news stories Monday.
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COMPANIES
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The Conservative Party is to accelerate the sale of the UK government's holdings in Lloyds Banking Group and Royal Bank of Scotland Group, according to the Sunday Times. The newspaper report said government officials are looking into making an early sale of shares in RBS at a loss to taxpayers, while plans for a GBP4 billion retail sale of Lloyds shares as part of the disposal of the remaining stake in the bank also are under examination.
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Barclays and Royal Bank of Scotland Group are set to pay about GBP3 billion in fines over the foreign exchange manipulation scandal, according to the Sunday Times in a report that said the banks are "preparing to plead" guilty to currency rigging. According to the Sunday Times, the fines and guilty please will follow later this week, marking an end into authorities' investigations.
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Nedbank, the South African bank 52%-owned by financial services group Old Mutual, reported higher first-quarter net interest income and non-interest revenue as it deals with tough conditions in South Africa. In a statement, Nedbank said its net interest income increased to ZAR5.81 billion in the three months ended March 31, compared with ZAR5.57 billion in the corresponding quarter of the prior year. Its net interest margin deteriorated to 3.41% from 3.57%.
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New York-listed consumer research company Nielsen Holdings is poised to join the GBP2 billion auction for Tesco's Dunnhumby, the Sunday Times reported. Tesco Chief Executive Dave Lewis hired Goldman Sachs to sell the business, which operates Tesco's clubcard loyalty scheme. Nielsen is understood to have expressed an interest in Dunnhumby, but has not yet tabled an offer, the Sunday Times said.
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Tesco is preparing to sell its mobile business as part of its efforts to slim its business and reduce its debts, the Financial Times reported Saturday. Tesco Mobile is a joint venture with Telefónica UK Ltd's 02 network. TalkTalk Telecom Group and 02 are said to be among the bidders.
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Cairn Energy said it has submitted a three-year evaluation work plan to the government of Senegal, which, if approved, will allow drilling on a new basin around the SNE-1 discovery well later in 2015 to compliment the existing discoveries in the area and could lead to a resource of over 1.0 billion barrels of oil. Cairn and its joint venture partners have submitted the plan, which includes an initial programme of three firm and three optional exploration and appraisal wells in Cairn's new basin play offshore Senegal focused on the acreage around the SNE-1 discovery well. Cairn has a 40% working interest in the SNE-1 well, with ConocoPhillips holding a 35% working interest and Petrosen, the national oil company of Senegal holding the remaining 10%.
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Lonmin said its pretax loss for the first half of the year narrowed despite revenue being hurt by lower commodity prices, as the company focuses on reducing expenditure and costs in preparation for lower prices for a minimum of two years. The FTSE 250 miner reported a pretax loss of USD118 million in the six months ended March 31, narrower than the USD278 million loss in the first half of the 2014 financial year, as a decline in revenue was offset by fewer impairments. In a separate statement, Lonmin said refined platinum production in the second quarter was 122,480 ounces whilst sales came to 119,051 ounces.
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Spirax-Sarco Engineering said its organic revenue was up 4% in the first four months of 2015, and its operating profit was also higher even though exchange rate movements reduced its revenue earned overseas by 1.8% when translated into sterling. In a statement ahead of the company's annual general meeting, the engineer said the normal seasonal growth in its order book hadn't been as strong in the early months of this year compared with the strong growth it saw early in 2015.
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Dignity said revenue rose by almost a quarter in the first three months of its financial year as it handled 19% more deaths than in the year-earlier period, although it expects the spike to normalise over the course of the year as a whole. The company said it made an operating profit, excluding profit or loss on sales of fixed assets and exceptional items, of GBP35.8 million in the 13 weeks to March 27, up from GBP25.8 million in the 13 weeks to March 28, 2014, as revenue rose to GBP85.5 million from GBP69.1 million as it handled 175,000 deaths, up from 147,000.
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MARKETS
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London stocks are mixed mid-morning, with the market awaiting the Bank of England's interest rate decision at 1200 BST and the outcome of Monday's eurogroup meeting addressing Greek debt.
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FTSE 100: up 0.3% at 7,069.31
FTSE 250: down 0.1% at 17,914.08
AIM ALL-SHARE: up 0.4% at 756.64
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GBP: flat at USD1.5436
EUR: down at USD1.1164

GOLD: down at USD1185.85 per ounce
OIL (Brent): down at USD65.10 a barrel

(changes since end of previous GMT day)
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ECONOMICS AND GENERAL
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UK Prime Minister David Cameron is continuing to appoint his top ministerial team after his party won the election with an outright majority on Friday. The top team remains unchanged, with Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne, Home Secretary Theresa May, Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond and Defence Secretary Michael Fallon all retaining their jobs. Michael Gove returns to the cabinet as Justice Secretary, with Chris Grayling moving to become Leader of the House of Commons. Mark Harper takes over from Gove as Conservative Party Chief Whip. Mayor of London Boris Johnson has been asked to devote his time to his final year in that job, but will be attending Cabinet meetings, Cameron tweeted. Sajid Javid is the new Business Secretary, replacing Liberal Democrat Vince Cable who had the job under the previous coalition government. Amber Rudd is the new Energy and Climate Change Secretary, replacing Liberal Democrat Ed Davey.
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China's central bank on Sunday cut interest rates for the third time in six months to reverse an economic slowdown. The People's Bank of China said on its website it would lower its benchmark lending rate by 25 basis points to 5.1%. The measure takes effect on Monday. The bank will also cut its one-year benchmark deposit rates by the same amount to 2.25%. The central bank last cut interest rates on February 28, lowering the one-year benchmark lending rates by 25 basis points to 5.35% and cutting the deposit rates by the same amount to 2.5%.
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China's producer price index fell 4.6% year-on-year in April, its 38th straight month of decline, state-run media reported. "Lower fuel prices and coal production costs mainly caused the acceleration in the month-on-month PPI drop," Yu Qiumei, a senior statistician at the National Bureau of Statistics told the Xinhua news agency. Meanwhile, China's consumer price index rose to 1.5% year-on-year in April from 1.4% in March, state media reported. China has set an annual inflation target at about 3%. The value of China's foreign trade dropped more than 10% in April, according to official figures, state media reported. Foreign trade fell 10.9% to CNY1.96 trillion compared to a year earlier, after discounting seasonal factors, Xinhua reported.
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The growth in the Irish construction sector accelerated sharply in April, as activity, new orders and employment rose at sharper rates, survey figures from Markit Economics showed. The Ulster Bank Construction Purchasing Managers' Index rose notably to 57.2 in April from 52.9 in the previous month. Any reading above 50 indicates expansion in the sector.
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German Chancellor Angela Merkel told reporters in Moscow that Ukraine's territorial integrity must be restored, and that her country would continue to work with Russia to meet that goal. Merkel made the comments at a press conference with Russian President Vladimir Putin after their meeting in the Kremlin. She emphasized that Germany is "working with Russia, not against it." Merkel arrived in Moscow on Sunday to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe. She and Putin laid a wreath at a memorial for Soviet soldiers killed during World War II, and then they discussed bilateral ties and collaboration on finding a solution to the violent conflict in Ukraine.
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French Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said only A400M military transport flights with extreme importance were being flown in the wake of a crash of the aircraft model during testing in Spain on Saturday. "Only the flights with high operational priority will be authorized," Le Drian said after a meeting of defence ministers in northern France. Four of the six Spanish crew members were killed in the crash, said the aircraft manufacturer Airbus. The model was part of the A400 series that was destined for Turkey, but it was still in testing phases when it crashed.
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Conservative challenger candidate Andrzej Duda leads incumbent Bronislaw Komorowski in Poland's presidential election, but failed to secure enough votes to avoid a runoff election. Duda of the conservative Law and Justice party had garnered 34.8% of the vote, compared to 32.2% for Komorowski, who had been considered the favourite going into the race. A second round of voting is to take place in two weeks.
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The main representative body of Syria's exiled opposition said it was boycotting exploratory peace talks launched last week in Geneva by the United Nations. Samir al-Nashar, a member of the Syrian National Coalition, said the Western- and Gulf-backed umbrella group was unhappy that Iran - the main backer of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad - had been invited to the talks. The coalition also feared that it was being marginalized given the large numbers of parties invited to the indirect discussions, which aim at developing the basis for a new round of full negotiations, al-Nashar said.
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South Korea gave warning after North Korea test-fired land and submarine-based missiles over the weekend, a news report said. North Korea's military fired three anti-ship missiles from its east coast on Saturday, South Korea's Defence Ministry said, hours after North Korean media reported the successful test-firing of a submarine-based ballistic missile. Seoul would "mercilessly deal with any provocations," Defence Minister Han Min Koo said Monday, according to Yonhap News Agency. The communist regime in Pyongyang has tested missiles several times this year, but always fired from land.
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A strong typhoon barrelled into the north-eastern Philippines, ripping off roofs and forcing thousands of people to flee their homes, disaster relief officials said. Typhoon Noul packed maximum sustained winds of 185 kilometres per hour and gusts of up to 220 kph as it made landfall over the northeastern province of Cagayan, the weather bureau said.
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