PureTech Share News (PRTC)

LONDON (Alliance News) - London shares started the last week of April on the front foot Monday, with the week ahead highlighted by first-quarter earnings from the UK's biggest banks and a policy announcement by the US Federal Reserve.

Standard Chartered will be the first of the FTSE 100 lenders to report, on Tuesday. Barclays reports on Wednesday, Lloyds Banking Group on Thursday, and Royal Bank of Scotland on Friday.

The US central bank provides its latest interest rate decision and monetary policy statement after the London equities close on Wednesday.

Here is what you need to know at the London market open:
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MARKETS
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FTSE 100: up 0.1% at 6,319.49
FTSE 250: up 0.3% at 16,919.78
AIM ALL-SHARE: up 0.1% at 731.91
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Hang Seng: down 0.5% at 21,368.19
Nikkei 225: closed down 0.8% at 17,439.30
DJIA: closed up 0.1% at 18,003.75
S&P 500: closed flat at 2,091.58
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GBP: up at USD1.4425 (USD1.4381)
EUR: flat at USD1.1234 (USD1.1242)

GOLD: down at USD1,233.22 per ounce (USD1,240.70)
OIL (Brent): down at USD44.88 a barrel (USD45.56)

(changes since previous London equities close)
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ECONOMICS AND GENERAL
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Monday's Key Economic Events still to come
(all times in BST)

holiday Italy Liberation Day

09:00 Germany IFO survey
09:00 Ireland retail sales
11:00 UK CBI industrial trends survey
15:00 US new home sales
15:30 US Dallas Fed manufacturing business index
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Britons face chilly temperatures and snow this week, thanks to a blast of Arctic air. Despite the approach of May, forecasters say that summer will feel a long way off. Temperatures will struggle into double figures in the south of the country, but many areas will see highs of just 7 degrees Celsius (47F) - about 4 degrees Celsius below the average for this time of year. Scotland and north-east England will also see gale force winds in exposed areas.
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US President Barack Obama jetted out of Britain on Sunday, as politicians continue to argue over his dramatic intervention in the Brexit battle. Obama provoked a whirlwind of both cheers and jeers during what is likely to be his his final visit to the country as US president. Before leaving, Obama reinforced his stark statement that the UK would be at "the back of the queue" for a beneficial economic arrangement if it breaks away from Brussels.
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Barack Obama begins the last day of his final visit to Germany as president on Monday by touring the Hanover industrial trade fair with Chancellor Angela Merkel, before holding talks with European leaders on global business and security issues. Merkel and Obama officially launched the world's biggest industrial trade fair, the Hannover Messe, on Sunday. The US is for the first time the trade fair's partner country. Obama's two-day visit to Germany is the last port of call on his three-nation trip, which included stops in Britain and Saudi Arabia.
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Obama and Merkel stepped up their campaigns for a US-EU trade deal by calling Sunday for action to accelerate talks to conclude the agreement. "We need to get a move on," said Merkel, at a joint press conference in Hanover with Obama so as to bring to an end the three years of negotiations to complete the trade agreement, which has generated widespread criticism in Germany and Europe. "It is indisputable that free trade has strengthened the US economy and also has brought enormous benefits to countries that engage in it," said Obama.
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Obama has signed off on the deployment of and additional 250 US military personnel to Syria, the Wall Street Journal reported. The plans will be announced Monday in Hanover, Germany, as Obama concludes a week-long overseas trip, according to the report, which quoted unidentified US officials. The expansion would increase the total number of US military personnel operating on the ground inside Syria from 50 to about 300.
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EU finance ministers disagreed Saturday on whether to force large multinational companies into making information on their profits and taxes public, as the bloc reels from the tax-evasion disclosures in the Panama Papers. The massive leak from the Panama-based law firm Mossack Fonseca called into question the finances of numerous politicians, sports stars and celebrities by detailing how money was funnelled to shell companies in tax havens. The European Commission last week proposed that any multinational with annual global revenues of more than EUR750 million operating in the EU should have to publish country-by-country data on their website detailing where they make their profits and where they pay their taxes in the bloc.
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Producer prices in Japan were up 0.2% on year in March, the Bank of Japan said - unchanged from the previous month and in line with expectations. On a monthly basis, prices climbed 0.6% following the flat reading in February.
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A record 175 countries signed the Paris climate agreement during a ceremony Friday at United Nations headquarters, marking the largest number of nations ever signing an international agreement in a single day. The agreement, whose text was passed by nearly 200 countries in Paris in December, is the first universal action plan intended to mitigate the impacts of climate change and hold the rise in global average temperature to below 2 degrees Celsius, compared to pre-industrial levels.
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BROKER RATING CHANGES
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TRADERS: HSBC ADDS LLOYDS TO 'SUPER 10 PORTFOLIO'
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N+1 Upgrades N Brown To Buy From Hold, Target 316p From 400p
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JEFFERIES RAISES TED BAKER TO 'BUY' ('HOLD') - TARGET 3000 (3400) PENCE
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N+1 Initiates PureTech Health At Buy, Price Target 229p
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COMPANIES - FTSE 100
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Up to 11,000 BHS workers face an anxious wait amid fears the high street department store chain is poised to go into administration. Amid reports that BHS could file for administration by Monday, a spokesman said a statement is expected "about BHS's future". He could not give more details. It could end 88 years of trading by British Home Stores, one of the UK's most recognised high street brand names. It would also be the biggest retail failure in the UK since Woolworths folded in 2008 with the loss of almost 30,000 jobs. Sports Direct International has been in talks to buy some of BHS's 164 stores but it is understood that any company would only buy the shops if it did not have to take on its GBP571 million pension deficit, according to the BBC.
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Vodafone Group said the number of active customers using its mobile phone-based money transfer and financing service M-Pesa has increased to over 25 million. In the year to end-March, customer numbers increased by 27% to 25.3 million across Africa, Asia and Europe, Vodafone said. This growth was supported by market launches in Albania and Ghana.
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US software giant Microsoft and UK-based engineer Rolls-Royce Holdings announced they are collaborating to bring new capabilities to Rolls-Royce customers. Rolls-Royce will integrate Microsoft Azure IoT Suite and Cortana Intelligence Suite into its service solutions to expand its digital capabilities to support the current and next generation of Rolls-Royce intelligent jet engines. With this collaboration, engine management will move beyond the current levels of proactive monitoring of engine health and inflight performance, they said.
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Bob Diamond's investment vehicle Atlas Merchant Capital has teamed up with US private equity group Carlyle Group to prepare a joint bid for Barclays's stake in Barclays Africa Group, according to a media report, citing people familiar with the situation. Diamond and Carlyle have yet to make a formal approach to Barclays for the assets and bid preparations, first reported by Sky, are at an early stage, the people added.
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Ball Corp said it and Rexam have entered into an agreement with Ardagh Group to sell select metal beverage can assets, support locations and functions in Europe, Brazil and the US for approximately USD3.42 billion in connection with Ball's proposed acquisition of Rexam. Ball expects to close on its proposed offer for Rexam by the end of June.
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COMPANIES - FTSE 250
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Allied Minds reported a widened pretax loss in what it called a "successful" 2015, as it increased investment in creating four new businesses and developing its existing businesses towards commercialisation. Allied Minds funds and develops start-up companies in the science and technology space. It reported a pretax loss of USD98.0 million for 2015, widened from USD57.7 million in 2014, mostly as a result of higher selling, general and administrative expenses, and a big step up in research and development costs. Allied Minds said its group subsidiary ownership adjusted value, a key metric for the company, rose to USD535.8 million as at the end of 2015 from USD488.0 million at the end of 2014.
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COMPANIES - LONDON MAIN MARKET AND AIM
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Online gaming company GVC Holdings said its pretax profit fell in 2015 due to exceptional costs related to the takeover of larger rival Bwin.Party Digital Entertainment, but it posted higher net gaming revenue and increased its dividend. GVC said its pretax profit for the year to the end of December was EUR25.5 million, compared to EUR41.3 million in 2014, primarily due to the EUR24.5 million in one-off charges booked from the acquisition of Bwin. Net gaming revenue, however, grew to EUR247.7 million from EUR224.8 million, driven by sports wagers rising 15% to EUR1.7 billion from EUR1.5 billion. GVC said its total dividend payout for the year will rise to 56.0 euro cents, up from 55.0 euro cents a year earlier.
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COMPANIES - INTERNATIONAL
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Swiss drug maker Novartis plans to sell its CHF13.5 billion stake in Roche and has already hired banks to support the selling process, Sonntagszeitung reported.
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Dutch consumer electronics giant Philips Electronics said its net income for the first quarter fell to EUR37 million from last year's EUR100 million, mainly impacted by tax charges related to the Philips Lighting separation. Sales, however, for the quarter rose slightly to EUR5.5 billion from EUR5.34 billion a year ago. On a comparable basis, sales rose 3% during the quarter, driven by 5% growth in the HealthTech portfolio.
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Monday's Scheduled AGMs/EGMs

Hammerson
Biome Technologies
Minoan Group
Sterling Energy
TBC Bank
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By Tom Waite; thomaslwaite@alliancenews.com; @thomaslwaite

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