Economics
Housing supply Projections from the Department for Communities and
Local Government show an annual rate of growth in the number of households
in England from 2004 to 2026 of 223,000 compared with 209,000 previously
estimated.
US core consumer prices rose modestly in February while production by
the nation’s factories, mines and utilities was unexpectedly strong,
according to data that seemed to reduce chances of interest rate cuts any
time soon. The Consumer Price Index compiled by the US Labor Department rose
0.4 per cent after a 0.2 per cent January rise, while core prices were up
0.2 per cent after a 0.3 per cent January gain.
US consumer sentiment A University of Michigan report showed that
recent news about layoffs, softer stock and home prices and worry about
mortgage defaults was taking a toll on consumers’ spirits. The consumer
sentiment index for March slipped to 88.8, down from 91.3 in the previous
month. It was the weakest reading for the index in six months.
China sought to ease concerns that changes in the composition of its
huge stockpile of foreign reserves could hit global foreign exchange markets
and especially the US dollar. China’s premier, Wen Jiabao, said that plans
to form a new agency to invest part of the country’s swollen foreign
exchange reserves, the world’s biggest at more than $1,000 billion, would
not have an adverse impact on the US dollar.
Banking
& finance
Up 1.49%
Blackstone, one of the world’s largest buyout groups, is preparing for
an initial public offering just weeks after its chief executive dismissed
the public markets as overrated.
Aberdeen Asset Management yesterday paid out £49.7 million to settle
allegations in connection with the split capital investment trust scandal.
Abbey National’s bad debts rose 58 per cent to £344 million last
year as the British mortgage bank suffered from its exposure to unsecured
personal loans. The increase in credit provisions was more than the €387
million (£310 million) previously disclosed by Santander, Abbey’s owner,
when it reported group full-year results last month.
Construction
& property
Up 2.68%
Delek Global Real Estate, the Jersey-incorporated property investment
arm of Israeli company Delek, said it plans to list on AIM after a private
placement of shares with institutional investors in a price range of £2.25
to £2.90 each.
Redrow, the housebuilder, said Robert Jones is resigning as chairman
with effect from March 30 owing to deteriorating health. Senior nonexecutive
director Jim Martin will be interim chairman until a new chairman is
appointed.
Consumer
goods
Up 4.04%
Nestlé said it had opened a milk processing plant in Kabirwala,
Punjab, with a processing capacity of two million litres of milk per day,
its largest milk processing facility in the world. Production will rise to
more than three million litres in the coming years.
Engineering
Up 2.61%
Boeing has announced the end of production for the passenger version of
the Boeing 747-400, the largest commercial jet currently in service. The
last four orders for passenger versions of the 747-400 have been scrapped.
The company did not say who had ordered the four planes. The 400 series is
the best-selling version of the 747 and will be replaced by the 747-8.
Nissan Motor Company said it will reduce production at two of its
plants from April as a result of sluggish sales in Japan. Output will be
reduced at the Oppama plant in Kanagawa prefecture and at Tochigi.
Siemens, the German engineering firm, said it had won a €42 million
(£29 million) order to expand the rolling and processing capacity of a plant
owned by Turkish steel company Borcelik Celik Sanayii Ticaret. The project
also includes the supply of a new reversing mill and galvanising line as
well as the upgrading of the existing pickle line.
Airbus Despite a walkout by workers across four countries yesterday,
The Timeshas learnt that British unions are prepared to back Airbus’s
controversial restructuring programme.
Nissan Carlos Ghosn, head of Renault-Nissan, is to take personal charge
of Nissan’s finances in an effort to put the Japanese carmaker on the road
to recovery.
DaimlerChrysler has given Sogeade, a French company, a pre-emptive
right to a 7.5 per cent stake in EADS under an agreement reached by key
French and German shareholders.
Seat, the ailing Spanish subsidiary of German carmaker Volkswagen, is
planning further cuts that could include the loss of 10 per cent of its
workforce, or 1,300 jobs, by 2009, a VW spokesman said.
Health
Up 0.74%
EndoPharmaceuticals, the drug-maker, and Vernalis, a biotech company,
said that the Food and Drug Administration will take three months longer to
review their marketing application to expand the use of Frova, which they
hope to get approved for short-term prevention of menstrual migraine.
Ranbaxy Laboratories, India’s largest pharmaceutical company, was given
the green light by US regulators to produce a generic version of Ambien, the
most commonly prescribed treatment for insomnia in the US.
Industrials
Up 1.09%
Reliance Industries of India is close to signing a deal with America’s
Dow Chemical for a joint venture valued at about $20 billion (£10.2
billion), according to The Times of India.
Leisure
Up 1.80%
Coffee Republic, the coffee chain, said it had signed a franchise
agreement that will see the brand launched in Turkey in July.
Rocco Forte Hotels said it had sold the five-star St David’s Hotel and
Spa in Cardiff to Principal Hotels for £32.5 million.
Media
Up 1.93%
Avanti Screenmedia Group slipped to a pretax loss in the first half
because of erratic revenue flows in its Screenmedia business and the adverse
timing of certain large contracts. The company set the terms of its
previously announced demerger of its satellite communications business, with
shareholders receiving one Avanti Communications share for each Avanti
Screenmedia share held.
Natural
resources
Up 3.44%
BG Group is warning that Britain’s remaining oil and gas could remain
undiscovered unless the Chancellor, changes the North Sea tax regime.
Mwana Africa, the London-listed miner, has launched a hostile takeover
bid for SouthernEra, which will create the largest diamond producer in the
Democratic Republic of Congo. The £31 million deal will give Mwana control
of the area that produced the world’s fourth largest diamond, the 890 carat
“Incomparable”.
Tin rose to a record of $13,970 a tonne on the London Metal Exchange on
worries about supply disruptions in Indonesia. Three-month tin contracts
rose from Thursday’s close of $13,750. Tin has gained more than 20 per cent
since January.
Global Coal Management said its first-half pretax loss had widened on a
one-time £834,000 charge related to valuation of options issued during the
period as it posted a loss for the year to December of £1.03 million
compared with a loss of £355,000 in the previous period.
TNK-BP Russia has threatened to withdraw TNK-BP’s licence to operate
the Kovykta gasfield and auction it off to Russian companies.
Retailing
Up 1.92%
J Sainbury is bracing for a preliminary takeover offer of up to £9.5
billion from the private equity firm CVC and its partners as early as next
week.
Debenhams Fears over difficult post-Christmas trading conditions on the
high street were fuelled as Debenhams, the department store group, revealed
trading had worsened in February.
Flying Brands, the Jersey-based home shopping group, said its full-year
pretax profit remained flat at £5.3 million, partly owing to weak autumn
trading in its Garden division. It also said it expects higher distribution
costs to have a negative impact on its 2007 earnings.
Benetton Group yesterday named Gerolamo Caccia Domin-ioni, a Warner
Music executive, as chief executive.
Support
services
Up 1.62%
Paypoint, which operates electronic bill payment terminals, said
trading had been ahead of analysts’ forecasts, sending its shares up 12 per
cent to 640p to lead the FTSE 250. The company said transaction volumes and
revenues for the 11 months to the end of February rose 29 per cent and 32
per cent respectively, with operating margins running at a similar level to
the same period a year ago.
Technology
Up 3.12%
Computer Software Group Michael Jackson, the former chairman of Sage
Group, is leading a £100 million management buyout of Computer Software, the
AIM-listed supplier of software to Premiership football clubs.
Wunderloop A technology company backed by Niklas Zennström, the
co-founder of Skype, is set to create the first market where web-site owners
can trade profiles of individual users’ behaviour. Wunder-loop makes
technology that allows sites to build profiles of users by monitoring their
behaviour online.
Livedoor The Japanese “trial of the century” ended yesterday in Tokyo
with a guilty verdict and a 2½ year prison sentence for Takafumi Horie, the
disgraced internet guru.
Telecoms
Up 2.25%
Vodafone Group announced plans to acquire the remaining stakes in its
German fixed-line unit Arcor, in which it currently holds 74 per cent, from
fellow shareholders Deutsche Bank and Deutsche Bahn.
Royal KPN, the Dutch telecoms group, said it can lower its prices
without any effect on its margins, after EU telecoms ministers decided in
principle to cut mobile phone roaming fees, possibly as early as summer.
Separately, it declined to comment on a newspaper report that it is
preparing to buy Getronics, although it confirmed it is looking to expand in
the ICT sector.
Transport
Up 1.50%
National Express is planning to roll out a loyalty scheme that will
reward customers according to the environmental credentials of their
journey.
Gulf Air Bahrain plans to increase its stake in Gulf Air to 80 per cent
from 50 per cent through a cash injection of up to 500 million dinars (£683
million). From the 1970s, Gulf Air was the joint carrier of Abu Dhabi,
Bahrain, Oman and Qatar, but Gulf Arab states have increasingly moved
towards creating their own national carriers.
Russia’s state air control service gave warning that it might bar
access to the nation’s skies to several carriers from European Union nations
because of alleged violations of flight rules.
Utilities
Up 1.15%
Iberdrola reportedly asked the Spanish Government to suspend the voting
rights of Actividades de Construccion y Servicios, the construction company
and shareholder in the Basque utility, ahead of an annual meeting this
month. Spain’s energy watchdog last month cleared a request by ACS to lift
the existing 3 per cent cap on its voting rights in Iberdrola.
E.ON The European Commission received Spain’s response to its
complaints over conditions that Madrid has imposed on E.ON’s €41 billion
(£28 billion) bid to buy Endesa, Spain’s biggest electricity company.
sectors@thetimes.co.uk
Up/Down = sector index percentage change on day
