London open: Footsie rising again

5th Mar 2010 08:47

UK equities have opened firmly helped by another good session on Wall St and more gains for the banks. Schroders, Royal Bank of Scotland, Barclays and Standard Chartered lead the financials higher, while Fresnillo, Lonmin and Xstrata are strong among the miners.Swiss group Glencore International has confirmed it will exercise its option to buy back the Prodeco thermal coal operations in Colombia from Xstrata for $2.25bn, plus any profits accrued but not distributed by Xstrata since 1 January 2009.WPP has been hit hard by the recession and slump in advertising spend, but headline profit before tax fell less than expected during a "brutal" 2009 and there was an encouraging return to stability in January. Headline profit before tax for the 12 months to 31 December fell 16%, or 24% at constant currency, to £812.2m, although analysts had expected something nearer £780m.Defence company BAE Systems has halved its stake in Swedish aerospace group contractor Saab. BAE will convert 1.05m Saab 'A' shares in to Saab 'B' shares and will then sell 11.2m Saab 'B' shares to Swedish investment company Investor AB for SEK 1,066m, equivalent to 95.50 Swedish krona (SEK) per share. Full-year figures from business publisher United Business Media (UBM) were ahead of expectations in a "tough" year and the outlook for underlying performance in 2010 is "stable". The shares shot to the top of the risers on the back of the comments. An adjusted profit before tax of £165.1m was down 4% from £171.5m in 2008, but topped forecasts of a bigger drop to £150m. Revenue also fell a smaller then expected 4% to £847.6m. Profits slumped by 85% last year as recruiter Michael Page felt the full force of the recession, though some of its markets are starting to recover and its expects an improvement this year. Revenue for 2009 was down 26.3% at £716.7m (2008: £972.8m) and by 31.5% allowing for weak sterling. Pre-tax profits crashed to £21.1m from £140.1m.Investment trust giant Foreign & Colonial saw its net asset value per share jump 18.8% to 304.7p in 2009, despite a 13.1% fall in the value of its private equity portfolio.Hochschild Mining's executive chairman Eduardo Hochschild has bought the miner's 36.9% stake in Zincore Metals for C$10.3m. The firm acquired the Zincore stake with acqusition of Southwestern Resources in May 2009, but now says it does not constitute a core asset for the company.