London pre-open: Advance to continue at more sedate pace

28th Oct 2011 07:21

There is still a bullish outlook in London following the Brussels summit meeting announcement on Wednesday night, but gains are expected to be modest at the outset with the FTSE 100 tipped to open around 28 points up from yesterday's close of 5,714. Advertising conglomerate WPP saw like-for-like (LFL) revenues rise by 4.7% from a year ago in the third quarter, a deceleration in LFL growth from the 5.6% seen in the second quarter. Gross margin was up 5.5%. Reported revenues rose by 9.0% to £2.46bn, by 13.1% in US dollars to $3.95bn and up 3.6% in Euros to €2.80bn. Revenues, in constant currencies, were up 8.5%, chiefly reflecting the comparative weakness of sterling. Preliminary figures project full year like-for-like revenue growth of 5.0% and gross margin growth of 5.7%. "Although this implies a reduction in the top line growth rate in the fourth quarter, the two year revenue and gross margin growth remains strong in line with the rest of the first three quarters and, even more importantly, operating margins show continuous improvement in the fourth quarter, beyond the first half achieved improvement of 0.7 margin points," the company said. Property giant Hammerson has agreed to exercise the option to sell a further 24% interest in O'Parinor shopping centre, Aulnay-sous-Bois, near Paris to a client of Rockspring Property Investment Managers. The potential sale was flagged in the announcement of the disposal last year of a 51% stake in the property. Hammerson's net proceeds from the sale are €106m.In what is likely to be the last trading update by Charter International before it is taken over by US manufacturing firm Colfax, the UK engineering firm saw third quarter underlying operating profit rise to £34.8m from £26.8m in the corresponding quarter of last year, on revenue that jumped to £340.8m from £288.8m.