London pre-open: Dull start expected

12th Oct 2010 07:35

London looks set to begin the day on the back foot with traders predicting the blue-chip index will open around 34 points down from last night's close.There have been few surprises in the major corporate news this morning. Pub owner Punch Taverns has served up full-year results in line with expectations and announced plans to sell another 1,300 pubs to help pay off its huge debts. In his first set of numbers as chief executive, Ian Dyson reported a drop in pre-tax profit to £131m compared with £160m in 2009. Like for like sales at the managed estate were down 2% on last year, but things picked up in the second half, especially in the final quarter. Like sales for the last 12 weeks rose 2.6%.Internet and catalogue home shopping company N. Brown said total revenue in the 26 weeks to 28 August rose 3.2% to £349.7m from £338.7m a year earlier, more or less what the market had been forecasting. Like for like sales grew by 0.6%. Profit before tax rose to £42.3m from £33.3m in the first half of the previous year. Engineering software firm Aveva said performance in the first half of its financial year was in line with the board's expectations. "Our strong base of recurring revenue, together with good growth in developing markets, continues to help mitigate the impact of economic uncertainty," said Richard Longdon, chief executive of Aveva.