London pre-open: Early gains expected

30th Oct 2009 07:26

Footsie is expected to top up yesterday's gains in early dealings, following a big rise on Wall Street last night.Advertising giant WPP expects the second half to show a marked improvement in profitability and said overall conditions are "less worse". In the third quarter reported revenues rose by 16.7% to £2.007bn.Directories group Yell, which yesterday extended the deadline for its refinancing to 5pm that evening said today that it has made significant progress over the last 24 hours and is now awaiting acceptances from the final two lenders.Rolls-Royce has won a $720m order to supply Trent 700 engines for ten Virgin Atlantic Airbus A330 aircraft. Deliveries for the planes, six of which have been ordered by Virgin Atlantic and four by aircraft leasing company AerCap, will begin in 2011. The contract includes long-term TotalCare service support.Elsewhere in aerospace, aero-engineer and defence systems group Meggitt is trading in line with expectations and said it has seen signs of stabilisation. In the last four months the group said it seen signs of stabilisation in the key macro drivers of its civil aftermarket, namely, air traffic and the number of landings made by the business jet fleet.