London pre-open: EU decision sparks rise

31st Jan 2012 07:23

City sources predict the FTSE 100 will open up 26 points from yesterday's close of 5,671, buoyed by news that heads of government across the European Union have given their backing for great fiscal integration in the continent. With the exception of two EU member states, on Monday all voted in favour of the move which had been proposed by France and Germany last December. Chip designer ARM Holdings saw full-year revenues rise 21% from £406.6m to £491.8m in the 12 months ended December 31st. Pre-tax profits jumped 37% from £167.4m to £229.7m, while earnings per share rose from 9.34p to 12.45p. Meanwhile, the full-year gross margin, excluding share-based payments costs of £3.5m, improved from 94.3% to 95.1% in 2011. The board has recommended a final dividend of 2.09p per share, up 20% on the year before. This gives a total dividend of 3.48p, also an increase of 20%.Half year results from BSkyB, the pay TV, telephony and Internet service provider, showed the company's decision to freeze prices paying off. Revenue in the second half of 2011 rose 6% year-on-year while underlying earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) advanced 14% to £772m from £677m the year before. Focusing on the final quarter of 2011, the company said total net product growth of 772,000 (+13%) took the number of products being taken by its customers up to 26.8m. The company added 100,000 new households in the final quarter to take the customer base up to 10.471m. Babcock International, the engineering and support services firm, said it traded in line with expectations in the final quarter of 2011 with the order book and bid pipeline remaining stable. John Browett, who has been battling to turn around the struggling Dixons Retail empire, is to quit the company to become Senior Vice President of Retail operations at Apple, the US consumer electronics giant. The owner of the PC World and Currys chains said Browett will be succeeded by Sebastian James, who will join the group board on February 20th, the same day Browett steps down from the board. Browett will leave Dixons on April 20th following a hand-over period.