London pre-open: Footsie to continue climbing

8th Sep 2011 07:14

Having climbed back above 5,300 yesterday the Footsie is set to rise further at the outset after Wall Street put in a good shift last night. City sources predict the FTSE 100 will open 22 points up from yesterday's close of 5,319.Supermarket chain Morrisons' focus on value helped it post sales and profits ahead of expectations in the half year to 31 July. Pre-tax profits rose to £449m from £412m the previous year. Turnover climbed to £8.7bn from £8.1bn, while like-for-like sales rose by 2.2%.Analysts at Panmure Gordon had predicted profits of about £440m and like-for-like sales growth of 1.9%, while Nomura had predicted like-for-like sales growth of 2%.Argos and Homebase group Home Retail saw like-for-like (LFL) sales in the former dive 8.6% from a year earlier in the 13 weeks to 27 August, while the latter saw LFL sales fall 3.1% year-on-year. The company said the performance during the quarter was in line with expectations. House builder Redrow's profit before tax surged to £25.3m in the 12 months to the end of June from £0.7m the year before, on revenue that grew 14% to £452.7m. Legal completions in the year increased to 2,626 from 2,587 last year, while the average selling price of private homes rose 12.5% to £174,1000 from £154,800 the year before.Property company British Land has closed and drawn funds on a $480m US private placement bond issue, the largest US private placement transaction by a UK Real Estate Investment Trust. The placement, originally launched at $200m, was three times oversubscribed, prompting the company to increase the size of the issue.--jh