London pre-open: Footsie to start lower

8th Jun 2009 07:40

Banking shares are likely to be in focus Monday morning after updates from both Barclays and Lloyds. Traders expect Footsie to drop 25 points early on. Barclays has confirmed talks are underway with US firm BlackRock over the future over its fund management arm Barclays Global Investors (BGI), which includes its iShares business. Reports over the weekend suggested Barclays is poised to conclude a deal that would see BlackRock buy BGI for £8.1bn, with Barclays to take up to a 20% stake in the combined business. Part-nationalised bank Lloyds Banking said its compensatory open offer received acceptances in respect of 87% of the shares on offer. The joint book-runners of the issue will now attempt to place the unsold shares in the market at a price of not less than 38.3p, being the price at which the shares were offered to Lloyds' shareholders.Soft drinks group AG Barr said overall trading remains in line with expectations with sunny weather boosting sales in the latter half of May. Total revenue for the period from 1 February to 29 May increased by 22.5% compared to the same period last year. Like for like sales, taking out the effect of the Rubicon acquisition, are up by 7.9%.Water group Pennon Group is beefing up its waste management arm with the purchase of London Recycling Limited. Viridor Waste Management, a subsidiary of Pennon, is paying £11m in cash for West Ham based London Recycling, a company which runs a full range of recycling operations.Workspace Group, which provides business premises for small and medium sized businesses, plunged deeper into the red as a result of property write-downs but traded profitably at the operating level. In the year to 31 March 2009 the company made a trading profit after interest charges of £10m, up 12.3% from £8.9m the year before.Yellow Pages publisher Yell has appointed Bob Wigley as its new chairman. He will take up his new job following the Annual General Meeting in July.Teenager clothes specialist JD Sports reported a 1.7% rise in like for like sales growth in the period from 1 February to 30 May but warned that maintaining the gross margin comparative with the previous year may prove increasingly challenging later in the year.