London pre-open: Heading higher

2nd Aug 2010 07:29

A late recovery on Wall Street Friday helped the Dow Jones erase losses, paving the way for a decent start to the week in London.Futures prices currently indicate a 50-point rally for the FTSE 100 in early deals.In company news, property group Hammerson reported a 7% rise in half year profit as its markets continued to recover from the recession over the first half of 2010, but cautioned that the outlook remains uncertain. Adjusted pre-tax profit rose to £70.2m in the six months ended 30 June from £65.6m last time, thanks to lower finance costs, new lettings and rent reviews. Net rental income dropped to £140m from £156.4m, due to property disposals in 2009, but like-for-like net rental income was up 5%. British Land and Blackstone Group have signed leases with Swiss bank UBS to develop a new 700,000 sq ft building on the site of 4 and 6 Broadgate, in the City of London. The new building represents a significant commitment by UBS to the City and Broadgate in particular, British Land said. UBS is currently the largest tenant in Broadgate and negotiations over its renewing its presence on the site had been ongoing for months.Development costs will be around £340m (excluding land and interest costs) with the practical completion to shell and core scheduled for the second half of 2014. The deal is estimated to have a total value of about £600m. It will be seen as an especially good deal for Blackstone, which acquired half of the Broadgate estate last summer after property prices had slumped following the credit crunch.Randgold Resources revised production guidance for its Loulo gold mine in Mali downwards following what it called a 'difficult quarter.' The miner said processing throughput was affected by a series of power outages that exacerbated the impact of downtime resulting from the bedding down of the Loulo plant expansion project. Loulo's output for 2010 would still be within 5-10% of the original forecast of 400 000 ounces and processing throughput should be back at the planned level by the fourth quarter of this year. Engineering contractor WS Atkins is buying Florida-based professional services firm PBSJ Corporation for $280m (£178m) in cash following a first quarter that went as planned. PBSJ, owned by its 3,500 employees, provides engineering, planning, architecture, construction, environmental and programme management services. In the year to September 2009 it generated EBITDA of $47m on gross revenue of $799m. Today's deal means just over half of the UK firm's revenue will be secured in the UK, around a third in the US and one sixth from elsewhere. In a separate statement, trading in the first quarter is reported to have been in line with expectations.