London pre-open: Light at end of RBS tunnel

24th Feb 2011 07:34

London cannot seem to find forward gear this week, with concerns about Libyan and the soaring oil price continuing to weigh on investors' minds.The blue-chip index is expected to dive below 5,900 at the outset, with City sources predicting a fall of around 35 points from yesterday's close of 5,924.Taxpayer-owned Royal Bank of Scotland stayed in the red last year, though lower impairment charges meant the deficit was sharply reduced. Pre-tax losses came in at £239m in 2010, down from £1.93bn, with the bank posting a small profit in the last three months of the year.RSA Insurance Group's net written premiums rose 11% (8% at constant exchange rates) to £7,455m in 2010 from £6,737m in 2009, with profitable top line growth seen in all regions. The combined operating ratio deteriorated to 96.4% from 94.6% in 2009, with 3.5 points of the ratio being attributed to bigger than usual losses related to adverse weather conditions. Profit before tax eased 14% to £474m from £554m the year before.Profits soared at British Gas owner Centrica in the year to 31 December as the cold weather towards the end of last year forced homeowners to crank up the heating. Pre-tax profits climbed to £2.8bn from £996m the previous year on revenues that rose to £22.4bn from £22bn.FTSE 100 engineer Invensys has won its third long term contract with China Nuclear Power Engineering. The latest contract is for the provision of safety and distributed control systems and solutions for the Fuqing Nuclear Power Plant being built in the Fujian province in southeast China.