London pre-open: Lloyds to slim down

30th Jun 2011 07:49

Everything looks copacetic in London with concerns over the Greek debt situation on the back-burner following yesterday's vote in the Greek parliament in favour of introducing austerity measures. City traders expect the Footsie will open around 20 points up from last night's close of 5,856.Banking giant Lloyds Banking Group is set to present the results of its strategic overview to the investment community today in which it will unveil plans to simplify the group to improve service, and deliver £1.15bn of annual savings in 2014.The group plans to streamline its international presence, from 30 countries to less than half that number, by 2014. Expectations for 2011 performance remain broadly unchanged to those given in the interim management statement on 5 May.BG Group, the gas and oil titan, has doubled the estimate of how much oil there might be in its Santos Basin site, 300 km off the coast of Brazil, from 4bn barrels of oil equivalent to 8bn.Oilfield services firm Wood Group has seen good growth in the year to date and expects full-year numbers to be in line. The company said that trading in its Engineering division and a strong order book continue to support its expectations of good EBITA (earnings before interest, tax and amortisation) growth in 2011. --jh