London pre-open: Rally seen after eurozone rescue

10th May 2010 07:35

World stock markets are set to rally Monday after global authorities put together a £650bn rescue deal they hope will sort out the Greek debt crisis once and for all.European Union finance ministers agreed the €750bn EU and International Monetary Fund bailout fund in talks over the weekend. The three-year plan includes €60bn (£52bn) from the EU Commission, €440bn (£381bn) from the 16-nation eurozone and €250bn (£216bn) from the IMF.City bookmakers predict London's FTSE 100 will open up about 130 points, reclaiming some of last week's losses. US futures prices are already pointing to a 300-point surge in Wall Street later.Centrica remains positive about the earnings outlook for 2010 as British Gas has added over 200,000 residential energy accounts so far this year and the upstream UK business maintains production targets. The group said its UK residential energy supply business British Gas had a "very strong" start to the year, with the number of joint energy and services households it serves up 50,000.Mining company Anglo American is to get out of the zinc business, selling its portfolio of zinc assets to Vedanta Resources. Vedanta is paying $1,338m for Anglo American Zinc on an attributable, debt and cash free basis.South African platinum miner Lonmin bounced back into the black at the interim stage on sharply increased revenue. Profit before tax for the six months to 31 March was $77m compared to a loss of $196m a year earlier. Revenue grew to $661m from $436m at the interim stage last year.BG Group has boosted its US shale gas interests with the acquisition of a 50% stake in partner EXCO's acreage in the Appalachian Basin at a total cost of $950m. The deal will see BG acquire a 50% interest in a total of 654,000 net acres in the Appalachian Basin and increase its estimated net gas resources by 2.4trn standard cubic feet. The consideration amounts to a unit resource cost of $0.40 per thousand cubic feet (mcf).Tougher competition and higher costs on some newer public sector contracts have hit contractor and support services group Interserve's performance so far in 2010. "Overall, the business is performing in line with expectations, but trading during 2010 to date remains challenging in Support Services and Equipment Services, such that the second half weighting of profits will be more pronounced than usual," it added.