London pre-open: Small gains for Footsie

29th Mar 2011 07:32

London is expected to creep higher Tuesday, according to the latest futures prices.Travel company Thomas Cook has kept its estimate of disruption from the uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia to £20m and says, overall, the business is performing well. Bookings, capacity and booked load factors across all markets are lower than previously reported for winter season holidays though, mainly due to cancellations following the unrest in North Africa. But summer holiday bookings are ahead of last year in many areas. "It is a weaker picture in the UK where recent trading has also been affected by fragile consumer sentiment. In response, we have taken a more prudent approach to capacity," Cook said.Defence firm Cobham has won a contract worth more than £18m to provide chaff and flare defensive aids systems for the Eurofighter Typhoon fighter jet Tranche 3A programme. The contract runs from mid-2012 to the end of 2014. As a Eurofighter supplier company, Cobham will be the system integrator for the chaff and flare equipment which is delivered to aircraft assembly facilities through Alenia Aeronautica, a Finmeccanica company.Africa-focused oil and gas firm Afren notched up its first full year of post-tax profit in 2010. Though revenue eased to $319.4m in 2010 from $335.8m in 2009, profit before tax surged ahead to $78.8m from $0.5m the year before. The decrease in revenue in a year of soaring oil prices was a result of the company's stake in the Okoro field being reduced from 95% to 50% in the middle of 2010. "With a 180% growth in production to 40,000 boepd expected in 2011, we will leverage our West African production base to pursue multiple high impact exploration targets in both East and West Africa," bos Osman Shahenshah said.LW