London pre-open: Small slip in store

9th Nov 2010 07:39

Last night's dip on Wall Street looks set to trip London in early deals, although there's plenty of corporate news to digest.Futures prices point to a 9-point decline at the start of play. The Dow Jones was down 37 points last night. Barclays eked out a small increase in nine-month profit as a doubling of profit at the investment banking arm offset huge impairment charges at the Spanish business. The bank has made £4.27bn so far in 2010, up 4% on the same time last year, or 6% to £4.24bn excluding movements on own credit, gains on acquisitions and disposals and gains on debt buy-backs. Impairment charges were slashed by 31% to £4.30bn.Mobile phone giant Vodafone raised its profits forecast for the current year and vowed to get more cash out of its stakes in Verizon Wireless and SFR one way or another in a bullish half-year update. The firm now expects adjusted operating profit for the 2011 financial year will be in the range of £11.8bn to £12.2bn, up from its previous range of £11.2bn -£12bn.Marc Bolland, the new boss of Marks & Spencer, said that the near-term focus of the retailer will remain mainly on the UK, with the aim of becoming the UK's leading multi-channel retailer by 2013/14. Bolland unveiled his strategic plan for Marks & Spencer (M&S) as an accompaniment to interim results that showed adjusted profit before tax in the 26 weeks to 2 October up 16.9% to £348.6m from £298.3m a year earlier.Primark and British Sugar owner Associated British Foods had a record year with group revenue up 10% to £10.2bn and adjusted profit before tax up 26% to £825m.