London pre-open: Strong start expected

8th Mar 2010 07:39

Footsie is expected to move higher in early dealings having hit 5,600 points for the first time in 18 months at the end of last week.Oil fabrications giant Petrofac made a bit more than expected last year, with after tax profit up 37%, and hiked the dividend by an impressive 41%. Profit after tax jumped to $363m from $265m in 2008, slightly better than expected, while the pre-tax figure rose 25% to $447.5m. Revenue increased by 10% to $3.65bn.Prudential has accelerated its plans for a listing on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange and now wants it effective before its $20bn rights issue to help fund the purchase of AIG Asia. The listing will be effected by an introduction, with a dual-primary listing alongside its primary listing of ordinary shares in London.Drug giant AstraZeneca said its cancer treatment Recentin failed to meet the primary endpoint in a clinical study to compare it with rival treatment Avastin. 'While we recognised that challenging Avastin would be a high hurdle, it is still disappointing, despite evidence of clinical activity with RECENTIN, not to have met the primary endpoint in this study,' Alan Barge of Astra's oncology division said.Housebuilder Bovis wrote back £11.6m of provisions made against its land bank in the second half of 2009 and has started to buy land again as the UK housing market stabilises. "The group has recommenced investment in land and is pleased with the progress made to date, with four consented sites acquired in the last quarter of 2009 and terms agreed in principle at the year end on a further 15 sites, all of which have been progressed during the early part of 2010.