London pre-open: Subdued opening expected

7th Jan 2011 07:38

Ahead of this afternoon's release of December's US non-farm payrolls data, investors are adopting a wait and see posture. City traders expect the Footsie will open two or three points down from last night's close.There has been a further development in the simmering dispute between shopping centres operator Capital Shopping Centres (CSC) and 5% US shareholder Simon Property. The latter has been critical of CSC's proposed purchase of Manchester's Trafford Centres from Peel Holdings and has been mulling a near-£3bn offer for the UK company.CSC has sought to head off Simon by revising the terms of the Trafford Centre acquisition. Peel has agreed to value the CSC shares being issued to pay for the transaction at 400p, up from the 368p per share originally agreed, which means CSC will only have to issue 205.9m shares to Peel, down from 224.1m.The Christmas snow was no problem for sport-themed fashion chain JD Sports Fashion, which did so well it now thinks full-year profits will beat expectations. Like for like sales for the five weeks ended 1 January grew 2.5% and cumulative like for like sales for the 48 weeks are up 3.1%. They were up 2.8% in the 30 weeks to 28 August.Wellstream, the manufacturer of flexible risers and flowlines for the oil and gas industry, expects 2010 earnings to be ahead of expectations. A strong second half performance in the company's Brazilian operations and the earlier than expected ratification of the price adjustment mechanism within the Petrobras frame agreement were primarily responsible for the better than expected outturn.