London pre-open: Top stocks to drop

21st Sep 2009 07:32

London's blue chips look set to open slightly lower with traders expecting Footsie to drop around 5 points in early dealings.Punch Taverns has bought back another tranche of convertible debt due for redemption next year, reducing the amount outstanding to just over £100m. The pub owner has bought a total of 33.9% of the original nominal value of the 5% convertible bonds due 2010. The bonds will be cancelled. Northern Foods, the company behind Goodfella's pizza and Fox's biscuits, has announced that Andrew Booker is to stand down as finance director. He is to be replaced by Simon Herrick, who is currently finance director of Comet owner Kesa Electricals. Booker will remain as finance director until December 31.Land Securities has sold its one third ownership of the Bullring shopping centre in Birmingham to the Future Fund, an investment fund for the Australian Government, for £210m. The 1.2 million sq ft (110,000 sq m) shopping centre in Birmingham's city centre is anchored by two department stores and accommodates some 160 retailers and catering operators, providing a total annual rental income of £45m. Oil and gas firm Soco said the Vietnamese government has approved the development plan for the Te Giac Trang (TGT) field. First Oil from the TGT Field is targeted for mid-2011 and tenders for a number of long lead items are already under evaluation. A contract for the floating, production, storage and offloading vessel is currently being finalised, it added.In the Press, the FT reports that Royal Bank of Scotland is to consider a £3bn-£4bn share issue to reduce the stake it would hand to the government for joining its toxic assets insurance scheme and has approached its biggest investors about the idea.