London pre-open: Week to start well

24th Jan 2011 07:36

A mixed performance in Asia this morning isn't going to upset London, which looks like posting modest gains early on following a decent finish to last week on Wall Street.Futures prices point to a 16-point lead for the FTSE 100 when trading gets underway.In company news, Standard Chartered has agreed to buy Singapore-based car and personal loans business GE Money for an undisclosed sum. The Asia-focused bank expects to complete the purchase of the GE Capital subsidiary, itself part of the consumer finance services unit of General Electric, sometime during the first quarter. Though no financial details have been disclosed, talk is that GE will get as much as S$900m (£439m) for the unit.Data search software giant Autonomy has announced its seventh and eighth contract wins of 2011. The company has entered into a "significant agreement" with Euronews, a leading international news channel in Europe, and with an unnamed US hedge fund, which has licensed the IDOL software for regulatory and compliance or "Protect" applications.Outsource giant Serco has played down weekend reports it wants to buy US homeland security firm SRA International. The UK firm says it is "not in any discussions regarding any major transaction at this time," though it did not say whether it had been in discussions prior to the announcement. Stories at the weekend suggested Serco had made an offer worth $2bn for SRA and had been mulling a £500m rights issue to help pay for the deal. John Lovering is to step down as chairman of Mitchells and Butlers and quit the board later this year. The pubs group is searching for a successor to Lovering whose stint in the chair has been short but action packed. He took up the chairman role at the AGM in January 2010. In the last year the company has significantly strengthened its financial position, raising more than £550m through disposals, achieved stronger capital expenditure returns and improved operating margins.