News

London open: Flat start for Footsie

21 November 2008 08:28:00

Footsie has recovered from early falls with the high street banks going well again and British Airways gaining on the fall in crude prices below $50 per barrel.

Blue chip news is thin on the ground this morning but Royal Bank of Scotland is the top performer after shareholders overwhelmingly approved taking the £20bn on offer from the government at yesterday's meeting. HBOS and HSBC are also up.

Elsewhere, metal treater Bodycote is to return 40p cash to its sharehodlers. Irish drug supplier United Drug reported a 13% jump in full year pre-tax profit but said it is facing a more difficult economic environment.

Theme park queue systems specialist Lo-Q has upped its forecast for profits this year thanks to a boost from the strength of the US dollar. Lo-Q, which supplies systems to theme park operator Six Flags in the US now expects results for 2008 "will be significantly ahead of market expectations, with profit before tax expected to be no less than £1.85m".

London based brewer and pubs group Fuller Smith and Turner has nudged the interim dividend up despite a small dip in pre-tax profits. Profit before tax excluding exceptional items eased to £12m in the 26 weeks to 27 September from £12.1m in the corresponding period of last year.

West Coast Capital, the vehicle of Scottish entrepreneur Tom Hunter, has dropped its plans to bid for Flying Brands, the Jersey-based home shopping group.Flying Brands said.

Power supplier to the electronics industry XP Power said trading since the half year has been satisfactory and it expects to meet market forecasts for the year ending 31 December. "Despite the economic outlook, I am happy to be able to announce that we remain on track for the full year," said chief executive Duncan Penny.

IT services group Business Systems lifted interim profits by 74% to £808,000 adding contractual revenues continue to increase.

In the press, the Telegraph reported that last-ditch talks to rescue Woolworths are close to collapsing after the troubled retailer's lenders refused to sign up to a deal.

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