RAMSEY CROOKALL & CO

13th June 2011

Morning Report

The FTSE 100 is largely flat. However, corporate news has helped the tone with banking stocks gaining after the Financial Services Authority, agrees to temporary arrangements for Barclays, Lloyds Banking Group, and Royal Bank of Scotland Group to handle payment protection insurance complaints. Miners rally on weekend press reports that suggest Glencore International is considering a GBP12 billion takeover of Eurasian Natural Resources. No major UK, European or US economic data is due today.

Imperial Tobacco is lower though after it slashed profit expectations for its Spanish business as competition in the country forced it to cut prices for cigarettes. Imperial, whose brands include Lambert & Butler and Gauloises Blondes cigarettes, said operating profits in Spain could fall short of previous expectations by up to £110m.

Mining giant Kazakhmys is in demand after it secured a $1.5bn loan facility to help the development of a major copper project at Aktogay in Kazakstan. A memorandum of understanding was signed on Monday with the China Development Bank Corporation (CDB) for the loan. Kazakh peer ENRC is also higher.

Aim-listed wine retailer Majestic Wine reported a 26.6% increase in full year profit, lifted its final dividend and said it was encouraged by current trading despite challenging market conditions.

Energy services firm Wood Group will return 140p per share to its shareholders, in the second stage of its £1.08bn return of cash programme. Following the £412m returned through a tender offer two weeks ago, the company will return the residual £665m.



THE FTSE 100 at 10:00 Up 3 @ 5769

THE DOW JONES closed Down 172 @ 11951 THE NASDAQ COMP closed Down 41 @ 2643

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GBP – USD 1.6272

GBP - EURO 1.1334