London open: Blue chips head south

30th Jun 2009 08:54

London has opened lower despite a good showing on Wall Street overnight and interest in the banks this morning.Wolseley is the best performer as chief executive Chip Hornsby has stepped down with immediate effect to let Ian Meakins take the helm at the building supplies group. Hornsby, who leaves after 27 years at the company, has led the group since August 2006.Royal Bank of Scotland is going well alongside Lloyds, which is still getting a boost from a Goldman Sachs upgrade yesterday.BG has made a big push into the US shale gas market with the acquisition of a 50% stake in US firm Exco's fields in east Texas and north Louisiana. BG will pay $1.055bn for 120,000 acres in the two states, of which 84,000 acres cover the prolific Haynesville shale gas formation.Antofagasta has achieved financial closing and satisfaction of conditions to borrowing for $1.05bn of project financing for the Esperanza copper-gold project in Chile. The miner, which owns 70% of the project, said first disbursement is expected to take place during July.Music, DVD and games retailer HMV said against a difficult background it delivered sales and profit growth for the year, driven by good trading in HMV UK & Ireland. Pre-tax profit rose to £61.3m from £52m on sales up 4.4% to £1.96bn. HMV UK & Ireland like for like sales were up 1.9%, but Waterstone's and HMV International's like for like sales fell 3.8% and 3.4% respectively. Carpetright slashed its final dividend as profits tumbled by 72% last year, with the carpet retailer warning its sees no upturn for at least 12 months. Pre-tax profit in the year to end April crashed to £16.7m from £59.5m on sales of £483m, down 7.4%.Oil & gas facilities service provider Petrofac has had a good start to the year and is confident 2009 will be another year of strong growth. With year to date order intake across the group of $5.4bn, total backlog is expected to be approximately $8bn at 30 June 2009 (31 December 2008: $4bn).Bus and train operator Arriva said results for the six months will reflect the lower revenue growth rates in CrossCountry and are otherwise expected to be broadly in line with expectations.Yellow Pages publisher Yell has started talks with its banks over a comprehensive refinancing, adding that trading in the second quarter of this year took another lurch downwards.