London open: Dull start for Footsie

17th Nov 2009 08:38

London has followed the lead of Asian markets and opened lower despite an overnight gain of over 130 points for the Dow.Telephone giant Cable & Wireless is the best performer. It is to demerge into two separately listed companies by next March and will raise £200m through a convertible bond issue to help fund the split.Inter dealer-broker ICAP is also up despite interim profits falling as it added that trading activity had picked up in September.The retail side of Burberry outperformed the wholesale side as the luxury fashion group reported a rise in half-year revenues, thanks to favourable exchange rates. Total sales were up 6% to £572.4m from £539.1m a year earlier, but with the favourable movements of exchange rates stripped out, were down 5%. Profit before tax slipped to £78.4m from £97m. Product quality and safety tester Intertek said the rate of organic revenue growth is slowing, as expected, in the second half of the year. Total year on year revenue growth for the January to October (inclusive) period was 28%, or 8% using constant exchange rates (CER). Organic revenue growth at CER was 4%.Miners ran into profit taking as Federal Reserve head Ben Bernanke said that the Fed is monitoring currency markets "closely" and will conduct policy in a way that will "help ensure that the dollar is strong". Lonmin is the weakest in the sector, but there is red ink pretty much across the board for the miners.Specialist business publisher Informa said in a trading update for the 10 months to 31 October that its publishing activities remain resilient and that its events business has not seen any worsening in trading.Tenanted pub group Enterprise Inns posted a sharp fall in profits after a difficult year for the pub trade and said it expected profits to continue declining in the short term. Pre-tax profits for the year to September 30 fell to £208m from £263m on revenues that dropped to £811m from £880m.Real estate giant British Land reported continuing declines in rental income, pre-tax profits and its portfolio valuation in the six months to September 30, but said it was seeing more positive trends in recent months.Brighter news came from housebuilder Barratt, which has confirmed the improvement in the UK housing market and forecasts its prices will have risen by up to 10% over the year.