London open: Egypt concerns unsettle blue chips

31st Jan 2011 08:54

Asian markets overnight were rattled by the weekend scenes of civil unrest in Egypt and this has put London's blue chips under pressure early on. Travel companies are bearing the brunt of the selling, Airline IAG, the former British Airways, TUI Travel and Intercontinental Hotels have all run into turbulence.Results and updates are thin today. Brewer and pub owner Greene King saw healthy trading over the past eight weeks despite the poor weather with all of its divisions in-line or improving from the half-year.Oil group BG Group has signed up engineering and project management group AMEC to provide services for all of its facilities in the central North Sea. The three year contract, worth £140m, is to provide engineering, procurement, construction, commissioning and project management services. Budget airline Ryanair is still on track to match full-year profit forecasts despite a loss-making third quarter hit by strikes and bad weather that caused over 3,000 flights to be cancelled. The Irish outfit posted a net loss of €10.3m for the three months to 31 December compared with €10.9m a year ago. But it could have been worse had traffic not risen 6% to 17m and average fares 15%. Following the completion of contract negotiations Rexam forecast that overall operating profit in the Beverage Can North America division in 2011 is expected to remain comparable to that in 2010, as improved pricing, new customers, continued growth in specialty cans and further cost control initiatives will offset the impact of lower net 12 ounce volumes.Carillion has won contracts worth around £350m this year and believes that the opportunities to work with both central and local government to deliver greater efficiencies through outsourcing services remain very strong.Despite battling rising polymer prices, plastic packaging firm RPC saw an improvement in underlying operating profit in the final three months of 2010.James Halstead is in bullish mood as overseas trade helps the commercial floorcoverings supplier report record "bottom-line" results for the first half despite increasing raw material costs. Turnover for the six months to 31 December is up 14% as the positive trend continued into the final month of 2010.SThree has fallen even though profits bounced 20% higher last year with all of the recruitment specialist's markets growing so far in 2011.