London open: Lloyds gives market a boost

5th Aug 2009 08:39

Footsie has shrugged off a host of ex-dividends to move gently ahead with Lloyds and British Airways leading the way.Lloyds Banking posted an underlying loss of £4bn in the half year to June as impairment charges jumped by nearly £11bn to £13.4bn reflecting huge write-downs of HBOS's commercial property loans. The figures were worse than analysts had predicted, but the bank's comment that bad debts have peaked encouraged the buyers. Royal Bank of Scotland, which reports on Friday, is up in sympathy.Volatile stock markets took their toll on life group Standard Life's first half with pre-tax profits tumbling and the group sliding into a loss after tax. Profits in the six months to June fell from £534m to £348m on an embedded value basis, while it posted a net loss of £48m compared with a profit of £7m. The interim dividend rises by 2% to 4.15p.Old Mutual has named Patrick O'Sullivan as its new chairman just as the South African insurer announced an 81% slump in half-year profits. O'Sullivan, recently retired as vice chairman of Zurich Financial Services, will take over from Chris Collins when he retires at the end of 2009.Carpet retailer Carpetright is the best performer on with an impressive rise in like-for-like sales in UK and Ireland in the 13 weeks to August 1. In the UK and Ireland, total sales climbed by 7.5%, while like-for-like sales were up an 'encouraging' 1.4%. Tiles and wood flooring retailer Topps Tiles remains on track to meet full year expectations following a small improvement in like for like sales. Continued weakness in equity markets despite the recent rally, unhelpful currency movements and low interest rates all helped to push F&C Asset Management into losses at the interim stage.Paper and packaging group Mondi fell into losses in the first half of the year as the global economic downturn hit demand for its products. In the six months to June, the company saw reported pre-tax losses of €1m, compared with €171m over the same period the previous year as revenue fell to €2.6bn from €3.3bn.Hovis to Branston Pickle maker Premier Foods has reported a first half loss, but remains on course to match full year forecasts. The group posted a loss of £30m before tax from continuing operations for the six months to 27 June 2009 compared with a profit of £2m in 2008. Turnover rose 3.5% to £1.25bn.Ferrexpo saw profits slide 82% in the half of the year as commodity prices tumbled but the Ukrainian iron ore pellet producer said it was seeing signs of normalisation in the market with spot prices for iron ore increasing. It posted a pre-tax profit of £28.7m, compared with £157.7m over the same period the previous year as revenues slumped to $301.8bn from $519.5bn.