London pre-open: Lower start expected

5th Aug 2009 07:48

Footsie is expected to add to yesterday's losses as the stream of results from banks and insurers continues.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. 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 on 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 posted a rise in like-for-like sales in UK and Ireland in the 13 weeks to August 1, but saw continuing declines in mainland Europe. In the UK and Ireland, total sales climbed by 7.5%, while like-for-like sales were up an 'encouraging' 1.4%. However, in the Netherlands, Belgium and Poland the business continues to make slow progress and while total sales improved by 0.9%, they were 2.8% lower on a like-for-like basis.Tiles and wood flooring retailer Topps Tiles remains on track to meet full year expectations following a small improvement in like for like sales. The firm, which has 312 stores in the UK and 13 in Holland, said group revenue fell 9.9% in the 18 weeks ended 1 August and like for like sales by 10.9%. A year ago they fell 3% and 8% respectively.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.