London pre-open: Modest rise seen for Footsie

27th Oct 2009 07:40

London is refusing to dance to Wall Street's tune and looks set to open higher, despite the triple digit fall on the Dow yesterday.Index heavyweight BP kicked off the oil majors results season with third quarter figures that showed a smaller than feared drop in profits. Profit attributable to shareholders came to $5.34bn from $8.05bn in the third quarter last year.Computer chip designer ARM Holdings said it still expects full year dollar revenues to be in line with market expectations, after announcing an 8% dip in third quarter turnover, though it rose 5% in sterling terms to £75.2m from £71.7m. Profit before tax eased to £24.3m from £24.9m the year before.Paper and packaging firm Mondi has traded in line with expectations since its half-year results were published in August, although a recovery in volumes has been offset by lower average selling prices. Third quarter underlying operating profit was “modestly” lower than the previous three-month period, but the firm is beginning to feel the benefits of its recently completed cost cutting programme.Yellow Pages business Yell has extended the deadline for its lenders to approve its refinancing proposals for a second time. The company, which is looking to restructure £3.8bn of debt, set a new deadline of 5pm on Wednesday 28 October after last night’s cut-off passed without success.Aquarius Platinum moved back into the black in the third quarter despite a slide in total revenue. Net profit in the third quarter was $17.9m on total revenue of $85.8m, compared to a net loss of $20.4m on revenue of $106.2m a year earlier.Getech swung to a full-year loss and scrapped its final dividend as the fall in crude prices hurt the oil data analysis specialist. The group reported a loss before tax of £627,901 in the 12 month ended 31 July compared with a profit of £900,000. Revenue was down 20% at £3.31m.