London pre-open: Spain in focus

21st Sep 2012 07:25

City sources predict the FTSE 100 will open up 22 points from yesterday's close of 5,855, as stocks take the lead from Asia.The Glenstrata deal is set to be a hot topic of interest today, ahead of its deadline on Monday. For the most part, US stocks ended the day slightly lower on Thursday, hit by news of a slowdown in manufacturing activity in China, a stark contrast from investors' cheers the previous day after the Japanese central bank opted to beef up its quantitative easing programme. Worth mentioning perhaps, the President of the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland last night indicated that the third round of quantitative easing by the US central bank may give less stimulus than previous programs. Some market commentary, on the other hand, is highlighting that QE3 is being carried out at higher inflation breakevens than was the case with the previous two rounds. In European news, the Financial Times is reporting this morning that EU authorities are busy working behind the scenes to pave the way for a new Spanish rescue programme and unlimited bond buying by the European Central Bank, by helping Madrid to craft an economic reform programme that will be unveiled next week. In a similar vein, Reuters reports that Spain is planning to accelerate the reform of its country´s pensions system. Back in the UK, public finance data for August will be published at 9:30. The consensus is expecting PSNBx to have been £15bn and PSNB to have been £13.2bn. The PSNCR is expected to come in at -£5.5bn, quite a surplus. BoE governor King said in a Channel 4 interview last night that if there was a genuine excuse then the government could afford to allow the burden of public debt to continue to rise after 2015-16.The Sage Group has acquired EBS Empresa Brasileira de Sistemas, a provider of accounting, business management and tax software in Brazil. The acquisition, which was made through Sage's subsidiary, Folhamatic Tecnologia em Sistemas, cost the group up to £10.6m, including a performance related sum of £1.8m. The acquistion of EBS, which has around 4,000 customers, is being made to strengthen Sage's market leadership position in the accounting firm market in Brazil and extends the geographic breadth of its offering, particularly in the Southern region of the country. The Home Affairs Committee, the group of MPs investigating G4S's failure to fulfil all of its Olympic Games contractual requirements, has called on the security firm to waive its fee. "G4S should waive its £57m management fee and also compensate its staff and prospective staff who it treated in a cavalier fashion," the damning report says. G4S has already revealed that it expects to swallow a £50m-or-so loss on the contract.Property company British land has offloaded seven food stores to institutional investors. The company sold the gaggle of supermarkets at prices in line with March valuations to raise £118m, of which British Land's share is £62m. The stores were sold at net initial yields of between 4.95% and 5.7%. Charles Maudsley, Head of Retail for British Land, said: "On the back of good demand in the food store sector, we have sold over £100m of food store investments featuring a variety of ages, rent levels and lease expiries."