Amec wins new EDF support deal; Bovis fends off mergers with Redrow, Galliford Try
London open
The FTSE 100 is expected to open flat on Monday, after closing up 0.38% at 7,343.08 on Friday.
Stocks to watch
Amec Foster Wheeler said it had won a new five-year £125m contract to provide long-term support to EDF Energy Nuclear Generation. The company said it expected the contract to generate annual revenues of between £25m and £30m. The five-year agreement included an option to extend for a further five years.
HSBC has hired ex-Prudential boss Mark Tucker to replace Douglas Flint as chairman after 22 years at the world's fourth largest bank. Tucker, who founded Prudential's Asian business and was briefly the finance director at HBOS, will join the FTSE 100 giant in September from his current role as chief executive of pan-Asian life insurer AIA Group.
Packaging firm RPC Group completed the acquisition of Letica Group, a US plastics packaging manufacturer, for up to £511m in order to expand its reach in North America. The FTSE 250 company paid £391m up-front to Letica's shareholders, which represented 7.3 times Letica's adjusted EBITDA for 2016, and the additional £120m will be paid when Letica achieves EBITDA greater than $140m and up to $201m over the next two-years starting 1 July.
Housebuilder Bovis Homes noted the recent press speculation regarding a potential offer for the company on Monday morning, confirming it had recently received written proposals from Redrow and Galliford Try outlining potential merger proposals. Redrow proposed a share and cash transaction, and Galliford Try proposed an all-share transaction for the company, with both proposals being preliminary and subject to due diligence. “The board of Bovis reviewed the proposals and concluded that neither reflected the underlying value of the Bovis business and therefore both should be rejected,” the board said on Monday.
Newspaper round-up
Nicola Sturgeon will threaten to derail Brexit by setting out plans for a second independence referendum unless Theresa May offers Scotland a special deal. The Scottish First Minister could name the date she intends to hold a new referendum as early as this week if Mrs May does not bow to her will. - Telegraph
If Britain leaves the European Union without a replacement trade deal its commercial links with the bloc will overnight become less favourable than any other major industrialised nation, a cross-party campaign has warned as Theresa May prepares to trigger article 50. Research commissioned by the Labour MP Pat McFadden – a supporter of Open Britain, which campaigns for continued ties with Europe in the aftermath of Brexit – found that no members of the G20 group of richer nations currently interact with the EU without some sort of trade arrangement. - Guardian
The tax burden on British households and businesses is on course to climb to a 40 year high by the end of the next parliament as slower growth and an ageing population forces policymakers to choose between more austerity or higher taxes. The Government's fiscal watchdog expects tax to continue rising as a share of national income over the next decade, climbing to 37.5pc of GDP by 2025-26, which would represent its highest share since 1986. - Telegraph
The government will go to court this week to defend test drilling at a fracking site in Lancashire as it comes under pressure to pay hundreds of thousands of pounds to cover the cost of policing anti-fracking protests. The high court in Manchester will hear two cases on Wednesday that pit Sajid Javid, the communities secretary, against protesters who oppose the permission granted to fracking companies for test sites near Blackpool. - Guardian
It is a “high-risk”, six-year project that is already behind schedule and if it fails to arrive on time ports will grind to a halt and gaps will appear on supermarket shelves, leaving traders and hauliers worried. A new computerised customs system to replace a creaking 25-year-old platform was supposed to be switched on for testing last month, before a full switchover in October. - The Times
US close
Wall Street ended higher on Friday following a strong February jobs report, removing the last obstacle to an interest rate hike from the Federal Reserve next week, although looking further out there still appeared to be some divisions among economists regarding the US central bank's policy path.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average finished 0.21% higher to 20,902.98, the S&P 500 added 0.33% or 7.73 points to 2,372.60 and the Nasdaq was 0.39% firmer at 5,861.73.
Meanwhile, oil prices ended the session lower as Baker Hughes announced the US onshore oil rig count rose by another eight during the week ended on 10 March to 617.
West Texas Intermediate fell 1.81% to $48.39 a barrel, it went below the $50 mark for the first time in 2017 on Thursday.
February’s non-farm payroll rose to 238,000 from 227,000 the previous month and above the 200,000 consensus forecast. The net revision was 9,000.