Anglo American appoints Stuart Chambers as chairman, Workspace profits sink while NAV rises

London open

The FTSE 100 is expected to open flat on Wednesday, after closing down 0.01% to 7,524.95 on Tuesday.

Stocks to watch

Anglo American announced the appointment of Stuart Chambers as its chairman on Wednesday. The FTSE 100 miner said Chambers would join the board as a non-executive director and the chairman designate on 1 September, and would become chairman on 1 November. He was succeeding Sir John Parker, who announced his intention to step down during the course of the year in February, after serving eight years as chairman. Sir John was set to step down from the board on 31 October.

Serviced office group Workspace reported lower annual profits due to a smaller property valuation uplift, though its net asset value per share was up 3.3%. The total rent roll increased 14.5%, or 13.7% on a like-for-like basis, while rent per square foot was up 12.9% on a like-for-like basis and there was an underlying increase of 2.1% in the property portfolio to £1.8bn.

Newspaper round-up

Airline bosses should apologise instantly, roll up their sleeves and join the passengers next time they suffer a British Airways-style PR crisis, executives have advised. Speaking at the International Air Transport Association’s annual summit, Oscar Munoz, the chief executive of United Airlines, who was lambasted for his non-apology to a passenger who was injured when forcibly removed from an overbooked flight, said: “We have to become more flexible and more communicative about things.” – Guardian

Burberry is to hand Christopher Bailey shares worth £10.5m next month when day-to-day management of the luxury goods retailer switches to a newly recruited chief executive. Bailey is to receive 600,000 of the 1m shares he was awarded in 2013, at a time when the company was concerned he might be poached by a rival. – Guardian

Shareholders have rejected the appointment of Genel Energy's new non-executive director and staged a rebellion against a number of other resolutions at its annual general meeting, in yet another blow for the troubled oil explorer. The resolution to elect Ümit Tolga Bilgin, whose appointment was announced in March, to the board was rejected by 51.61pc of shareholders voting at Genel's meeting on Tuesday, meaning he will not now become a director of the group. – Telegraph

ExxonMobil said its production and exports of liquefied natural gas (LNG) from Qatar have not been hit by the diplomatic row which erupted between the Gulf region’s most powerful energy states on Monday. Global oil and gas markets were plunged into uncertainty yesterday after Saudi Arabia and its allies cut off diplomatic and economic ties with Qatar, a major investor in the UK and the world’s biggest supplier of liquefied natural gas (LNG). – Telegraph

Tesco has been criticised over the £142,000 it paid to the supermarket’s chief executive in relocation costs. In a report before the retailer’s annual meeting next week, Pensions & Investment Research Consultants (Pirc) advised shareholders to oppose the remuneration report, arguing that a 179 per cent increase in benefits for Dave Lewis was “not considered appropriate”. The big increase was caused mainly by relocation costs to cover stamp duty and legal fees as Mr Lewis moved from London to the Welwyn Garden City area to be close to Tesco’s Hertfordshire head office. – The Times

Companies with a chairwoman or female chief executive are making greater strides towards gender diversity in the boardroom and have almost twice as many women directors as corporations led by men, research shows. Overall, however, women are still underrepresented on corporate boards, despite efforts to improve inclusion and gender balance and a growing body of evidence suggesting that diversity at the top can bring competitive advantages to corporations and investors. – The Times

US close

US markets finished weaker on Tuesday amid growing geopolitical concerns and ahead of a testimony to the Senate panel by former FBI boss James Comey later in the week.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average finished down 0.23% at 21,136.23, the S&P 500 was down 0.28% at 2,429.33 and the Nasdaq 100 lost 0.36% to 5,856.77.

"Equity markets are negative today as global risk-off sentiment continues into a second day,” said Accendo Markets research analyst Henry Croft.

“Safe-havens, led by precious metal gold, are enjoying dramatically increased demand ahead of Thursday's three key market events - the UK election, ECB policy meeting and ex-FBI chief Comey's testimony.”

In economic news, the number of job openings in the US rose by 259,000 to 6m in April, according to the Bureau of Labour Statistics.

US house prices increased at a 6.9% year-on-year clip in April and by 1.6% month-on-month, according to CoreLogic.