Boardroom battle continues at Stobart, TRIG takes on two French wind farms

London open

The FTSE 100 is expected to open 16 points lower on Tuesday, having closed up 0.51% at 7,741.29 on Monday.

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St. Modwen Properties updated the market on its trading for the period to 31 May on Tuesday, saying that in the past six months it continued to focus on delivering against its four strategic objectives of portfolio focus and capital discipline, accelerating its commercial development activity, grow its residential and house building business, and cement and grow its regeneration reputation. The FTSE 250 firm said that, despite continued uncertainties in the external environment and challenges in parts of the UK property market, the outlook for its two key sectors - industrial/logistics and regional house building - remained “positive”. Given its extensive land bank and the opportunity to recycle capital out of its existing assets, St. Modwen said it was “well placed” to accelerate the delivery of its substantial pipeline using its own resources in the years ahead.

The Renewables Infrastructure Group (TRIG) said it had bought two onshore wind farms in Northern France for €28m. The wind farms are currently being built and expected to be operational in the fourth quarter of 2018 when they will have a combined operating capacity of 31.8MW, TRIG said. Once the projects are operational, TRIG will have 140 MW of generation capacity in France, which is 15% of the existing portfolio by capacity.

The boardroom battle at Stobart Group continued on Tuesday as the Southend Airport owner confirmed that deposed former chief executive and fund manager Neil Woodford have proposed retail guru Philip Day as new chairman. Day, who owns high street chains Jaeger, Edinburgh Woollen Mills and Peacocks, has been put up for vote either at the FTSE 250 company's forthcoming annual shareholder meeting or at a subsequently convened general meeting in order to replace existing chairman Iain Ferguson, who is in dispute with ex CEO Andrew Tinkler.

Newspaper round-up

Theresa May has a week to forge a compromise with Tory rebels over Brexit after she tabled votes on key legislation for next Tuesday. The 12 backbenchers are threatening to inflict a defeat in a vote on future customs arrangements. They believe that the government will put forward its own compromise agreement within days but claim it is unlikely to be enough to buy them off. - The Times

Shoppers hit the high street in their droves last month, helping retail sales to bounce back and grow at the sharpest rate in four years. Figures from the British Retail Consortium and KPMG showed retail sales up by 4.1 per cent in May compared with a year earlier. This was the highest rate of growth since January 2014. - The Times

Johnston Press is in talks about a deal that would hand control of the newspaper publisher to a US hedge fund and jettison its underfunded pension scheme. It is understood that the publisher of the i, the Scotsman and more than 200 local titles is in debt restructuring discussions that include plans for a Regulated Apportionment Agreement (RAA) that would offload its pension scheme to the Pension Protection Fund (PPF). - Telegraph

US close

US stocks finished in the green on Monday, as traders apparently brushed off ongoing global trade tensions.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average ended the session up 0.72% at 24,813.69, the S&P 500 was was ahead 0.45% at 2,746.87, and the Nasdaq 100 was 0.84% higher at 7,143.57.

“Climbing 200 points [at the open], the Dow crossed 24800 for the first time in a week, despite little improvement in the things – namely Trump slapping tariffs on metals imports from the EU, Mexico and Canada, alongside stalled talks with China – that helped drive it lower in the first place,” said Connor Campbell, financial analyst at SpreadEx.

After the latest round of trade negotiations between the US delegation - led by Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross - and China over the weekend, Beijing said "positive and concrete progress" had been made.

An official from the People’s Republic said there was "good communication" between both sides on agriculture and energy, while relevant details were yet to be confirmed by both sides, Xinhua reported.

However, China also threatened to withdraw from its previously agreed commitments with Washington to cut its bilateral trade deficit on goods with the US if President Donald Trump moves ahead with tariffs on $50bn-worth of Chinese products.