Cranswick buys chicken producer; Vedanta updates on production

London’s FTSE 100 is seen starting 14 points lower than Friday’s close at 6,190.

Stocks to watch

FTSE 250 metals and mining company Vedanta Resources reported record annual production of aluminium, electricity, silver and Copper India cathodes in its fourth quarter production release on Monday morning.

The firm also revealed stable oil and gas production from Rajasthan for the quarter, mined metal production in line with guidance at Zinc India, strong production volumes for its Zinc International businesses, and continued strong production for the year at Copper Zambia.

"We are continuing to optimise production across our portfolio to generate maximum value in a low commodity price environment and remaining focussed on reducing costs to protect margins,” said Vedanta Resources CEO Tom Albanese.

Food producer Cranswick announced the acquisition of CCL Holdings on Monday, and its 100% owned subsidiary Crown Chicken Limited from the Thacker family and management.

The FTSE 250 firm’s board paid a cash consideration of £40m for the deal, funded from existing bank facilities.

For the year ended 31 December, revenue for Crown was £83.8m with adjusted EBITDA sitting at £6.6m. Adjusted gross assets at year end were £28.4m. Crown’s workforce totalled 400 across its operations.

Cranswick expected the acquisition to be modestly earnings-enhancing in the current financial year.

In the press

Negative interest rates risk hitting consumer spending and undermining the economic growth they are intended to encourage, the head of the world’s largest asset management group has warned. Larry Fink, chief executive of BlackRock, said that not enough attention was being given to the effect of negative rates on saving habits in a downbeat annual letter to his shareholders. – Financial Times

David Cameron will on Monday promise to create a new criminal offence for companies that fail to stop their staff assisting in tax evasion, as he tries to end a week of corrosive headlines about his own financial affairs. The prime minister will tell MPs that he is pressing ahead with the new law in spite of opposition from some banks, law firms and accountants, which claim it would put the UK finance sector at a disadvantage.- Financial Times

China is not to blame for the UK’s steel crisis and has been made a “scapegoat” in the ongoing debate on global over-supply, the country’s ambassador has claimed. Liu Xiaoming, the Chinese Ambassador to the UK, denied allegations his country has been “dumping” imports onto the steel market, and claimed that British companies are “less competitive and less profitable” in low end steel production. – Telegraph

The publisher of the Daily Mail has confirmed it is in talks with private equity companies about a takeover of Yahoo. Ailing tech firm Yahoo, which has a market capitalisation of $38bn (£27bn), put its core business up for sale in February with bids due by 18 April. Daily Mail and General Trust, the parent company of the Daily Mail, has confirmed that it has approached companies interested in a potential bid for Yahoo. – Guardian

US close

Wall Street's most-followed equity gauge, the S&P 500, managed to trim its worst weekly loss in two months on Friday, as crude oil futures snapped higher and following upbeat remarks overnight from Fed chair Janet Yellen, ahead of the start of the corporate earnings season on 11 April.

The Dow Jones Industrials eked out a gain of 35 points or 0.20% to end the session at 17,576.96, alongside gains of 0.28% and 0.05% for the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite, which saw the day out at 2,057.60 and 2,287.60 points, respectively.

Among industrial sectors, the biggest advances were for coal (7.04%), non-ferrous metals (5.42%) and Platinum & precious metals (4.34%).