Civitas sees property value jump 60pc, OptiBiotix signs deal for North America manufacturing

London open

The FTSE 100 is expected to open 12 points higher on Monday, having closed down 0.23% at 7,407.50 on Friday.

Stocks to watch

Civitas Social Housing reported a 60% jump in the value of its property portfolio during the year ended 31 March, with the supported living and social housing real estate investment trust's rent roll climbing by 61% to £45.7m after it acquired 177 properties during the year.

Life sciences business OptiBiotix Health has entered into a manufacturing, supply and distribution agreement with Agropur MSI, it announced on Monday. The agreement would grant Agropur an exclusive license to manufacture, supply and distribute OptiBiotix's ‘SlimBiome’ weight management technology in the United States, Canada and Mexico. It described it as a “strategic step” by OptiBiotix to de-risk its supply chain, and extend the market reach of SlimBiome by adding manufacturing in North America.

Velocity Composites updated the market on its search for a new chairman on Monday, after the company’s founders withdrew their support for the process for the re-composition of the board and the search for a new chairman, chief executive officer and chief financial officer. The AIM-traded company said the founders wanted their two nominees on the board as part of the process first. Velocity said it was “disappointed”, but had no choice but to engage with the founders.

Newspaper round-up

Most forms of Brexit will worsen the country’s finances and reduce space for new initiatives to address child poverty, social care and left-behind communities that some argue drove the Brexit vote, a report has found. Academics at the UK in a Changing Europe think tank found a positive outcome depended on politicians being able to move on from the Brexit impasse and focus on longer-term challenges including productivity, regional imbalances and democratic reform. – Guardian

The chief executive of Aston Martin faces the prospect of a vote against his pay package as he faces shareholders for the luxury carmaker’s first annual meeting as a listed company. Andy Palmer has led the company since 2014, but investor scrutiny of his £1.2m salary – before a potential bonus five times larger – has increased as shares have slumped from the price at the carmaker’s much-anticipated stock market flotation. – Guardian

Mobile operators should face scrutiny from cartel watchdogs over High Court claims of attempted price fixing and collusion, according to the leader of a cross-party group of MPs. Grant Shapps, the Conservative chairman of the cross-party British Infrastructure Group, called on the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) to consider opening a formal investigation of the mobile industry. – Telegraph

An investment banker was handed a key role in an investigation into a small business scandal at Royal Bank of Scotland because the Financial Conduct Authority lacked knowledge of commercial lending, The Times can reveal. In what a victims’ representative called the “blind leading the blind”, Rene Poisson, a former JP Morgan managing director, was hired as a third-party consultant by the City regulator to help to oversee an inquiry into the treatment of small companies by RBS’s Global Restructuring Group. – The Times

When Luke Miels was poached from Astrazeneca two years ago to lead the pharmaceuticals division of Glaxosmithkline, his defection triggered a bitter legal dispute between Britain’s biggest drugs companies. Mr Miels, Astrazeneca’s head of Europe, was a protégé of Pascal Soriot, its chief executive, and his controversial departure came at a crucial period for the rival businesses. Astrazeneca was on the verge of achieving a painstaking recovery in its drugs business, while Glaxo was only just beginning to rebuild its pipeline. – The Times

US close

Stocks finished slightly lower at the end of the week amid a flurry of 'dovish' remarks from top US central bank officials, even as markets kept a close eye on remarks out of Washington and Beijing ahead of an expected meeting between the US and Chinese Presidents on the margins of the G-20 leaders' summit in Japan scheduled for the following week.

In remarks to Bloomberg TV ahead of the opening bell, US central bank vice-chairman Richard Clarida said that rate-setters would act "as appropriate to sustain the expansion".

He was followed by Atlanta Fed chief James Bullard, who said that cutting rates now would help the country "navigate" an increasingly risky environment, and Minneapolis Fed boss Neel Kashkari who said he had argued for an immediate one-off 50 basis point cut in the Fed funds rate at Wednesday's FOMC meeting.

Their remarks came as some economists, including those at Barclays and Citi, were recommending a 50 basis point cut in the Fed funds rate at July's Federal Open Market Committee meeting.

Against that backdrop, by the end of the New York trading day, the Dow Jones Industrial Average had drifted 0.13% lower to 26,719.13, alongside an identical decline for the S&P 500 to 2,950.46 while the Nasdaq Composite was down by 0.04% at 8.031.71.