Avon Rubber gets another US mask order, Rio Tinto agrees power plan in Mongolia

London open

The FTSE 100 is expected to open 43 points lower on Monday, having closed up 0.2% at 6,159.30 on Friday.

Stocks to watch

Avon Rubber said it had received a $16.3m mask order under its US Department of Defense M50 sustainment contract. Deliveries under the order would start in the current financial year and contribute to our military revenues for the year, Avon said on Monday.

Rio Tinto, Turquoise Hill Resources and the Mongolian government have agreed on a domestic power plan for Oyu Tolgoi that prepares the ground for the government to fund and build a state-owned power plant at the copper mine. The agreement commits each party to work towards finalising a power purchase agreement by the end of March 2021. The proposed timetable says construction of a coal-fired plant will start no later than 1 July with commissioning four years later.

Energean said it had agreed to exclude Edison E&P’s Norwegian subsidiary from its takeover deal, and cut capital expenditure guidance as oil companies wrestle with a slump in prices amid the coronavirus crisis. The deal, originally worth $750m, will now cost Energean a gross $284m after ditching Edison’s Algerian assets in April. Capex guidance was cut to $760m - $780m from $840 million. This decrease is despite the inclusion of $25m -$30m spending on UK North Sea assets and therefore reflected a further $85m - $110m cut to underlying guidance, Energean said.

TBC Bank Group has launched its banking operations in Uzbekistan, it announced on Monday, initially in a pilot mode for "friends and family", with plans to extend its services to the broader population in August. The FTSE 250 company said that, in line with its “asset-light and highly digitalised” strategy, it would be serving our customers mainly through its online platform ‘Space’, while its branches would be used primarily for client relationship purposes, with the first pilot branch already open.

Newspaper round-up

The biggest job creation package in peacetime is needed to prevent the worst unemployment crisis in Britain for a generation, a leading think tank has warned. Sounding the alarm as job losses mount, the Resolution Foundation called on the government to continue subsidising the wages of workers in the sectors of the economy hardest hit by the Covid-19 crisis until at least the end of next year. - Guardian

Landsec, one of Britain’s biggest property companies, is at risk of a shareholder rebellion after an influential adviser warned investors over the bumper pension package offered to its finance chief. The Guardian has learned that the Investment Association’s Institutional Voting Information Service (IVIS) has issued Landsec’s annual report with a “red top” alert – its strongest possible objection – for failing to publish a credible plan that would bring Martin Greenslade’s pension pay in line with the wider workforce by 2022. – Guardian

The head of the Government’s own expert customs panel has warned of looming chaos at ports after the “amateurish” handling of a new IT system. The Goods Vehicle Movement Service is intended to help goods flow across Britain’s borders and cut queues. Industry groups said they were only notified about the system in the past fortnight. Unlike France, the UK has still not tested its new customs system. – Telegraph

Retailers are being warned to prepare for a painful hangover from the online shopping binge after extending their returns policies during the lockdown. In an effort to revive sales, many retailers lengthened their returns deadlines from the usual 28 days, some up to 100 days. However, analysts and retail bosses have said they face an avalanche of unwanted goods after that period. – The Times

Large corporations that have received help from the government to see them through the pandemic should be forced to pay their suppliers within a month, a leading business campaign group has argued. At the end of last year, Britain’s small businesses were owed more than £23 billion in unpaid bills from customers but that figure is set to spike sharply higher due to the economic shutdown.- The Times

US close

Stocks closed sharply lower on Wall Street on Friday, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average ending the session down 2.84% at 25,015.55.

At the same time, the S&P 500 lost 2.42% to 3,009.05, and the Nasdaq Composite was 2.59% weaker at 9,757.22.