Serco outlines Aussie army deal, Avast sells RMM unit

London open

The FTSE 100 is expected to have a flat start on Monday, dropping around two points after finishing last week at 7,020.22.

Stocks to watch

Serco Group said the contract to support the Commonwealth of Australia's Department of Defence to provide National Garrison Health Services to the Australian Defence Force will be over an initial six-year term and worth A$1.01bn (£560m). The contract has up to four one-year extensions. Full operational service under the new contract will begin on 1 July 2019.

Indivior has agreed to sell the Chinese rights to a tablet version of its opioid addiction treatment for $122.5m and also said it had entered into an agreement with Alvogen Pine Brook to temporarily prevent it entering the sublingual film market in the US. A preliminary injunction hearing in the US district courts had been scheduled for this Thursday over a temporary restraining order against Alvogen, but this will now not take place.

Cybersecurity provider Avast said it had sold its non-core remote monitoring and management (RMM) product Managed Workplace to Barracuda Networks for an undisclosed sum. Managed Workplace sells RMM services to Managed Service Providers. “Barracuda, which has a large existing MSP base but does not currently offer an RMM solution, provides a better long-term solution for this business,” Avast said.

Newspaper round-up

Hard Brexiters have warned Theresa May that the only proposal they are likely to support to break the Brexit impasse is a version of the “Malthouse compromise”, which envisages removing the backstop from the draft European Union exit treaty. Steve Baker, vice chair of the European Research Group, said that he and other Conservative Eurosceptics could not support the alternative they believed Theresa May favoured – an addendum to the existing EU withdrawal agreement. - Guardian

Companies are scaling back spending and hiring plans more ferociously than at any time for nine years amid uncertainty about Brexit, a survey of finance chiefs has found. Executives at some of the biggest British businesses are prioritising measures to drive down costs to shore up their balance sheets, according to Deloitte’s quarterly survey of chief financial officers. - The Times

Delays calling the taxman’s helpline are creating a backlog as taxpayers increasingly leave filing their returns until the last minute. More than 735,000 people scrambled to file their tax return on January 31, official figures have shown - a 29 per cent rise on five years ago, when 569,847 people left it to the last day. - Telegraph

US close

Wall Street produced had a mixed session on Friday despite a strong non-farm payrolls report. The Dow Jones climbed 0.3% to 25,063.89 and the S&P 500 climbed 0.1% to 2,706.53 but, after results from Amazon disappointed, the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite fell 0.25% to end near 7,263.87. Over the course of the week, the Dow was up 1.3%, the S&P rose 1.6%, and the Nasdaq booked a gain of 1.4%.