Shell to sell all its oil sands in Canada, Morrisons profits grow for first time in five years

London open

The FTSE 100 is expected to open 29 points lower on Thursday, having closed down 0.06% at 7,334.61 on Wednesday.

Stocks to watch

Oil giant Royal Dutch Shell announced it is to sell all of its oil sands interests in Canada and reduce its share in the Athabasca oil sands project to 10% from 60% for $7.25bn. Shell would remain the operator of Athabasca’s Scotford upgrader and the Quest carbon capture and storage project.

Insurer Aviva said it was making a £380m charge to account for the change in the Ogden rate – the discount on personal injury claim payouts – as it revealed full year operating profits up 12% to £3bn. “Fund management delivered a breakout year with strong positive net flows and operating profit up 30%. General insurance is growing, with operating profit up 17%, and in UK Digital we have doubled online registrations to five million. We are becoming a digital disruptor for the benefit of our customers,” the company said. The total dividend is up 12% to 23.3p.

Helped by a strong fourth quarter, Morrisons grew annual like-for-like sales and underlying profits before tax for the first time in five years and declared a 3.85p final dividend to celebrate. LFL sales jumped 2.5% in the three months to 29 January, lifting the year's total to 1.7% and turnover up 1.2% to £16.3bn.

BT Group announced on Thursday that Jan du Plessis would succeed Sir Mike Rake as chairman. The FTSE 100 firm said du Plessis would join the board as a non-executive director from 1 June, and become chairman with effect from 1 November when Rake was retiring from BT, following 10 years as chairman. Du Plessis has been chairman of Rio Tinto since 2009, a role he was retiring from no later than the 2018 annual general meeting.

Newspaper round-up

One of Standard Life’s star fund managers has quit only four days after the Scottish investment house’s parent company unveiled a shock £11 billion mega-merger with Aberdeen Asset Management. David Cumming, the head of equities, has left Standard Life Investments with immediate effect “to pursue other interests” but his exit after 18 years at the group is thought to be linked to the looming merger. - Times

Troubled lender the Co-operative Bank said it was "engaging" with potential bidders after putting itself up for sale last month as the group revealed it remained deep in the red last year. Chief executive Liam Coleman said he was "pleased" with the response so far from suitors following the group's move to launch a sale process amid concerns over its balance sheet strength. - Telegraph

Soaring rental costs and caps to housing benefits are pushing the most vulnerable tenants out of the private rental market, estate agents and chartered surveyors have warned. About a third of members at the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) believe that access to privately rented homes has fallen among people on housing benefits. - Times

US close

US stocks closed mixed as oil stocks fell on a surprise rise in inventories and Caterpillar shares were hit after a report accused the company of tax fraud.

At the Wednesday close the Dow Jones Industrial Average was 69 points lower to 20,856, the Nasdaq was 3 points higher to 5,838 and the S&P 500 5.41 points lower at 2363.

Caterpillar shares fell 3% after a the government-commissioned report was revealed by the New York Times.

“Caterpillar did not comply with either U.S. tax law or U.S. financial reporting rules,” the Times cited report author Leslie A. Robinson as saying.

“I believe that the company’s noncompliance with these rules was deliberate and primarily with the intention of maintaining a higher share price. These actions were fraudulent rather than negligent,” he added.

Meanwhile, West Texas Intermediate was down 5.42% to $50.26 per barrel and Brent crude fell 4.95% to $53.15.

US crude inventories rose more than expected, sending oil stocks lower on fears of oversupply.