Vodafone teams up with LG UPlus in Korea, Royal Mail selling Nine Elms site for £101m

London open

The FTSE 100 is expected to open nine points higher on Monday, after closing up 0.05% at 7,547.63 on Friday.

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Vodafone and LG UPlus have announced a new Partner Market agreement for South Korea where the former will share best practices with LG UPlus across all areas of their business, including network strategy and development. LG UPlus will benefit from Vodafone's knowledge and experience to help improve their customer base management capabilities, Vodafone said in a statement.

Royal Mail has agreed to sell two of the seven plots on the site of its former south London mail centre at Nine Elms site to US-based developer Greystar for £101m cash. The combined 2.67-acre plots will be used for "purpose-built, high specification private rental apartment buildings".

AstraZeneca presented positive results from its Phase III OlympiAD trial on Monday, which showed a “statistically significant” and “clinically meaningful” improvement in progression-free survival for BRCA-mutated metastatic breast cancer patients treated with Lynparza (olaparib) tablets - 300mg twice daily - compared to treatment with physician's choice of a standard of care chemotherapy. The FTSE 100 drugmaker said that in addition to meeting its primary endpoint of progression-free survival assessed by blinded independent central review, the trial showed that patients treated with Lynparza had a 42% reduction in risk of their disease worsening or death compared to those who received chemotherapy.

Newspaper round-up

One in 25 businesses, or nearly 80,000 enterprises, would struggle to handle an increase in interest rates of as little as a quarter of a percentage point, according to research by the insolvency trade body, in the clearest sign yet of the fragile state of corporate balance sheets. It is thought that some 79,000 businesses would be unable to repay their debts if rates were to rise, four times as many as in September when the Association of Business Recovery Professionals, or R3 as it is known, conducted a similar survey. - The Times

Britain’s manufacturing industry is getting a boost from the weaker pound which is strengthening export demand, offsetting concerns about the election and prospect of Brexit. Trade body EEF’s quarterly survey, which takes the temperature of industry, has revealed continued positive sentiment in the sector in the second quarter of the year, building on momentum of the first three months. - Telegraph

Punitive taxes on new cars, which sent vehicle sales into freefall in their first month, are still putting the brakes on the industry, new registration data are likely to show this week. The number of new cars being driven off dealers’ forecourts plunged 20pc in April as changes in vehicle tax rates took their toll on demand. - Telegraph

The opening shots have been fired in what is likely to be one of the first and fiercest battles to shape post-Brexit trade policy. British Sugar has embarked on a Back British Sugar campaign, in opposition to Tate & Lyle Sugars, which campaigned to leave the EU. British Sugar, part of Associated British Foods, produces its Silver Spoon brand from British beet, but Tate & Lyle’s sugar is refined from imported cane. - The Times

Despite overwhelmingly being in support of leaving the European Union at the Brexit referendum, farmers are increasingly gloomy now that they are staring down the reality of what leaving will entail. In two years, confidence levels on the outlook for the next three years, as measured by the National Farmers’ Union (NFU), have plummeted to just above zero from a high of 19 points on the positive side, in the wake of the general election being called and Brexit being set. - Guardian

US close

US stocks advanced for a second consecutive week, notching up fresh record highs in the process, with technology issues again spearheading the charge, despite the release of a weaker than expected jobs report for the month of May.

On Friday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 0.29% or 62.11 points to end the session at 21,206.29, as the S&P 500 gained 0.37% or 9.01 points to 2,439.07 while the Nasdaq Composite tacked on 0.94% to 6,305.80.

In parallel, the yield on the 10-year US Treasury was down by five basis points - its lowest level since November - to 2.16%, with the US dollar spot index off by 0.50% to 96.72.

From a sector standpoint, the best performance was seen in: Residential REITs (2.21%), Medical suppies (1.79%) and Biotechnology (1.67%).

For the week as a whole, the S&P was 1.0% higher and the Dow Jones Industrials added 0.6%.

American firms took on 138,000 new hires last month (consensus: 185,000) and a combined 66,000 less than previously thought over the prior two months, according to the Department of Labor.