London pre-open: Optimism builds ahead of crucial EU summit on Greece

UK stocks are expected to edge higher on Monday on a pivotal day for Greece as optimism builds that leaders can scrape together a deal to stop Athens from defaulting on its debts and leaving the euro.

City sources predict the FTSE 100 will open 18 points higher than Friday’s close of 6,710.45.

“European equities are set to get a pop higher on the open as traders cautiously welcome developments in Greece,” said night dealer Jonathan Sudaria from London Capital Group.

According to reports, creditors are working on a short-term deal to extend Greece’s bailout by six months and supply up to €18bn in rescue funds.

After weeks of no progress in negotiations between Athens officials and international lenders, the deadlock was broken on Sunday night when the government submitted new proposals to the heads of the IMF, ECB and European Commission.

Ahead of a crucial emergency EU summit on Monday, Luxembourg’s foreign minister Jean Asselborn said in a interview on Germany’s Deutschlandfunk radio that “there will be a lurch forward”.

Stocks to watch

Remgro, a major shareholder of South Africa-based private hospital group Mediclinic, is to buy a 29.9% shareholding in FTSE 250 peer Spire Healthcare. Remgro has entered into an agreement to buy the stake from Cinven for 360p per share, equal to £432m. Mediclinc then intends to acquire the holding from Remgro “in the near future”, but confirmed it does not intend to make a takeover offer for the whole of Spire.

Tullow Oil said that it has settled its capital gains tax dispute with the government of Uganda and the Uganda Revenue Authority (URA) with regard to its farm-downs to CNOOC and Total in 2012.

Power generator hire firm Aggreko said it will restructure into two units as it announced a raft of management changes.