London pre-open: Stocks seen higher; eyes on Carney

London stocks were set for a firmer open on Tuesday as oil prices steadied, with investors looking ahead to a speech by Bank of England governor Mark Carney.

The FTSE 100 was expected to start 14 points higher than Monday’s close at 7,000.

There are no major UK data releases due, but the German Ifo survey is at 0900 BST.

CMC Markets’ Michael Hewson said: “With questions being asked about whether he will serve out his full eight year term as Bank of England governor, Mark Carney will be the focus of attention today as he speaks to the House of Lords economic affairs committee, ahead of next week’s rate decision and quarterly inflation report, where he is likely to face questions about the recent Brexit vote and the central Banks reaction to it.”

In corporate news, aerospace and automotive engineering group GKN issued a trading update for the nine months to 30 September, with management sales increasing 21% to £6.9bn, including organic sales growth of 2% - or £151m - in line with expectations.

The FTSE 100 company said sales in the automotive businesses continued to perform well against the market and the aerospace division grew in line with expectations, though the land systems markets remained tough.

As it had previously anticipated, the group trading margin was lower than the equivalent period last year, which it put down to the commencement of the £35m restructuring programme, launch related costs in GKN Driveline, the absence of last year’s one-off benefits in GKN Aerospace and the inclusion of Fokker Technologies.

St James's Place reported a 21% rise in gross inflows for the latest three-month stretch to reach £2.8bn, with the political uncertainty after the referendum not having had any distinguishable impact on its day-to-day business.

The asset manager said it had seen good momentum since the half-year, with a 95% retention rate for new clients resulting in net inflows of assets under management of £1.66bn over the three months to 30 September. At period end, group AuM stood at £71.4bn, for an increase of £12.8bn since the start of the year.

Whitbread sprinkled a 5% dividend hike on a strong set of interim results, with Premier Inn accelerating in the second quarter to offset a slight softening from Costa. Total group revenues rose 8.1% in the six months to 1 September, up from 8% in the first quarter, with like-for-like sales growth improving to 1.9% from 1.8%.

Investment manager 3i Group is to sell its debt management business to Investcorp, a Bahrain-based manager of alternative investments, for around £222m to focus on growing its private equity and infrastructure portfolios.

The deal, which is expected to close by the end of March, will generate £222m in cash to the company and a £36m profit, subject to closing adjustments, which will be reinvested in the company’s private equity and infrastructure divisions.