Weekly review

The FTSE 100 ended the week 145.07 points lower at 7,432.42.

Equity view

Vodafone Group announced the completion of the merger between Vodafone India and Idea Cellular on Friday, following clearance of the transaction by the relevant competition and regulatory authorities.

Whitbread shares surged on Friday as it agreed to sell the Costa coffee chain to Coca-Cola for £3.9bn.

EMIS Group said on Friday that its profits grew by a fifth in the first half of the year despite the company facing penalties of several million pounds over failure to deliver on NHS contracts.

Garfunkel's and Frankie & Benny's owner Restaurant Group posted a drop in first-half sales and profit on Friday but said it was still on track to meet current market expectations for the full year following a more solid recent performance.

Sage shares tumbled on Friday after the software company said chief executive officer Stephen Kelly will leave next May and reiterated guidance for the year.

Hays reported a 17% jump in full-year profit on Thursday as the recruiter boosted its dividend after a "landmark" year that saw solid growth in its international businesses.

Hunting swung back into profit in the first half and reinstated its dividend as the energy services group gained from a revival in US shale activity.

Recruitment firm Harvey Nash saw revenue and profits grow in line with expectations throughout the first six months of its trading year.

AstraZeneca announced on Thursday that the European Commission (EC) has approved Bydureon BCise - exenatide 2mg prolonged-release suspension for injection in pre-filled pen - as a new formulation within the marketing authorisation for Bydureon for the treatment of patients with type-2 diabetes.

SSE welcomed the provisional findings from the Competition and Markets Authority’s inquiry into the proposed merger of its household energy and services business in Great Britain and Innogy’s retail business npower on Thursday.

Oilfield services provider Petrofac said on Wednesday that it swung to a net loss in the first half, as it announced an engineering, procurement and construction contract worth $600m with Algeria’s Sonatrach.

Diploma’s chief executive Richard Ingram has left the technical equipment supplier after less than four months in the job.

Micro Focus International said on Wednesday that it has begun a share buy-back programme with an initial tranche of up to $200m.

Listed infrastructure investment firm HICL Infrastructure Company has entered into an agreement to sell its 9.7% interest in the AquaSure Desalination PPP Project, it announced on Wednesday.

CRH announced the second phase of its share buyback programme on Wednesday, having already completed the first phase on 31 July, under which €350m of cash was returned to shareholders.

RPC Group announced on Tuesday that it has reached binding agreement with Graphic Packaging International for the sale of the foodservice business of Letica Corporation for a pre-tax cash free, debt free consideration of $95m.

Private healthcare operator NMC Health was forced to respond to press speculation on Tuesday, saying it had taken note of questions it had received on the back of various news articles regarding acquisition of assets in India.

Infrastructure investment company International Public Partnerships noted on Tuesday that Ofgem had, as anticipated, published a notice under Section 8A of the Electricity Act 1989 relating to the Dudgeon OFTO project.

Distribution and outsourcing group Bunzl announced its first acquisition in Norway on Tuesday and reported a 4% increase in first-half profit growth in Europe more than made up for the negative effect of the strengthening pound on overseas profits.

Lloyds Banking Group announced on Tuesday that, following the purchase of ordinary shares on 24 August, its share buyback programme as announced on 8 March was completed in accordance with the terms.

Economic news

House prices in the UK suffered their biggest monthly fall in August since July 2012, according to the latest survey from Nationwide.

The new Elizabeth line railway through central London has been delayed, and now will not open until late 2019.

Lending to both businesses and consumers slowed unexpectedly in July, although mortgage approvals were just a tad weaker than anticipated.

UK Prime Minister Theresa May announced on Thursday that the charge on single-use plastic bags of 5.0p could be increased to 10.0p in a new move to tackle plastic pollution.

London house prices will fall this year and next and will drop sharply if the UK leaves the EU with no deal, a poll predicts.

Sterling shot higher on Wednesday afternoon after the EU's chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier was reported to have said that he was prepared to give the UK a deal unlike with any other country.

The UK government said on Wednesday it is launching a study to design the new navigation satellite programme that will rival the EU’s Galileo post-Brexit at a cost of around £92m.

The UK and the European Union are set to announce that the deadline for reaching a Brexit deal has been pushed back from October to November as it is now unlikely that an agreement can be reached before, Bloomberg reported on Wednesday.

UK Prime Minister Theresa May said on Monday that a no-deal Brexit "wouldn’t be the end of the world", in what some observers said was an attempt to downplay the warning issued by Chancellor Philip Hammond during the previous week.

Japanese companies with operations in Britain are nonplussed by the UK government’s approach to Brexit as the deadline for leaving the EU nears, the Financial Times reported on Tuesday.

International events

Inflation pressures in the single currency bloc ebbed in August, amid broad-based declines outside of processed food, alcohol and tobacco.

The rate of euro area unemployment was unchanged at its lowest level since November 2008 last month.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said late on Wednesday that although Canada had entered into negotiations for a new North American Free Trade Agreement with Mexico and the US, he would walk away from the talks if the deal doesn’t align with Canada’s best interests.

The number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits last week rose a little less than expected, according to data from the Labor Department.

Brussels is willing to cancel tariffs on all US industrial products including vehicles in its trade talks with the US, Politico reported on Thursday.

A widely-followed lead indicator of activity in the US housing market for the month of July undershot economists' forecasts on Wednesday.

Over two thirds of the top 50 federal contractors and corporate subsidy recipients paid their CEO more than 100 times their median worker pay in 2017, the latest Executive Excess report revealed.

America's trade deficit in goods with the rest of the world widened last month, partly as the boost to exports from Chinese buyers trying to front-run their government's tariffs on US soybeans lapsed.

US President Donald Trump has accused Google of "rigging" the search results obtained through its search engine in order to make him look bad and only show "fake news".