BP takes 10% of Abu Dhabi concession, Electra pockets £405m from resorts sale
London open
The FTSE 100 is expected to open 33 points higher on Monday, after closing up 0.18% at 7,011.64 on Friday.
Stocks to watch
BP on Monday said it had signed an agreement to take a 10% stake in Abu Dhabi's ADCO onshore oil concession for an undisclosed sum. In addition to the interest in the ADCO concession, BP will becomes a 10% shareholder in ADCO, the Abu Dhabi Company for Onshore Petroleum Operations Limited, which operates the 40 year concession. BP will issue new ordinary shares representing approximately 2% of its issued share capital - excluding treasury shares - to be held on behalf of the Abu Dhabi government.
Electra Private Equity is due to receive roughly £405m proceeds from the £1.35bn sale of Parkdean Resorts to Canadian investors Onex Corporation. The deal, which is expected to complete on 1 March 2017, will see an uplift of £25m on Electra's book value in September and equivalent to an increase in its NAV of 50p per share.
Intellectual property-based business developer IP Group announced the creation of Microbiotica on Monday, which it described as a newly formed spin-out company from the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute established to commercialise the institute's research into the role of the human microbiome in disease. The FTSE 250 company said it was co-leading the investment with Cambridge Innovation Capital, a Cambridge-based investor in technology and healthcare companies in which IP Group is a shareholder, with a £4m contribution from each party to provide total initial funding of £8m.
Investment manager Brewin Dolphin is to buy Duncan Lawrie Asset Management for £25.5m along with a payment of £2.5m, to reflect the value of net assets in the business. The acquisition, which is subsidiary of the private banking arm of London-listed Camellia and has £735m of funds under management, is expected to be completed by the first half of 2017.
Newspaper round-up
Two out of five British companies plan to recruit more staff next year, despite the uncertainty created by the vote to leave the European Union. The “renewed optimism” among businesses is a marked change from March, when the CBI, the UK’s biggest business lobby group, said that the economy could lose 950,000 jobs by 2020 as a result of Brexit. - The Times
The Chinese government triggered a surprise boom in coal prices this year, delivering a surprise windfall to hard-up miners – now experts are warning that the reversal of the policy will lead to a drop in prices that is just as sharp. This year Beijing decreed that coalmines could operate only 276 days a year rather than 330 and the result was a spectacular rebound in prices, especially for coal used in steelmaking, as the world’s biggest consumer turned to overseas markets. - The Times
The world’s oldest bank has made a last-ditch attempt to convince tens of thousands of ordinary Italian savers to help it escape state hands. Monte dei Paschi, Italy’s third biggest bank, wants 40,000 retail investors to take part in a complex €5bn (£4.18bn) bailout, which was almost derailed by the country’s recent constitutional referendum. - Telegraph
US close
New York markets closed in the red on Friday with the Dow industrials turning negative, as focus shifted to reports that a Chinese naval vessel had seized a US underwater naval drone in international waters off the Philippines.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 0.04% at 19,843.41, the S&P 500 lost 0.18% at 2,258.07, and the Nasdaq 100 ended down 0.38% at 4,914.86.
American officials said the drone was in international waters and was gathering innocuous water measurements such as temperature and salt levels, though the Chinese lay claim to the entire South China Sea and asserted they had the right to collect and investigate the drone.