London Market Open Report: Footsie hammered down through 5,000

Date: Tuesday 25 May 2010

Shares have taken a pasting in early dealings as worries over the European debt situation continue to plague markets around the world.

US and Asia markets tumbled overnight and London has followed them down with no risers on Footsie at present. The best blue chip performer is Severn Trent at minus 0.7%.

Fallers are centred on the miners and banks. ENRC, Lloyds, Royal Bank of Scotland and Xstrata are among the worst hit, but ARM and Wolseley are also well off the pace.

Preliminary results from Marks & Spencer (M&S) came in with a slightly better than expected profit but the retail giant said it remains cautious about the outlook for the year ahead. Profit before tax and property disposals came to £632.5m in the 52 weeks ended 3 April, an improvement on last year’s £604.4m.

Some of the FTSE 250 are making progress despite the red ink elsewhere. South west England-focused water group Pennon hailed another successful year after lifting revenues and profits in the year to March 31 and raising the full year dividend by 7.4%. Pre-tax profits climbed to £183.8m from £159.4m on revenues that rose to £1.068bn from £958.2bn.

Private equity trust Electra is another riser after it lifted net asst value by 10.5% to 1,900p in the six months to March, up from 1,881p at end September.

Losses at its cash processing division meant profits came in little changed last year at banknote printer De la Rue, despite good sales growth. Pre-tax profits in the year to March were £96.6m, up from £96.1m, on sales of £561m some 12% higher.Operating profits rose by 13% to £109m driven by good growth from the banknote arm.

Plastics group Victrex reported record half year revenue and profits and said second half revenues will be broadly in line with the first half. Underlying pre-tax profits rose to £31.8m in the six months compared with £21.1m last year. Underlying revenue was up 36% to £76.5m.

Home maintenance specialist Homeserve posted a 13% increase in full year pre-tax profit driven by the strong performance at its UK and international operations.

Hull-based telecoms group KCOM reported a 64.2% surge in annual adjusted profit as it reduced costs and increased its full year dividend by 25%.