Polymetal chairman walks, Spectris pulls £1.7bn bid for Oxford Instruments

London pre-open

The FTSE 100 was being called to open 140.3 points lower ahead of the bell after closing out the previous session 3.48% weaker at 6,987.14.

Stocks to watch

Anglo-Russian precious metals outfit Polymetal International revealed on Monday that chairman Ian Cockerill would be stepping down from the board, with immediate effect, as will non-executive directors Ollie Oliveira, Tracey Kerr, Italia Boninelli, Victor Flores and Andrea Abt.

Shares in the FTSE 100-listed firm have recently tumbled as much as 80% as both the beleaguered Russian gold minder and steelmaker Evraz struggled amid sanctions against Moscow.

Spectris has pulled its £1.7bn bid for Oxford Instruments, citing global market uncertainties caused by the "deplorable" events in Ukraine after the Russian invasion.

"Since there is no certainty as to when the situation will be resolved, and market conditions will improve, the board has concluded that the proposed combination is no longer in shareholders' best interests at the current time," the company said on Monday. Oxford Instruments said last week it had received a non-binding, indicative offer that included £19.50 a share in cash, plus new shares in Spectris worth £11.50 each.

Newspaper round-up

Burberry has become the latest luxury brand to temporarily shut its stores in Russia following Moscow’s invasion of its neighbour Ukraine, after similar moves in recent days by Louis Vuitton, Hermès, Kering, Chanel and Prada. The British fashion brand has three stores in the country, including one run by a franchisee and one in Moscow's famous Red Square. It had already announced last week that it had halted deliveries to the outlets but confirmed this weekend that it was shutting them for the time being. - Guardian

Consumers will still be able to use Mastercard and Visa-branded cards for domestic transactions in Russia, the country's state-backed payments network has said, reducing the impact of the US firms' decision to pull services over the invasion of Ukraine. Russia's homegrown payments system Mir said the cardholders would still be able to access their funds, make withdrawals and domestic transfers – at least until their bank cards expire. - Guardian

Germany and France will capitalise on post-Brexit rules to force British Airways to be spun-off as a standalone airline, the chief executive of Ryanair has claimed. Michael O'Leary said that politicians and lobbyists in the Eurozone's two biggest economies are "gunning for" IAG, the FTSE 100 airlines group that owns BA. - Telegraph

The threat of strike action is looming over Britain's largest gas distribution network company. The GMB union will launch a strike ballot for more than 2,000 members at Cadent Gas after employees "resoundingly" rejected a below-inflation pay rise of 4%. Union bosses said that the offer amounted to a "massive" real-terms pay cut and added that the "cost-of-living crisis is hitting Cadent workers hard". - The Times

AstraZeneca will go another £100.0m over budget this year to complete its futuristic research and development centre and headquarters in Cambridge, despite having formally unveiled the site more than three months ago. The additional cost of the Discovery Centre, or Disc as it has been dubbed because of its structure, brings the total project costs to £1.1bn, more than three times the initial estimate. - The Times

US close

Stocks on Wall Street came under renewed selling pressure at the end of the week as traders opted to take some risk off the table ahead of a headline-prone weekend given the grim situation in Ukraine.

At the close, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 0.53% at 33,614.80, while the S&P 500 was 0.79% softer at 4,328.87 and the Nasdaq Composite saw out the session 1.66% weaker 13,313.44.