Weekly review

The FTSE 100 ended the week 19.23 points lower at 7,617.70.

Equity view

Rolls-Royce on Friday said it was selling its commercial marine business to Norway's Kongsberg for an enterprise value of £500m and net proceeds of around £350m to £400m.

BCA Marketplace revealed on Friday that private equity group Apax had walked away after the car auction house and operator of WeBuyAnyCar.com rejected two takeover proposals.

Essentra has acquired 100% of the share capital of Nolato Hertila for a cash consideration of around SEK 58m (£4.9m), subject to customary adjustments, it announced on Friday.

Satellite company Inmarsat earlier this week rejected a 532p-per share takeover offer from US rival EchoStar Corporation, which said on Friday that it was continuing talks to try and agree a deal.

Superdry announced a special dividend as the clothing brand reported a rise of more than 11% in annual profit.

Persimmon announced solid trading for the first half of its financial year but business for the housebuilder is slowing.

Associated British Foods said profits were improving at its Primark clothing retail arm but lower EU prices were dragging on its sugar business.

EasyJet posted a 2.3% rise in passenger numbers year-on-year for June on Thursday, to 7.901 million people, with its load factor for the month rising 0.5 percentage points to 95.4%.

FTSE 250 bus and rail operator National Express said on Wednesday that its Spanish and Moroccan division, ALSA, has been awarded a bus contract worth €1bn that will see it become the largest transport operator in Morocco.

Connect Group has won an extension to its long-term contract with the publisher of The Sun, The Times and Sunday Times newspapers, some good news to follow its Panini-related profit warning last month.

BP has entered into agreements with ConocoPhillips that will significantly increase its holding in the Clair field - a core asset of BP's North Sea business in the UK - while also selling its non-operating interest in the Kuparuk and satellite oilfields in Alaska, it announced on Wednesday.

Sainsbury’s revenue growth slowed in the first quarter as the supermarket chain cut prices to sell more items to customers.

Smurfit Kappa has completed the acquisition of Netherlands-based paper and recycling business Reparenco for €460m.

McBride has warned annual profit will be lower than forecast after disappointing sales in the last two months of its financial year.

Healthcare services provider UDG Healthcare has agreed to buy two US-based businesses - Create NYC and SmartAnalyst - for a combined consideration of up to $82.4m.

Ferrexpo, the Ukraine-based iron ore producer, reported first-half pellet production that was down slightly on this time last year.

Engineer Meggitt upped its revenue guidance for the year on Monday following a stronger-than-expected second quarter as it announced a divisional restructure.

AstraZeneca and its global biologics research and development arm MedImmune announced on Monday that the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare has approved Imfinzi (durvalumab) as maintenance therapy after definitive chemoradiation therapy (CRT) in locally-advanced, unresectable non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).

LondonMetric Property has sold two M&S convenience stores for £10.7m, reflecting a net initial yield of 4.5%, and purchased a convenience development in Durham pre-let to Lidl for £13.3m, reflecting a yield on cost of 5.4%.

Vedanta directors have indicated they would be prepared to recommend a possible £778m all-cash takeover offer from founder Anil Agarwal, which comes amid a share slump after several protestors were killed by police at protests against the expansion of the company's Tuticorin copper smelter in India.

Economic news

Theresa May has given some details on her new Brexit customs plan, though it has already been deemed “unworkable” by Brexit minister David Davis.

Jaguar Land Rover said on Wednesday that a hard-Brexit could cause the company to curtail its operations in the UK, in a bid to avoid costs as high as £1.2bn a year.

The governor of the Bank of England said the UK economy was bouncing back from a weather-induced slump in activity, reinforcing expectations the BoE would increase interest rates in August.

Activity in the UK dominant services industry improved much more than expected last month, suggesting the British economy grew 0.4% in the second quarter of the year and raising the chances that the Bank of England will hike interest rates in August.

Retailers urged the government to urgently review business rates and set a sales tax on digital retail giants such as Amazon to save the UK's high streets.

UK construction industry activity continued to improve in June, reaching its highest level in seven months.

The Bank of England's financial policy committee has raised concerns about the adequacy of banks' protection against losses as risks loom in the economy.

Low-income families need a third more disposable income than a decade ago to cover childcare, transport, and energy costs, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation reveals in a report.

Growth in the UK manufacturing sector ticked a little higher in June but remained relatively subdued, according to data released on Monday.

More than 7,000 UK estate agents are showing signs of financial distress and could risk following the path of 153 estate agents who went insolvent in 2017, a new study has found.

Barclays is planning to move roughly 50 UK investment banking roles to Frankfurt to continue its business within the European Union after Brexit.

International events

Italy's new government will push ahead with both tax cuts and a universal basic income in its first budget, the country's finance chief said, even as he moved to assuage concerns that Rome might breach its budget targets.

Private payrolls in the United States grew by a respectable 177,000 in June but companies are struggling to find enough new employees according to data from payroll processor ADP’s monthly employment report.

Business activity in the euro-zone rose slightly more in June than previously believed as growth of output and new business speeded up.

Danske Bank shares were down 3% after reports that its Estonian operations were allegedly used to launder as much as $8.3bn, double previous estimates.

US President Donald Trump’s new trade policies could potentially trigger a full-blown trade war with former commercial allies that puts 2.6m US jobs at risk, the US Chamber of Commerce warned as it stepped into the debate overnight.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has averted a political crisis and saved her government coalition after agreeing a deal on migration with Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union.

Brussels is under pressure from China to form an alliance against US President Donald Trump’s aggressive trade policies, according to European officials.

A closely-tracked gauge of economic activity in China eased a tad in June, pointing to slightly slower growth in the Asian giant on the back of slower credit growth and trade tensions, economists said.

Unemployment within the single currency bloc was lower than expected over the past three months, thanks to declines in Italy and Spain, alongside downwards revisions to prior months' data.

Growth in the US economy's manufacturing sector unexpectedly picked up in June, according to data from the US Institute for Supply Management.