BT to Split Openreach, Shell to Sell Canadian Oil Sands Assets

Sarla Buch
10 Mar, 2017
New York City

The U.K. regulator approved the separation of BT and Openreach. Fraport said number of passengers in February increased 1% to 4 million. Segro launched a 1-for-5 rights issue. Shell agreed to sell Canadian oil sands assets worth $7.3 billion.

[R]4:00 PM Frankfurt – The U.K. regulator approved the separation of BT and Openreach. Fraport said number of passengers in February increased 1% to 4 million. Segro launched a 1-for-5 rights issue. Shell agreed to sell Canadian oil sands assets worth $7.3 billion.[/R]

In London trading, FTSE 100 index jumped 42.20 or 0.6% to 7,357.13 and in Frankfurt the DAX index rose 26.98 or 0.2% to 12,005.62.

In Paris, CAC 40 index advanced 25.38 or 0.5% to 5,006.89.

For the week, FTSE 100 index fell 0.2%, the DAX index slid 0.2% and the CAC 40 index rose 0.2%.

BT Group Plc jumped 4.1% to 343.84 pence after the U.K.-based communications services provider said today that it will legally separate from its network division Openreach, which controls the UK''s broadband infrastructure, after reaching an agreement with the regulator Ofcom.

Openreach Limited now have its own board of directors and the management and about 32,000 employees will move over to the new entity after employment regulations and pension arrangements are settled.

""This has long and challenging review where we have to balance a number of competing interests,” BT chief executive officer Gavin Patterson said.

Fraport AG Frankfurt Arprt Svcs Wrldwde gained 1.1% to €59.16 after Germany-based airport services provider said total number of passengers in February increased 1% to 4 million and cargo throughput gained 1.3% to 161,765 metric tons.

However, total aircraft movements in the month dropped 4.1% to 32,706 takeoffs and landings.

Segro Plc declined 4.8% to 472.90 pence after the U.K.-based warehouse and industrial property developer agreed to acquire remaining 50% stake worth £365 million in the Airport Property Partnership joint venture from the Aviva Group Entities, located at London’s Heathrow Airport.

Separately, the real estate developer said that it launched a 1-for-5 rights issue to raise £573 million.

Royal Dutch Shell Plc increased 2.2% to 2,135.50 pence after the U.K.-based energy explorer agreed to divest nearly all of its Canadian oil sands assets worth about $7.25 billion to withdraw from the costly and heavy carbon-intensive sources of oil projects.

Under the first agreements, Shell will sell 50% stake in Athabasca Oil Sands Project, a subsidiary of Canadian Natural Resources Limited worth about $8.5 billion.

Separately under the second agreement, Shell and Canadian Natural jointly acquire and own equally Marathon Oil Canada Corporation for $1.25 billion each in cash.

The combination of transactions is estimated to result a net consideration of $7.25 billion to Shell.

Repsol SA advanced 3% to €14.50 after Spain-based oil and gas explorer said that it had discovered a giant oil field of 1.2 billion barrels of oil in Alaska North Slope and expects to start production in 2021, with output of as much as 120,000 barrels a day.

Wirecard AG soared 4.1% to €47.72 after Germany-based electronic payment services provider said it successfully completed the acquisition of the U.S. based Citi Prepaid Card Services. The deal was earlier announced on June 29, 2016.