FTSE 100 opened higher, gaining 60 points to 7,540 as last week’s rally continued and despite a stuttering start in Asia.
Gazprom intends to rebrand its UK supply arm to distance itself from Vladimir Putin and Russia. The Russian state-owned energy giant’s subsidiary supplies over a fifth of gas used by British businesses.
HSBC has suspended a senior executive who severely played down the risks of climate change. The leader of the bank's responsible investing team said in a speech, "There's always some nut job telling me about the end of the world."
The wage gap between company executives and other workers is set to widen this year after falling during the pandemic. Unions have called for maximum pay ratios to “bring some fairness back.”
Among the small caps, Futura Medical has granted an exclusive Europe-wide licence for its topical, gel-based erectile dysfunction (ED) treatment to France-based group Cooper Consumer Health. Under the agreement, Futura will receive initial upfront payments as well as undisclosed cumulative sales milestone payments.
Quantum Blockchain Technologies shares jumped as it said it had moved from simulation testing and has started live experimental Bitcoin mining using a standard version of the SHA-256 algorithm. This is the final step of nearly a year’s work by one of the company’s two machine learning teams, it added.
Shanta Gold reported more exceptionally high gold grades from drilling at its West Kenya project. Visible gold was identified in three intersections from five holes drilled in the first quarter at the Isulu and Bushiangala deposits.