Dechra FY revenues increase 'strongly', Domino's Pizza taps Edward Jamieson for CFO

London pre-open

The FTSE 100 was being called to open 79.1 points lower ahead of the bell on Monday after narrowly scraping out a 0.10% gain in the previous session to sit at 7,196.24.

Stocks to watch

Veterinary pharmaceutical group Dechra said on Monday that revenues had "increased strongly" during the twelve months ended 30 June, up 14% at constant currency and 12% at actual exchange rates.

Dechra stated European pharmaceutical revenues had grown 8% year-on-year, while North American pharmaceutical revenues surged 24%.

Pizza delivery chain Domino's Pizza Group has tapped Edward Jamieson to take over as chief financial officer, succeeding current interim CFO David Surdeau.

Domino's said on Monday that Jamieson, who previously served as Just Eat's UK & Ireland regional finance director, was expected to join both the group and its board of directors in October.

Newspaper round-up

Elon Musk could be forced by a US court to complete his $44.0bn takeover of Twitter, according to legal experts, despite pulling the plug on the transaction. The Tesla chief executive told Twitter on Friday that he is terminating the deal, citing concerns over the number of spam accounts on the social media platform. Twitter's chairman, Bret Taylor, responded with a tweet stating that the company intended to "pursue legal action to enforce the merger agreement". - Guardian

Uber lobbied the French President Emmanuel Macron in the hope of writing future laws regulating taxi app services, leaked documents have revealed. Mr Macron is said to have held a meeting with executives from the taxi company that they described as "spectacular" when he was serving as economy minister in 2014, as Uber sought to disrupt the existing market. - Telegraph

Britain is on the edge of dairy shortages as a crippling lack of workers forces farmers to slash production, the country's biggest milk and butter maker has warned. Arla Foods, the company behind Lurpak butter and Cravendale milk, also predicted that dairy prices will surge even higher with grocery bills already rising at the fastest pace in 13 years. - Telegraph

Rishi Sunak and Grant Shapps, the prime ministerial hopefuls, should share the blame for the delays and cancellations chaos at airports this summer, the boss of one of the country's leading airline services companies has said. Philipp Joeinig, chief executive of Menzies Aviation, which provides check-in services, baggage handling and refueling for the likes of EasyJet, American Airlines and Delta Air Lines worldwide, says that the staff shortages blighting the industry were predictable and preventable. - The Times

An activist investor that has built a 4% stake in Purplebricks has called for the chairman of the online estate agency to resign, citing a plunge in the company's share price and rapid level of cash burn. Shares in Purplebricks have fallen 85% since it listed on AIM in 2015, after a series of profit warnings and operational blunders, causing market value to shrink to just over £45.0m, from £240.0m. - The Times

US close

Wall Street stocks put on a mixed performance on Friday but major averages managed to deliver a winning week following a stronger-than-expected jobs report.

At the close, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 0.15% at 31,338.15 and the S&P 500 was 0.08% weaker at 3,899.38, while the Nasdaq-100 was 0.12% firmer at 11,635.31.

Reporting by Iain Gilbert at Sharecast.com