London pre-open: Stocks seen up; Tesco and housebuilders in focus

(Sharecast News) - London stocks were set to rise at the open on Friday following losses in the previous session, with all eyes on the latest results from Tesco.

The FTSE 100 was called to open around 30 points higher.

In corporate news, supermarket chain Tesco reported a 3.4% jump in group first-quarter sales, driven by strong volume growth across the UK, Republic of Ireland and Central Europe supported by easing inflation.

Retail sales on a like-for-like basis for the 13 weeks to May 25 came in at £15.3bn as the company said UK market share had increased 52 basis points to 27.6% against its main competitors.

Elsewhere, Crest Nicholson confirmed it had rejected a second, unsolicited takeover approach from Bellway which valued the group at about £650m.

Under the terms of the latest offer, received on 7 May, Crest shareholders would receive 0.093 new ordinary shares in Bellway for each of their shares. This represents an implied value of 253p per Crest Nicholson share, which is a premium of about 18.8% to the closing share price on Thursday.

"The board of Crest Nicholson evaluated the revised proposal with its financial advisers and concluded that it significantly undervalued Crest Nicholson and its future standalone prospects and was not in the best interests of Crest Nicholson's shareholders," it said.

"The board therefore unanimously rejected the revised proposal on 14 May 2024."

Crest Nicholson said Bellway made an initial approach on 25 April, which would have seen shareholders receive 0.089 new ordinary shares.