By Carla Mozee, MarketWatch
LONDON (MarketWatch) -- U.K. stocks huddled around the flatline
Thursday, with shares of Standard Chartered PLC gaining as the bank
said it has named a new chief executive, while stock in Royal Bank
of Scotland PLC was dragged lower following financial results.
The FTSE 100 picked up 2 points at 6,937.38.
Near the top of the blue-chip benchmark was Standard Chartered
PLC , whose shares climbed 2% after the Asia-focused lender said
CEO Peter Sands will step down
(http://www.marketwatch.com/story/standard-chartered-names-bill-winters-next-ceo-as-it-shakes-up-top-brass-2015-02-26)
in June, after eight years in the role. He will be succeeded by
Bill Winters, who once served as the co-CEO of J.P. Morgan
Investment Bank. Other leadership changes are also planned.
It is now "the right moment to hand over to new leadership,"
said Sands in a statement. "It has been my privilege to lead the
people of Standard Chartered through a period of extraordinary
turbulence and growth." Sands had been under pressure to step down
as profit has fallen and shares have struggled.
On the losing end of the FTSE 100, RBS (RBS) dropped 3.2% after
the company logged a 2014 net loss of 3.47 billion pounds
(http://www.marketwatch.com/story/rbs-posts-seventh-loss-in-a-row-after-write-down-2015-02-26)
($5.39 billion) after writing down the value of part-owned U.S.
unit Citizens Financial Group. The bank's seventh straight loss,
which was narrower than last year's loss of GBP9 billion, was the
result of several one-off charges.
Reed Elsevier PLC shares were also down, losing 4.6% as the
publishing and exhibitions company posted a fall in full-year net
profit and revenue
(http://www.marketwatch.com/story/reed-elsevier-full-year-profit-falls-2015-02-26-2485424).
EasyJet PLC was down 2.4% as the budget airline's shares traded
without dividend rights.
Meanwhile, the pound (GBPUSD) edged higher to $1.5536 after
gross domestic product was confirmed to have grown 0.5% in the
fourth quarter. The first GDP reading from the the Office for
National Statistics was released in January. The pound traded at
$1.5523 ahead of Thursday's report, compared with $1.5530 late
Thursday in New York.
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