Like-for-like sales were 11.2 per cent higher than the same period last year. The group plans to open three new French Connection stores and one new Nicole Farhi outlet in the second half.
The shares were unchanged at 310p.. The new price controls take effect from April, 2000.Water charges have risen by 36 per cent in real terms since the industry was privatised in 1989 The average bill now stands at pounds 245.. FRENCH CONNECTION, the fashion chain led by Stephen Marks, is continuing to enjoy a boost from its controversial f.c.u.k advertising campaign, writes Nigel Cope. The campaign has helped the company sell 100,000 T-shirts and pushed half-year profits 16 per cent higher to pounds 3.5m. He added that although the pounds 8.5bn figure was large, a lot would depend on how it was spread among the water companies and how much the water regulator, Ian Byatt, allowed to be passed on to customers.Andrew Stone of Daiwa Europe said: “You are seeing the political context which is always likely to be pro-consumer. Now we have to convert the political into the economic and that is up to Ofwat [the water regulator].”Mr Byatt will unveil his initial proposals on water bills next month when he publishes “Prospects for Prices”.However, final price limits for each water company will not be set until November next year.

Anglian closed 29p down at 883p, while Severn Trent ended 41p lower at 1062p and Hyder, owner of Welsh Water, lost 41p to 938.5p.Robert Miller-Bakewell, water analyst for Merrill Lynch Global Securities, said: “This is an overdue reminder that there is a regulatory review in the background and that water is not just a steady utility stock that you can turn to when the market is turbulent.”The pounds 8.5bn figure is pounds 4bn more than the water industry has already budgeted to spend between 2000 and 2005 improving drinking water and bathing water standards and cleaning up rivers and coastal sewage discharges.Another analyst said the Government was trying to face both ways, by emphasising its green agenda at the same time as demanding big price reductions. Michael Meacher, the environment minister, suggested there was scope for a one-off cut in water charges of 10 per cent when the new five-year pricing formula is introduced from 2000.
Shares across the sector fell by more than 3 per cent as the City took fright that the twin squeeze of higher environmental costs and lower prices might be worse than feared. SHARES IN water companies fell sharply yesterday after the Government warned that it expected them to invest pounds 8.5bn on environmental clean-up programmes while still making “substantial” cuts in the average water bill. Short- term interest rate futures (STIR) contracts will be traded electronically from early July. As previously announced, electronic trading of individual equity options will start on November 30.
Brian Williamson, Liffe’s recently appointed chairman, said: “Liffe has responded to the commercial demands of our customers by accelerating the introduction of Liffe Connect”.. Gilt futures will be the first futures contract to be traded on Liffe Connect, the new system, followed by index futures and bund futures.

Shares dropped from 747.5p to 635.5p, in spite of a 27 per cent rise in first-half pre-tax profits to pounds 13.7m.
Investment, page 23. LIFFE, LONDON’S international financial and futures exchange, has announced plans to bring forward electronic trading. Liffe, which is facing aggressive competition from other European futures exchanges, will start trading futures electronically from 12 April next year, rather than at the end of the second quarter. MFI has been criticised by investors for the company’s poor performance, which has seen MFI’s shares fall from 151p late year to just 37p, down 0.5p yesterday. In a trading statement MFI said UK retail sales in the first 21 weeks of the current financial year were 10 per cent below the same period last year..

SHARES IN Brake Brothers, the market-leading food distributor, plunged yesterday by 15 per cent as the company said that catering was facing a “temporary slowdown”. Over pounds 48m was wiped from the company’s value as its chairman, Frank Brake, said he was “cautious, although not pessimistic” about the full year. “It has for some time been my plan to retire at the age of 60,” Mr Hunt told shareholders at MFI’s annual meeting, adding that he does not intend to seek re-election next year. LOSSES AT Dawson International deepened to pounds 23.6m in the six months to 4 July from a pounds 4.2m loss the year earlier, the textile company revealed yesterday. DEREK HUNT, chairman of the struggling MFI Furniture retailer, yesterday announced his intention to retire from the company next year, though MFI said he was not bowing to pressure from institutional investors.