By Carla Mozee, MarketWatch
LONDON (MarketWatch) -- U.K. stocks fell Friday, with British
Sky Broadcasting Group PLC losing ground as it agreed a deal to
purchase assets in Germany and Italy, although stock in Royal Bank
of Scotland Group PLC outperformed after the bank's financial
update.
The FTSE 100 gave up 0.2% to 6,808, but was still on track for a
weekly gain of about 0.8%.
BSkyB shares led decliners on the index, with a 4.4% pullback
after the British broadcaster said it will pay 4.9 billion pounds
($8.3 billion) to buy Sky Italia and a 57.4% stake in Sky
Deutschland from 21st Century Fox Inc.(NWS). The deal paves the way
for BSkyB to create a pay-TV business across Europe.
But shares of Royal Bank of Scotland Group PLC leapt 10% as the
company said it expects pretax profit of GBP2.65 billion for the
first half of the year, compared with GBP1.37 billion in the
year-ago period. Second-quarter net profit fell on charges.
Later in the session will be the first release of U.K. gross
domestic product for the second quarter.
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