STANDARD LIFE should demonstrate its ability to survive the downturn in global markets on Wednesday when brokers look for news of an increase in operating profits from £353 million to around the £490m mark at the half-year stage.

The upsurge is likely to reflect increased efficiencies after recent job losses, at a time of falling global pensions business and particularly tough conditions in UK and Irish markets.

Overall, the worldwide pensions and life operations are expected to have held steady at around £8.5 billion.

Brokers will be particularly interested in results from Standard Life's disappointing banking operations and believe chief executive Sandy Crombie may yet review his plans to retain the business as a core operation.

Trevor Matthews faces a tough baptism this week as he finally settles into his new role running Friends Provident, a full six months after quitting his job as head of Standard Life's UK operations.

Just days after the group announced swingeing cuts in terminal bonuses for policyholders, analysts believe that it will be the turn of shareholders to share the pain with news of a sharp reduction in dividends when directors announce half-year figures on Thursday.

Brokers believe that the interim payment will be sliced from 2.7p to below 1.5p, and say the group may have to dip into reserves to pay even that.

Underlying profits before tax are expected to show a slide from £111m to as little as £34m after the group took an estimated £80m hit from a widening of corporate bond spreads in the opening half of this year, and there could be an overall loss when exceptional items are included.

There are also concerns that the group may be struggling to sell off its 52% stake in the F & C management group after putting on hold its plans to dispose of financial advisory group, Pantheon.

But followers still hope that the new chief executive could pull a hat out of the bag at the results presentation with news of an early sale of the Lombard life assurance operation.

Work on revitalising Glasgow's social housing stock and a newbuild programme for the Dunedin Canmore Housing Association in Edinburgh should help infrastructure group Morgan Sindall to defy the general gloom in the construction industry with news of an increase in half-year returns from £25.2m to £30m or more on Wednesday.

Followers believe that the group could still lift full-year profits from £57.6m to approaching £70m this year, although directors are likely to rein back some of the more optimistic predictions because of falling sales of homes in their mixed developments.

Coal-fired power station group Drax will be the latest power producer to show the benefits of higher prices on Wednesday when directors are likely to predict much better times ahead, after announcing an anticipated fall in first-half earnings before interest tax and depreciation from £288m to around the £190m mark.

Directors are expected to disclose that rises in energy prices are comfortably exceeding increased costs of coal and could suggest that analysts should again upgrade full-year profit forecasts which started the year at around £360m and have moved up to above the £400m level.

Brokers at Deutsche Bank have already targeted a figure of £435m and believe directors will dip into their £100m cash pile to make a special 10p dividend.

ITV chairman Michael Grade will show the impact of increased investment in the internet generally, and the Friends Reunited website in particular, on Wednesday when half-year profits may slump by more than 50% to as little as £62m.

Analysts at Charles Stanley say the results could be accompanied by a cut in dividends from 1.35p to 0.7p and warn of a deteriorating outlook for advertising, but say the company could make an attractive bid target for the likes of overseas buyers such as RTL, Bertelsmann, Haim Sabam or Mediaset.

The bank reporting season is due to come to an end during the week as remaining finance institutions join Royal Bank of Scotland in reporting interim results.

Most interest is centred around Barclays Bank, which is expected to report a slump in its half-year earnings from £4.1 billion to below £3bn on Thursday as a result of bad debts on its Barclaycard and other personal finance operations and may announce further plans to boost capital ratios after recent fund raising.