magazine archive
magazine archive
Big News
Winners outed on ‘Super Thursday'
Thursday 19 Jan 2017‘Super Thursday’ revealed a strong showing from quoted retailers, although but this is likely to prove a last hurrah for the sector. Inflation will dampen a debt-driven festive consumer splurge and cost pressures are set to weigh on margins. A torrent of updates (12 Jan) revealed Marks &...
Alliance Trust names new managers
Thursday 19 Jan 2017Investment trust Alliance Trust ( ATST ) is revolutionising its investment strategy. The board has named eight external equity managers who will select a portfolio of 20 high conviction stocks. The performance target has been doubled to 2 percentage points above the MSCI World Index net of costs on...
BAT seals Reynolds deal
Thursday 19 Jan 2017An improved offer from British American Tobacco ( BATS ) is enough to seal its merger with US rival Reynolds American (RAI:NYSE) . The UK tobacco maker will pay $49.4bn, up 5.6% on its offer from October 2016, to secure the 58% of Reynolds it does not already own. It is confident of achieve $400m...
FDM goes for the hat-trick
Thursday 19 Jan 2017IT services consultancy FDM ( FDM ) has beaten full year forecasts for the third straight year since the company returned to the stock market in 2014. While the margin of outperformance through 2016 prompts broker Stockdale to push through only a modest 3% upgrade to pre-tax profit forecasts, it is...
Petra Diamonds founder to float rare earth miner
Thursday 19 Jan 2017A mining company offering near-term production, low capital expenditure requirements and a fully permitted project is set to join the UK stock market on or around 27 January. Rainbow Rare Earths is backed by investor and developer Pella Resources, best known for helping to build Petra Diamonds (...
Calls on ECB to ditch stimulus
Thursday 19 Jan 2017Mario Draghi treads the tightrope this week (20 Jan) when the European Central Bank (ECB) chief updates on interest rates. The ECB is under pressure from politicians in Germany to scale back stimulus after inflation in the eurozone’s largest economy surged in December. Other countries in the...
Bank that predicted 2008 crisis stops lending
Thursday 19 Jan 2017Surging consumer lending has already caught the attention of the UK’s central bank. Now a stock-market listed lender which stopped lending ahead of the 2008 financial crisis is also warning the borrowing boom is a worry. Net consumer lending, which excludes mortgage loans, increased 10.8% in...
Surprise trading joy for UK retail sector
Thursday 12 Jan 2017Many retailers have reported better than expected trading over Christmas, according to the first batch of figures up to 10 January. Another round of companies were scheduled to report on trading as this edition of Shares was published (12 Jan) including Tesco ( TSCO ) and ASOS ( ASC:AIM ) . Who has...
Just Eat fails to satisfy the market
Thursday 12 Jan 2017Slowing order growth is putting shares in online food delivery specialist Just East ( JE. ) under pressure despite confirmation full year results will be in line with guidance (10 Jan). Like-for-like orders were up 36% year-on-year in 2016. This compares with order growth of 46% in 2015 and 50% in...
Tullow steps back in Uganda
Thursday 12 Jan 2017Oil producer Tullow Oil ( TLW ) , a one-time constituent of the FTSE 100, is set to complete the long-awaited farm down of its stake in Uganda’s first ever oil development. The $900m transaction with French partner Total (FP:EPA) will see the company hand over two-thirds of its stake in the Lake...