Friday's news and tips

By ShareCast, 03 June 2011

■ Oil firm Cairn Energy has got cracking on its West Greenland offshore drilling campaign, with drilling commenced on two wells.

■ Toy train maker Hornby saw sales fall in the year to 31 March, but blamed this on supply issues rather than the tough economic outlook and said it the business is in "great shape."

■ With summer approaching, advertising giant WPP has decided the time is right to go for a Brazilian, and has acquired a 70 per cent stake in Grïngo Publicidade, a leading digital agency in Brazil.

■ Fashion and homewares retailer Laura Ashley said UK sales fell 4.5 per cent in the 17 weeks to 28 May 2011 as it closed more unprofitable stores and expects to post full year results in line with expectations.

■ Platinum miners Aquarius and Sylvania are joining forces to test the feasibility of extracting and processing ore from an area in South Africa.

■ Shares of video equipment firm Scotty tanked 14 per cent after it posted a pre-tax loss for the 17 months to 31 December 2011.

■ Tantalum miner Noventa , whose shares dived yesterday when it reported that problems with funding and other issues mean it will not meet its production targets, says it will need to raise £15.3m to bring its Marropino mine in Mozambique into full production.

■ The net asset value (NAV) per share of investment trust RIT Capital Partners hit a new high at the end of March, though it has eased back since the end of the trust's financial year.

■ While the completion of the £7.8bn proposed bid for British Sky Broadcasting (BSkyB) may not come until July, Rupert Murdoch's media conglomerate News Corp has taken one step nearer to closing the deal, after reports that regulators have "agreed in principle" to grant clearance.

■ Shares in Halfords fell back after it said it will take a £7.5m hit on the collapse of DIY retailer Focus DIY, which used to be part of the same group as the car parts and bicycle retailer.

■ Edinburgh Worldwide , the Baillie Gifford-managed investment trust, outperformed its benchmark index in the first half of its financial year.

■ Edenville Energy , the African miner, revealed that it won £1m in fundraising in 2010 and now claims total assets of more than £8m.

■ Revenue growth at oil and gas firm Empyrean Energy rose rapidly month-on-month during the last six months, helped by newly completed wells at its Sugarloaf Project in Southern Texas being bought into production.

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NEWSPAPER SHARE TIPS (3 JUNE 2011):

PRESS HEADLINES:

The man who made £13m from Southern Cross believes that ministers should let the care home business fail and says that board directors must share blame for the company's plight. In an interview with , Philip Scott, who built the company into the biggest elderly care provider, also accused its new bosses of scaremongering. He said that directors, including Baroness Morgan of Huyton, the new head of Ofsted, who had been brought on to the board because she had been Tony Blair's policy chief, were partly responsible for the decline.

Groupon, the phenomenally successful discount website that offers daily deals on pizzas, paintings and even plastic surgery, is seeking to raise up to $750 million in one of the year's most keenly anticipated initial public offerings. The timing of the float is designed to allow the Chicago-based company to take advantage of pent-up investor demand for technology companies, according to the .

A second credit rating agency has threatened to put the US under review for a possible downgrade unless politicians put their squabbles aside and agree to raise the statutory debt limit. Moody's said the world's biggest economy's AAA-rating is under threat because the country will run out of money unless policymakers agree to increase the limit on the national debt above the current $14.3tn, reports the .

US lawmakers have raised fresh concerns that BP is not meeting its obligations to victims of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill and criticised President Barack Obama for failing to take control. A new report by the Oversight and Government Reform Committee argues that the US government, not BP, should have been in charge of oil spill response and managing the compensation of victims, says the .

Betfred is expected to be declared the provisional winner of the Tote auction, a decision likely to prompt an angry reaction from the racing industry that had backed the bookmaker's rival, Sir Martin Broughton. The government is set to announce today that the bookmaker is their preferred bidder, according to people close to the process, although Whitehall insiders said no contracts had yet been signed, reports the .

Next generation mobile phones will disrupt digital television when they launch in 2013 unless the companies do something about it, the communications watchdog warned yesterday. Ofcom yesterday set out proposals to reduce interference between digital TV and 4G mobiles, saying it wanted to ensure the two services could function alongside each other, says the .

Lotus is planning to axe up to 99 jobs at its Norfolk car plant in Hethel. The news comes less than two months after the sports car manufacturer failed to secure a government loan to expand the site, reports the .

A long-term solution to the crises rippling through the 17-nation eurozone will require the creation of a central finance ministry with the power to exercise controls over national budgets, Jean-Claude Trichet, president of the European Central Bank, said on Thursday. Speaking in Aachen in Germany, Trichet urged closer European integration as the means of imposing discipline on countries which failed to keep their public finances in order, monitor economic reform and provide a common approach to dealing with Europe's financial sector, according to the .

The British economy needs to get through the current 'soft patch' before interest rates are raised, a top Bank of England official has warned. Paul Fisher made it clear that consumption, or household spending, is too weak to consider raising rates from the current 0.5 per cent despite the fact that inflation is running at more than twice the Bank of England's 2 per cent target.

The £96m take­over of Pinewood Shepperton by property group Peel Holdings is being probed by regulators. The Office of Fair Trading is looking into whether Peel's bid, which has been backed by the studio's board, will result in a "substantial lessening of competition".

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