Market overview: 18 April

• Supermarket giant Tesco has delivered full year results in line with latest market consensus, and said it would pump one billion pounds into a revamp of its UK operations.

• Global engineering firm GKN said improvements in its markets and a strong performance from recent acquisitions helped push up profits in the first quarter of the year.

• UK tools and equipment hire firm Speedy Hire said it continues to focus on self help measures to mitigate the effects of what remains a challenging market environment.

• Despite cyclone activity depressing third quarter production, iron ore production at BHP Billiton 's Western Australian operations still hit record levels in the nine months to the end of March.

• Mining giant Fresnillo has hailed a strong start to 2012 with gold production beating expectations and silver output on target.

• International distribution and outsourcing group Bunzl said trading in 2012 has been strong, with the group seeing solid top line growth and an improvement in the group operating margin.

• Ever-growing advertising behemoth, WPP , said it has bought the film research firm First Movies for an undisclosed sum.

• Oil and gas exploration and production company Heritage Oil saw losses from continuing operations widen in 2011 as it cranked up its capital expenditure programme.

• European IT services provider Computacenter said performance across its continental markets had made up for flat results from the UK in the first quarter.

• Precious metals producer Hochschild Mining says it is on track to deliver its 2012 full-year production target after a 'solid start to the year'.

• Hunting , the FTSE 250 energy services company, said trading so far in 2012 had been in line with expectations.

visible-status-Public story-url-Daily Roundup_180412.xml