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Friday's news and views

Created:

13 June 2008

Written by:

Tanya Malick

• ZincOx has bagged itself $120m from a placing and three year bond facility to help fund construction of the Ohio recycling plant. (IC COMMENT)

• Recruitment firm Hydrogen Group has suffered collateral damage from the crisis in the investment banking sector, with levels of recruitment activity flat in a traditionally busy time for the sector. (IC COMMENT)

• Oil & gas group Valiant Petroleum saw half-year pre-tax losses widen on higher expenses but said that its short-to-medium term outlook remains positive. (IC COMMENT)

• Suez, the giant French utility (SESA) has made a £39.2m all cash offer for renewable energy producer Econergy International. (IC COMMENT)

• The Financial Services Authority has tightened disclosure rules for companies undertaking rights issues to clamp down on short-selling abuses. (IC COMMENT)

• Oil and gas giant BG Group has made a new oil discovery in the Santos Basin, off the coast of Brazil.

• Royal Bank of Scotland has sold its Angel Trains unit for about £3.6bn to Babcock.

• Miner Kopane has rejected an indicative 17p per share proposal from a third party.

• Lipoxen jumped to its best since late 2007 on news that the bio-pharma group has received a grant to fund research into enhancing the human antibody response to HIV vaccine candidates.

• Major shareholder Romac Investments is considering a possible offer for outsource services provider Supporta after a previous approach was rejected, it emerged today.

• Asia's Guoco Group has stepped up its stake in casino and bingo hall operator Rank Group to 13.09%.

• Energy and environmental consultant AEA slipped as it launched a deeply discounted £40m rights issue to help pay for Project Performance Corporation, an environmental management and information technology consulting firm headquartered in Virginia, United States.

• Mining company Anglo American has offloaded its Spanish concrete and aggregate unit.

• Building materials firm Ensor Holdings is cautiously optimistic about its prospects this year despite tougher market conditions.

• Menswear retailer and hire firm Moss Bros said like-for-like sales for the first 19 weeks of the year to 7 June were 1.5% lower in an 'extremely challenging' market.

• Bid target Meldex has responded to a recent slide in its share price by assuring investors it is not preparing to launch a rights issue.

• Filtronic said revenue and operating performance in the second half of the year in the continuing businesses has been 'satisfactory', reflecting better-than-expected demand in its Point to Point business.

• IT services provider Business Systems Group swung to a full-year pre-tax profit and said it expects a further year of strong growth in managed services.

FOR A SUMMARY OF LATEST MOVEMENTS IN EQUITY, COMMODITY AND CURRENCY MARKETS, SEE THE 'MARKETS' PAGE

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PRESS SUMMARY:

BP has for the first time openly criticised the Russian Government for its failure to intervene in the escalating dispute with its TNK-BP joint venture partners. The group's chairman, Peter Sutherland, yesterday accused the country's leadership of being "unwilling or unable" to protect the company during what he described as a raid on TNK-BP, Russia's third-biggest crude producer, reports the Times.

EDF, France's electricity monopoly, could be prepared to nudge up its £11bn (€14bn) bid for British Energy, but only if the board of the UK nuclear group moves quickly to recommend the offer. The French nuclear power operator has signalled that it intends to walk away from the process if a deal cannot be reached by the end of the month, reports the FT.

Yahoo! last night sealed a joint advertising and online search deal with Google after rejecting plans to sell its search business to Microsoft. While Jerry Yang, chief executive and co-founder of Yahoo!, indicated that the deal would not block Microsoft from returning with another bid, Google and Yahoo! have devised an agreement which would trigger a $250m break-fee in the event that Yahoo! were acquired by another company within two years, reports the Times.

The European Union has named Gaz de France and Germany's E.ON in connection with alleged rigging of gas markets as it ratchets up a notch its two-year probe into gas supplies. The move is the latest attempt by EU Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes to break up Europe's vertically integrated utilities, which she accuses of using their hold over energy infrastructure to carve up markets, block new entrants and keep prices high, reports the Telegraph.

Barratt Developments, the debt-laden housebuilder, has yet to complete a vital £400m refinancing deal one month after telling shareholders it had struck an outline agreement with its main lenders. Mark Clare, chief executive of Barratt, and Mark Pain, the finance director, told shareholders a month ago that the new facility was likely to be in place by the end of this financial year, which ends in just under three weeks, writes the Times.

A rift has opened between regulators in Washington and London after the Americans called for restrictions on oil trading in the City. It is understood that the Financial Services Authority (FSA) is resisting calls by the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) to introduce daily price limits on some oil futures contracts, reports the Times.

Sir Stuart Rose, the executive chairman of Marks & Spencer, has said that high petrol prices are deterring customers from driving to out-of-town retail parks, in the latest example of how the consumer economy is being affected by rising commodity prices. Sir Stuart said that M&S has noticed changes in shopping habits over recent months, writes the Telegraph.

Liz Nelson, one of the founders of Taylor Nelson Sofres, has spoken out against the UK market research company's proposed merger with GfK of Germany, and backed a rival offer by Sir Martin Sorrell's WPP group. Ms Nelson, who left TNS 16 years ago and no longer has a meaningful shareholding in the company, told Research magazine that the proposed nil-premium merger with GfK would signal "that the men in grey suits are winning out," reports the FT

Robert Tchenguiz, the property entrepreneur, has taken advantage of the recent slide in Mitchells & Butlers' share price to shore up his economic interest in the pub and restaurant operator to slightly less than 30%, writes the FT

The British public believes prices are now rising at 4.9% a year, even though the official rate of inflation stands at only 3%, the Bank of England's latest survey of inflationary expectations revealed yesterday, reports the Independent.

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