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Thursday's news and tips

Created:

2 July 2009

Written by:

ShareCast

■ Rio Tinto shareholders have taken up 96.97% of the shares offered to them as part of the miner's $15.2bn fully underwritten rights issue.

■ Specialist computer and video games retailer Game Group reported a 15.4% drop in like-for-like sales in the 21 weeks to 27 June but said it remains confident in the outlook for the full year.

■ Intermediate Capital Group (ICG), a leading investor in and manager of buyout debt, today announced a fully underwritten 7 for 2 rights issue to raise £351m.

■ Sierra Leone-focused miner African Minerals has raised £63.8m ($105m) from a cash placing with institutional investors in North America and the UK.

■ Flexible pipeline supplier Wellstream Holdings has secured 90% of 2009's anticipated revenues at the halfway point.

■ Argos owner Home Retail suffered a major revolt over a new director remuneration package at its AGM today, with 35.6% of shareholders voting against the deal.

Continues below...

■ Anti-counterfeiting technology firm OpSec Security is weaker after confirming full-year losses of £781,000 versus a £2.6m profit in 2008.

■ Nick Prettejohn is quitting his job as chief executive of Prudential's UK and Europe business after three and a half years in the role, having missed out on the top job earlier this year.

■ Stephen Hester, Royal Bank of Scotland's new chief executive, has deferred part of his pay package to appease criticism of the £9.6m deal.

■ Bondholders of Pearl Group are threatening to veto the flotation of Hugh Osmond's zombie fund manager.

■ Carphone Warehouse and Vodafone have ended their three year row over monthly contract sales.

■ Oilfield support services firm Petrofac has landed a gas compression project worth in excess of $350m.

■ Pizza delivery outfit Domino's Pizza has purchased an equipment leasing business from Dresdner Kleinwort Leasing.

■ Brewing and pub group Greene King has reported profits that beat forecasts it made at the time of its rights issue in April that raised over £200m for the group.

■ Serge Crasnianski is to take over as interim boss at photo booth operator Photo-Me International until the company finds a permanent replacement for Thierry Barel.

■ Speciality pharmaceutical company ProStrakan has avoided a legal battle with Aventis Pharma by settling a tax issue out of court.

■ Tikit said trading in the second quarter proved to be disappointing and warned that it expects its market in the second half of the year to remain difficult.

■ The share price of turnaround investment company Volvere continued its good run as the chairman said all of the company's businesses have performed extremely well in 2009.

■ The share price of Hydrogen Group deflated Thursday morning as the recruitment firm warned of a flat performance in 2009.

■ Asia-focused bank Standard Chartered will make acting chairman John Peace's job permanent today, according to reports.

■ Telecoms billing software firm Intec Telecom Systems has secured a significant contract extension with a leading Eastern European telecommunications service provider.

■ Bollywood film distributor Eros was on target again last year, delivering its third year of strong revenue and profit growth.

FOR A SUMMARY OF LATEST MOVEMENTS IN EQUITY, COMMODITY AND CURRENCY MARKETS, SEE FT.COM'S MARKETS PAGE.

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NEWSPAPER SHARE TIPS (02 JULY 2009):

Full round-up of newspaper share tips (sourced from Sharecast)

PRESS HEADLINES:

National Express is heading for a major legal battle with the government over the future of its two remaining rail franchises after ministers said they were taking control of the East Coast main line.

Lord Adonis, the Transport Minister, triggered a furious row with the company by warning that the Government could have legal grounds to strip the group of its c2c and East Anglia rail franchises, says the Telegraph.

John Peace has been confirmed as permanent chairman of Standard Chartered. Mr Peace, one of the contenders for the job at the bank alongside Sir Win Bischoff - who is being lined up for the chairmanship at Lloyds Banking Group — has been acting chairman since Mervyn Davies left to become UK trade minister in January, writes the FT.

The prospect of a bidding war for T-Mobile UK was looming on Wednesday night after it emerged that Telefonica is looking at the case for buying Britain's fourth largest mobile phone operator. Spain's leading telecoms company has been spurred into action partly by the possibility that O2, its UK mobile business, could lose its top position in the British market if Vodafone purchases T-Mobile UK, says the FT.

The Independent writes that Vodafone, the world's largest mobile phone company, has intensified its efforts to take back its home UK market after ending a three-year exile from Carphone Warehouse stores. Carphone is set to offer Vodafone's contracts throughout its network of 820 shops from next week, the first time since the operator signed an exclusive deal with Carphone rival Phones4U in October 2006.

Northern Rock is expected to heap further embarrassment on the Government next month when it reports losses for the half in excess of £500m, putting it in breach of even specially relaxed regulatory rules, reports the Telegraph.

Virgin Atlantic, the UK long-haul airline controlled by Sir Richard Branson, is cutting capacity by 7 per cent in the coming winter season and is planning to axe about 600 jobs, or close to 8 per cent of the workforce, according to the FT.

Credit card firms will be told today to stop luring customers into higher borrowing as part of an overhaul of consumer rights. Lenders will be banned from raising credit limits without asking the customer first and ordered to stop sending unsolicited credit card cheques through the post, says the Times.

Royal Bank of Scotland, which is 70 per cent owned by the taxpayer, has moved closer to selling its Asian businesses after two suitors emerged as front-runners to secure a deal. Standard Chartered and Australia & New Zealand Banking Group (ANZ) are closing in on a deal to split RBS's retail and commercial banking divisions in Asia. HSBC is also understood to be still in involved in the process, reports the Independent.

American prosecutors are investigating as many as 10 individuals with links to $65bn (£40bn) fraudster Bernard Madoff to ascertain whether they played any part in his decades-long fraud, according to the Telegraph.

Workers at Vauxhall's Luton van plant are today trying to persuade the Business Secretary, Lord Mandelson, to fight for the factory's future in his negotiations with potential buyers of its parent company. GM Europe (GME), which includes Vauxhall in the UK and Opel in Germany, was spun out of the failing US giant days before it collapsed into bankruptcy. The division is currently surviving on a €1.5bn (£1.3bn) bridging loan from the German government and is in the process of being sold, says the Independent.

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