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Monday's news and tips

Created:

6 July 2009

Written by:

ShareCast

■ JJB Sports has confirmed it is looking at raising up to £50m, including a possible share issue, to provide additional funding for the group (IC COMMENT).

■ Budget airline easyJet carried 0.8% more passengers in June than the same time last year, although the load factor eased slightly.

■ Health centre developer Ashley House reported a 9% rise in full year pre-tax profit while current trading is on track so far.

■ Price comparison web site Moneysupermarket.com is trading in line with the board's expectations, with little change in performance levels since the company's statement in April.

■ San Leon Energy says a "significant" discovery of natural gas in the Palo Pinto County, Regular (Gas) Field, District 07B, Texas, will produce at commercial rates.

Continues below...

■ British Airways suffered a blow today as staff rejected plans to cut as many as 4,000 jobs and freeze pay.

■ Shares in Internet advertising technology firm Phorm took a tumble after telecoms giant BT opted not to proceed with trials of Phorm's Webwise technology.

■ Bridgepoint, the private equity owner of Pets At Home, is said to have held preliminary talks with banks about a £700m flotation of the UK's biggest pet products retailer.

■ Irish medical devices firm ClearStream Technologies has announced a placing to raise £3.2m to secure a greater share of the profits from its drug eluting stent system Intrepide.

■ Life assurance firm Friends Provident said the placing of the rump of the shares from the F&C Asset Management demerger has now been completed.

■ Hazardous waste management firm Augean confirmed that it is no longer in talks with any party about a possible offer after One Fifty One pulled out of a bid.

■ Aurelian Oil & Gas has successfully completed further testing of the Lilieci-1 well, Romania, in which it has a 41% interest.

■ Africa-focused diversified miner Central African Mining (CAMEC) has signed a long-term agreement for the sale of cobalt to Zhejiang Galico, one of the largest chemical salt producers in China.

■ Digital TV set-top box maker Pace is delivering the strong operating performance expected by the board.

■ Proteome Sciences has signed an exclusive license agreement with Millipore Corp to develop new products aimed at helping advance the study of Alzheimer's disease.

■ Housing repairs group Mears said the level of opportunities for its social housing division have never been higher after the group bagged three new contracts.

■ Mining giant Rio Tinto has further cut its debt pile with the sale to US packaging firm Bemis of the US food packaging division of aluminium subsidiary Alcan for $1.2bn.

■ More big mark-downs in its portfolio sent property developer St Modwen deeper into the red at the half-year, though it reports signs of stability in the residential part of its business.

■ Utility company United Utilities has extended the AMP4 framework contract with a joint-venture comprising Costain, Atkins and Galliford Try to cover the next upgrade phase for the water industry.

■ Chemicals group Reflec narrowed pre-tax losses for the year but warned it expects little improvement in short term trading results and, depending upon the depth of the recession, it may struggle to maintain its current performance.

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 (05 JULY 2009):

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

PRESS HEADLINES:

The chairman of Royal Mail's pension trustees is considering plans to close its retirement scheme to existing members after legislation to part-privatise the postal service was shelved last week.

It is understood that Jane Newell is mulling over whether the best option for postal workers is to close the pension scheme and force members to join a new retirement pot with far less lucrative benefits, the Times writes.

Sir Richard Greenbury, the former chief executive of Marks & Spencer, has blasted shareholder groups for their "vindictive" attitude towards Sir Stuart Rose, M&S's executive chairman. Sir Richard said that shareholders are holding a "vendetta" against Sir Stuart, who he said should be allowed to get on with running M&S. He also said that he is unable to identify anyone "big enough" to replace Sir Stuart when he steps down from M&S, the Telegraph reports.

Employers would be able to put workers into low-paid "limbo", instead of making them redundant, under proposals made by business leaders today. The CBI calls for a radical new way of helping businesses to weather the downturn with the "Alternative to Redundancy" (ATR) scheme. Workers would receive about £130 a week, paid equally by the Government and the employer, the Times reports.

Vanni Treves, chairman of Equitable Life, is considering standing at the next general election as an independent Member of Parliament after he steps down from the troubled insurer in August. Treves has been approached by a group of Equitable policyholders who have asked him to stand for election to highlight the plight of thousands of policyholders who have lost money but are being denied compensation by the Government, the Telegraph writes.

Nomura is in exclusive talks to move its UK business, including teams acquired from Lehman Brothers , into an office development in the City of London. In the largest office deal in the square mile since 2005, the Japanese investment bank is to move its 4,000 UK employees into Watermark Place, an office being built on the Thames, the FT reports.

An investment manager part-owned by the Saudi royal family is planning to invest a chunk of its assets in UK and US commercial property, according to Prince Faisal bin Salman bin Abdulaziz, its chairman. For Jadwa Investment, commercial real estate was, with natural resources, the most appealing investment opportunity, Prince Faisal told the Financial Times in an interview. The fund is targeting a £700m ($1.1bn) commercial property transaction in the UK in collaboration with European property investor CIT.

BAA has incurred the wrath of black cab drivers in London by striking a deal to allow a minicab company to pick up passengers at Heathrow. The deal will allow Addison Lee and One Transport to operate a booking service directly from the airport, prompting cabbies to threaten a blockade of Heathrow over what they call an unacceptable encroachment of minicabs on to their lucrative turf, the Times reports.

The state of the economy is worse than at the time of April's Budget, the Chancellor has admitted, as he warned that public sector pay had to reflect the squeeze in the rest of the economy. Alistair Darling also acknowledged that government spending faces "much tighter" limits as a result of the recession, in one of the most frank interviews about the state of the public finances so far, the Times reports.

Investment banks, including Goldman Sachs and Barclays Capital, are inventing schemes to reduce the capital cost of risky assets on banks' balance sheets, in the latest sign that financial market innovation is far from dead. The schemes, which Goldman insiders refer to as "insurance" and BarCap calls "smart securitisation", use different mechanisms to achieve the same goal: cutting capital costs by up to half in some cases, the FT writes.

Bridgepoint, the private equity owner of the retail chain Pets At Home, has held preliminary talks with banks about listing the group. It is thought that any initial public offering (IPO) may take some time to finalise and despite meetings with three banks last week, Bridgepoint has yet to appoint any underwriters, writes the Independent.