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Friday's company news

Created:

16 May 2008

Written by:

Tanya Malick

• British Energy has received a range of proposals from several parties and the nuclear power generator said it is continuing discussions with all of them. (IC COMMENT)

• An shareholder in Rightmove is raising about £60m in a secondary placing of 16.2m new shares, around 13% of the online property group. (IC COMMENT)

• Institutional stockbroker Arden Partners has ended talks with Cenkos Securities regarding a possible bid, but said it has had preliminary approaches from other parties. (IC COMMENT)

Continues below...

• Airline British Airways posted a 44.5% increase in full-year profits but said the current year will be challenging against an uncertain economic outlook and increased fuel costs.

• Internet content software specialist Mediasurface has agreed to a takeover by marketing software provider Alterian.

• Dana Petroleum expects production for 2008 to average between 40,000 and 45,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day, representing more than a 30% growth over 2007.

• Grey clouds descended on Weatherly today after a potential suitor pulled out of bid talks with the miner.

• The share price of Vislink headed skywards today after the microwave radio and satellite transmission products supplier reported an increase in group orders since the first quarter.

• Oil and gas explorer Antrim Energy reduced first quarter net losses while production levels remained virtually unchanged.

• Drug developer Ark Therapeutics has maintained good sales of wound care products into 2008 helped by the inclusion of its products on the new NHS Advanced Woundcare Therapies Contract.

• Oil and gas facilities service provider Petrofac is expecting strong growth in 2008 with net profit towards the upper end of the range of market expectations.

• First quarter production levels were down at JKX Oil and Gas but the company continued to benefit from the continuing strength of oil and gas prices.

• IT services provider Computacenter said pre tax profit will be more skewed towards the second half, which may result in the first half being slightly below the same period last year.

• Capital & Regional said its underlying tenant business remained resilient in the first quarter with all indicators trading within their normal range.

• Bookmaker Ladbrokes said it has continued to make good progress in the four months ended 30 April with profits, excluding high rollers, up 13%.

• Kier expects to meet profit expectations this year barring any further significant market setbacks for its residential business, where reservations are down 35% on last year and margins are under pressure.

• Engineering firm Charter anticipates the outcome for the year to be ahead of its previous expectations due to current trading and the positive impact of foreign exchange translation effects.

• Bid target Regent Inns has seen a big fall in revenues at its Walkabout chain over the past four months.

• Car rental company Avis said full-year expectations remain unchanged, providing there is no material change in the underlying economic environment

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

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PRESS SUMMARY:

The UK's biggest banks are preparing to swap £80bn-£90bn of mortgage-backed assets for Treasury bills with the Bank of England – nearly twice as much as the central bank originally envisaged when it unveiled its scheme to unblock the frozen bank-lending market, reports the FT.

According to debt market sources, the banks have approached credit rating agencies about how to structure deals that will receive the triple A rating required for securities that lenders want to swap for Treasury bills that can then be used to raise cash.

The Bank of England will "crucify" consumers unless the Treasury lets it abandon its inflation target, one of Britain's leading economic authorities has warned. The Government must consider re-writing the Monetary Policy Committee's remit or leave the UK to face an unnecessarily deep and painful economic slump, according to Peter Spencer, chief economist of Ernst & Young Item Club, reports the Telegraph.

The Government is facing another tax row with the business community over plans outlined this week to make businesses pay for up to £5bn of local infrastructure projects. Business groups including the CBI, the British Chambers of Commerce, British Retail Consortium and the Institute of Directors are calling on the Government to rethink the implementation of Business Rate Supplements, writes the Telegraph.

American retailing giant Wal-Mart has revealed how it plans to take on and indeed mimic Tesco's Fresh and Easy convenience stores head-on – by focusing on "fresh" and "delicious" food and offering high levels of customer service. The aim of Wal-Mart's new Marketside stores, which are in direct contrast to its traditional 150,000 sq ft-plus hypermarkets, is, in the retailers own words, to help customers to decide what to have that night for dinner, reports the Telegraph.

Several thousand jobs are expected to be cut at Thomson Reuters in the coming weeks, after the £8.7bn merger of the two news organisations to create the world's largest financial information provider. An email sent out to all 50,000 global staff this week confirms that the company will be outlining the precise details of the proposed headcount reductions over the next few weeks, says the Independent.

Royal Dutch Shell has agreed to invest in one of the largest carbon capture and storage (CCS) projects in the world. The oil major's decision yesterday to co-sponsor the final stage of the £80m Weyburn-Midale CO2 Monitoring and Storage Project in Canada comes on the heels of BP's decision to pull out of a major CCS pilot plant in Australia, after last year cancelling another project in Peterhead, Scotland, writes the Independent.

Morgan Stanley has begun a series of job cuts in London that could see at least 350 axed in the latest round of redundancies to hit the City. The US investment bank began cutting jobs on Wednesday, with the process expected to take some weeks as Morgan Stanley continues to restructure. Between 150 and 200 employees have already lost their jobs, says the Telegraph.

Two of the most powerful lobby groups for business and the City have called on the Pensions Regulator to abandon a controversial proposal on mortality assumptions that they claim could force a rash of final-salary pension schemes to close. The CBI and the National Association of Pension Funds (NAPF) condemned as unacceptable the regulator's plans to make scheme trustees use more conservative assumptions about the life expectancy of members after they retire, reports the Times.

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