Mears mulls expansion after a record first half August 16, 2011 BRITISH social housing and home care provider Mears reported a seven per cent rise in first-half pre-tax profit and said it was well-placed to expand in its core markets. Mears, which services hundreds of thousands of local authority and housing association homes and has a rapidly growing care-in-the-home business, made a pre-tax profit of £14.1m [...]
Heritage Oil boosts Russian output August 16, 2011 Production has more than trebled at one of Heritage Oil’s Russian fields, as results from drilling and testing one well exceeded expectations. The oil and gas company announced that production at the Zapadno Chumpasskoye Field increased from 431 barrels of oil per day (bopd) to the current level of 1,600 bopd. Well 363 is now [...]
Witan Investment ups NAV return August 16, 2011 Witan Investment Trust, which hit a 52-week low earlier this month, said its performance outstripped its benchmark in the first half of 2011. The company’s net asset value (NAV) total return rose by 3.6 per cent. The investment trust said that eight of its 12 external fund managers in place at the end of 2010 [...]
CRH to miss earnings forecasts August 16, 2011 Irish building materials group CRH said yesterday it would miss analysts’ expectations for earnings growth of 11 per cent this year as it grapples with high raw materials costs and poor economic growth prospects. A major player in the US market, where it is the leading producer of asphalt for highway construction, CRH’s first-half earnings [...]
CITY MOVES | WHO’S SWITCHING JOBS August 16, 2011 Octopus The investment business has appointed George Whitehead as venture partner manager to develop the Octopus Venture Partner Group. George joins from Nesta Investments, where he was business development director and supported programmes targeted at growth businesses. These ranged from investments in company accelerators like Springboard, Seedcamp and Design London to supporting networks such as [...]
BEST OF THE BROKERS August 16, 2011 AVIVA Citi rates the insurance group “hold” with a target price of 415p, lowered from 440p. The broker has updated its forecast due to the effects of dilution from asset sales, which could impede medium term earnings growth. Aviva’s results showed strong progress in life earnings, while non-life earnings were affected by lower investment results [...]
Upbeat US outlook lifts FTSE but Eurozone worries linger August 16, 2011 BRITAIN’S top shares ended a shade higher yesterday, notably banks, after a better than forecast report on industrial output in the United States and as Fitch confirmed that nation’s top credit rating with a stable outlook. The UK benchmark index ended up 7.05 points, or 0.1 per cent, at 5,357.63, having spent much of the [...]
Wall Street breaks its winning streak August 16, 2011 US stocks fell yesterday after three days of gains when a meeting between the heads of France and Germany failed to quell fears about the ability of the Eurozone leaders to contain the region’s sovereign debt woes. Efforts to stem the spreading European debt crisis have so far been ineffective, partially causing the equity market [...]
Sarkozy and Merkel announce plans for closer EU integration August 16, 2011 THE story of the crumbling Eurozone took a new twist yesterday with a joint press conference given by German chancellor Angela Merkel and French president Nicolas Sarkozy. This followed an afternoon of meetings between the two premiers, as they discussed ways to shore up the euro. The plight affecting the euro has largely been centered [...]
CALM SHOULD RETURN FOR FX MARKETS August 16, 2011 JUST how volatile was currency trading last week? To understand it better, let’s take a look at euro-Swiss franc and dollar-Swiss franc – two pairs that carved out enormous ranges in last week’s tumultuous markets. For the past 250 trading days, the average daily range in euro-Swissie has been 149 points. Last week it expanded [...]
