Micro Focus sees sales stall February 15, 2011 BRITISH IT firm Micro Focus International lost some large deals in the US in its third quarter and said it would not be able to make up the shortfall, sending its shares plunging. The group said US government departments and major corporations on the east coast had scrapped deals to update applications running on mainframe [...]
Entertainment One soars on Peppa Pig success February 15, 2011 ENTERTAINMENT One said yesterday it expected full-year results to beat market estimates after its British animated television series, Peppa Pig (right), racked up strong retail sales in 2010. The entertainment company that specialises in the acquisition, production and distribution of film and television content said Peppa Pig licensing activity had a robust Christmas with sales [...]
Deregulation threatens EDF forecasts as profits rise on increased capacity February 15, 2011 FRENCH power company EDF posted higher annual profits yesterday but disappointed investors with a profit forecast for this year that could prove over-optimistic due to de-regulation of the French market. The former French monopoly is being forced to sell up to a quarter of its domestic nuclear output to competitors to help open up markets. [...]
ANALYST VIEWS: WHAT ARE THE PROBLEMS YELL FACES THIS YEAR? February 15, 2011 LORNA TILBIAN | NUMIS We are downgrading our full-year 2011 and 2012 forecasts. We expect further investment in digital and believe the group would use any cyclical upswing in the share price to launch a needed second rights issue. PAUL GOODEN | RBS The problem management has is that print still accounts for 69 per [...]
Trading on course at UK’s Pennon despite weather February 15, 2011 BRITISH water and waste company Pennon said the severe winter weather hurt operations at both of its units, though said trading since October had been in line with its expectations. Britain was hit by an unusually hard winter, with one of the coldest Decembers on record. Pennon – which supplies customers in Devon and Cornwall [...]
Exxon Mobil boosts reserves February 15, 2011 Exxon Mobil Corp said its oil and gas reserve additions last year were double its production, marking the biggest jump in more than a decade, with gains fuelled partly by the oil company’s purchase of XTO Energy. Exxon, the world’s largest publicly traded company, said it increased its proved reserves by 3.5bn oil equivalent barrels, [...]
DTZ books record transactions February 15, 2011 DTZ Investment Management completed a total of £700m of transactions in 2010 – a record for the fund manager in its 40-year history. This was achieved following a particularly strong final quarter, with £130m of transactions completing in December. DTZ IM has actively invested in the UK for a number of pension fund clients looking [...]
Philogen pulls Milan float February 15, 2011 Swiss-Italian biotech group Philogen has pulled its plans to list on the Milan stock exchange after Bayer ended a partnership it had with the group. The initial public offering would have been Europe’s first biotech listing this year and was an indication appetite for the sector was warming up again. Philogen focuses on treatments for [...]
CITY MOVES | WHO’S SWITCHING JOBS February 15, 2011 Barclays Sally Bott has joined the bank as group human resources director and member of the executive committee. Bott will start her role in April, replacing Cathy Turner. She joins from BP, where she was HR director, and has also recently served as a non-exec board member at UBS. Before this, she was managing director [...]
BEST OF THE BROKERS February 15, 2011 CENTRICA JP Morgan Cazenove rates the utility “overweight” with a target price of 390p. The broker thinks an ongoing Ofgem supply review is unlikely to lead to a Competition Commission referral, and that the market has not priced in a formal investigation. JPM expects to see a carbon tax of £1 per tonne in the [...]
