How institutional capital could keep the lights on and lower energy bills November 12, 2013 WITH so much talk about the lights going out in the UK over the next two to three years, it almost starts to be believable. In its last Electricity Capacity Assessment, Ofgem prophesied that our reserve margin of available capacity could fall below 5 per cent of total peak demand by 2015-16, raising the risk [...]
Analyst Views: What’s your long term view on Lonmin in light of yesterday’s results? November 12, 2013 MARC ELLIOTT INVESTEC Lonmin took a lot of pain last year and operationally they did brilliantly in these results. The long-term outlook for the firm should be pretty positive, as platinum is an industrial metal, used in the automotive industry. Once supply tightens, metal prices will go up and boost Lonmin further. NICK HATCH WESTHOUSE [...]
City Moves for 08 November 2013 | Who’s switching jobs November 7, 2013 Institute of Directors The Institute of Directors has announced the appointment of James Sproule as chief economist and head of policy. Sproule was most recently at Accenture, where for the past seven years he led the firm’s UK and global capital markets research, and its thought leadership programme. Prior to that, Sproule was director of research [...]
Analyst Views: What do you make of JD Wetherspoon’s interim management statement? November 6, 2013 JAMES HOLLINS | INVESTEC“Wetherspoon has delivered strong like-for-like performance and increased its targeted estate expansion for 2014. Wetherspoon, despite a rise in our maintenance capex estimates to reflect a facilities upgrade programme, is forecast to drive a free cash flow yield of 8.7 per cent this year. NICK BATRAM | PEEL HUNT“Top-line growth was better [...]
African Minerals production falls November 5, 2013 African Minerals – the Aim-listed iron ore miner founded by Frank Timis, the colourful former boss of Regal Petroleum – yesterday posted a fall in third-quarter production from four million tonnes to three million tonnes quarter-on-quarter, while sales fell from 3.4m tonnes to 2.8m tonnes over the period. Full-year sales guidance remains unchanged. “[The company] [...]
Best of the Brokers for 06 November 2013 November 5, 2013 AFRICAN BARRICK GOLD Westhouse Securities has downgraded the FTSE 250-listed gold miner from a “neutral” to “sell” recommendation after strong third quarter results caused a share price rally. It has increased its target price on the stock from 115p to 170p, after raising its gold price forecast for the year. HENRY BOOT Numis has initiated [...]
Analyst Views: How is HSBC doing underneath all of its one-off gains? November 4, 2013 IAN GORDON | INVESTECProfit before tax is $4.5bn vs Investec $5.1bn and consensus $5.5bn. However, after adjusting for conduct costs ($0.4bn) and own credit ($0.6bn) quarter three appears roughly “in-line”. Hong Kong is a stand-out performer [and] constant currency customer loans are marginally up quarter-on-quarter too. RICHARD HUNTER | HARGREAVES LANSDOWNThe key metrics were, on [...]
Shares in Shell slide as refining costs hit profits October 31, 2013 ROYAL Dutch Shell’s shares fell five per cent yesterday after the oil major posted a decline in third-quarter earnings due to narrow refining margins, higher exploration costs and security issues in Nigeria. The FTSE 100-listed firm said that earnings excluding one-off items were $4.5bn (£2.8bn) compared with $6.6bn in the third quarter of 2012. “We [...]
African Barrick raises full-year output target October 30, 2013 AFRICAN Barrick Gold (ABG) shot to the top of the FTSE 250 leaderboard yesterday, after the miner said it expects to beat full-year production targets and is on track with its cost-cutting strategy. The firm posted an 11 per cent increase in third-quarter gold output compared to the same quarter in 2012, with cash costs [...]
Best of the Brokers for 31 October 2013 October 30, 2013 RIGHTMOVE Canaccord Genuity has raised its price target on the online real estate portal to £30 and maintained its buy recommendation. The analysts said that they expect UK estate agents to reinvest a large proportion of their additional revenue in marketing spend, via sites such as Rightmove. TULLOW OIL Investec has upgraded oil and gas [...]