London afternoon: Pick-up at Penguin boosts Pearson

Date: Monday 26 Jul 2010

Leading shares remain mixed ahead of the deluge of big company announcements later in the week that includes oil giants BP, Shell and BG.

Tullow Oil may be smaller than the aforementioned triumvirate but its shares are outperforming all of them and the rest of the Footsie constituents today after it said it has found a significant column of excellent quality light oil when drilling the Owo-1 exploration well in the Deepwater Tano licence offshore Ghana.

BP is also ahead after the oil giant confirmed it will hold a board meeting today to decide the fate of chief executive Tony Hayward, but said no final decision has been made.

Widespread reports over the weekend suggested Hayward is set to step down, but BP said its board will decide this evening on his future and also on the size of any provisions for the Gulf of Mexico disaster.

Banks Lloyds, Royal Bank of Scotland and Barclays are all strongly ahead after they sailed through the European stress tests last week.

Financial Times publisher Pearson is another riser after it reported a rise in first-half profits and upped its full-year outlook. Adjusted pre-tax profit rose to £203m in the six months period from £111m on sales of £2.34bn compared with £2.15bn previously. The board declared an interim dividend of 13p per share, a 7% increase on 2009.

Household products group Reckitt Benckiser is lower, however, even after it saw net revenue rise by 10% to £2,061m in the second quarter of 2010. Net income improved 23% to £380m. Chief executive officer Bart Becht said the results were in line with the group’s full year targets. Guidance on full year performance has been left unchanged.

In the FTSE 250, shares in Connaught have collapsed. The bad news keeps piling up for the social housing group, which issued a profits warning last month, with the company admitting it is in dire need of cash. The company said its “urgent requirement for additional funds to meet the current and ongoing needs of the business” has been caused, in part, by additional pressure from suppliers and sub-contractors.

In contrast, results from digital TV set-top box maker Pace have been given a good reception. It reported a 46% hike in half year pre-tax profit and announced the proposed acquisition of 2Wire for an expected $55m to beef up its US customer base. "Given the group's first half performance and good visibility for the second half, the board is in the process of revising its expectations for the 2010 financial year," it said in a company statement.

Broker KBC Peel Hunt did not find much to get excited about in the interim results from set-top box maker Pace but it likes the look of the acquisition of 2Wire, the US network router firm.

Elsewhere in the tech sector Intec Telecom is wanted after it confirmed it has received a bid approach and is involved in “highly preliminary” discussions with the potential bidder.

Aberdeen Asset Management saw a net inflow of funds in the April to June quarter, with demand for its pooled fund products especially robust. The fund manager saw assets under management during its third quarter slide, however, to £164.7bn from £170.9bn at the end of Match, as equity markets declined and exchange rate movements proved unhelpful.

Insurance broker Jardine Lloyd Thompson (JLT) has acquired a stake in Austrian peer GrECo and entered into a trading agreement with the broker and two others. The company is paying €17.6m and transferring over its Polish operations, valued at €0.65m, to the Austrian firm in return for a 20% stake in GrECo.

Betting firm William Hill is to close down its UK telephone betting operations and switch them to Gibraltar.

Wind turbine gearbox maker Hansen Transmissions is seeing tentative signs of a recovery in a tough market. Revenue in the second quarter of 2010 fell 21% to €107.0m from €136.3m the year before, while earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) dipped 6.4% to €6.68m from €7.14m.

Shares in Clean Air Power rallied on news that the dual-fuel combustion technology firm’s Houston facility has received a catalytic converter order from its customer Emissions Solutions Inc. worth $356,250.

Shares in Pinnacle Telecom jumped after said it has completed contracts to provide temporary voice and data networks for the Latitude and T in the Park music festivals.

Plant Health Care (PHC) is also in demand. The biological fertiliser group signed an agreement for the agricultural products giant Syngenta to develop and market PHC’s Harpin protein to be used in combination with Syngenta’s herbicide products.

Shares in Viridas sprouted after the jatropha grower said it has signed an agreement with a ‘leading UK energy generator’ to supply them hem with 240,000 tonnes of sustainable bio-mass for electricity generation a year.

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