Investors Chronicle articles from May 2005

Investors Chronicle archives from May 2005

Quote, unquote.
May 6, 2005... Thank goodness it's over and done with. After a month of ludicrously-spun headlines, public-service debates, and economic scare stories, finally the FT can get back to running financial stories, private companies can go back to profiting from...

United we stand.
May 6, 2005... The fans of Manchester United have so far been more vociferous than the shareholders in the saga of Malcolm Glazer's proposal to buy the club. And before anyone dismisses their claims as jingoistic and irrelevant to the running of a...

Growth and risk.
May 6, 2005... The most important question to ask of any fall in share prices is: does it mean expected returns have risen or not? Since early May, the spread between the dividend yield on the FTSE All-Share index and index-linked gilt yields has risen from...

In the balance.
May 6, 2005... A chat I had last week with a contact in the stockbroking world revealed something incredibly worrying. It may not sound like much, but his biggest challenge, he said, was educating institutional investors about pension deficits. These...

Private equity gets a revisit.
May 6, 2005... that new kid on the block, Private Equity, seems to have all the answers that elude quoted investors - and very rich they have made him, too. But many factors go to explain the rapid advance of private equity in recent years, and it is...

Electronic revival.
May 6, 2005... For only the second time in history, semiconductor sales topped $200bn last year. The strong performance was driven by the so-called 'iPod boom' in personal electronic devices. After three relatively flat years, chip shipments grew 28 per cent...

Mining: our top picks.
May 6, 2005... Share prices of smaller companies in the uk mining sector have appeared particularly volatile in the past few weeks. In the second week of April, the Alternative Investment Market (Aim) mining sector dropped over 5 per cent. And, as summer...

Gambling on a cure.
May 6, 2005... With people living longer in the West, thanks to the wonders of 21st century medicine and improved public health, you would think that the reign of the deadly contagious disease was over. Smallpox has been eradicated, cholera is no longer a...

The cliche's true.
May 6, 2005... It's May. You know what this means. History shows that the 'sell in May' strategy has worked well. Had you been invested in equities between 31 October and 30 April each year, and in cash the rest of the time, you would have turned GBP100 into...

Risk and ability.
May 6, 2005... Do fund managers have any skill? And what risks are you taking when you buy a fund? These questions are two sides of the same coin. We can only establish that a fund manager's good returns are due to ability if we can eliminate the...

BAA'S Heathrow Terminal 5 on target.
May 6, 2005... BAA has reassured investors that its GBP4.2bn Heathrow Terminal 5 project is on budget and ahead of schedule. The group also said that it expects traffic growth at its London airports to average 3 per cent a year over the next 10 years. ...

Edinburgh oil & gas agrees Dutch takeover.
May 6, 2005... Oil minnow Edinburgh Oil & Gas has agreed a GBP133m takeover by two Dutch investment companies. The Dutch have made a 317p-a-share cash offer for the company, whose biggest asset is its 5 per cent stake in the Buzzard oil field. This works out...

Kleeneze forced to issue profit warning.
May 6, 2005... Kleeneze, the home shopping retailer, has issued a profit warning for the year ending 28 April, with broker Numis Securities downgrading forecast pre-tax profits from GBP8.1m to GBP6.5m. This is due largely to additional start-up costs at...

Friends Provident reveals sales lift.
May 6, 2005... Shareholders in Friends Provident received a boost this week as the company unveiled an impressive set of first-quarter sales figures. The life assurance and pensions business saw sales rise 41 per cent to GBP129m. This was largely due to an...

Kaupthing bids for Singer & Friedlander.
May 6, 2005... Icelandic bank Kaupthing has finally tabled an offer for Singer & Friedlander. Kaupthing already owns a 19 per cent stake in the financial services company, and there has been speculation for months that it would make a takeover bid. It has now...

ISM index drop means threat to equities.
May 6, 2005... The US economic slowdown is a big danger to equities. This week, the Institute for Supply Management (ISM) reported its index of manufacturing output has fallen to 53.3, its biggest annual drop in four years. Since 1990, this index has...

Intercontinental investors set for GBP1bn payout.
May 6, 2005... Intercontinental Hotels (IHG) shareholders will soon receive 165p for every share that they hold in the company. IHG is selling off GBP1bn-worth of unneeded hotel properties, and returning the cash to shareholders. The company has also...

Marconi future in doubt after BT snub.
May 6, 2005... Telecoms equip- ment supplier Marconi was dealt a fresh blow this week when it failed to win a role on BT's GBP10bn 21st Century Network (21CN) tender. Analysts, who just days earlier had been predicting a win worth up to GBP700m over the next...

Heron gives up on Crest Nicholson.
May 6, 2005... Commercial property developer Heron International, frustrated by Crest Nicholson's refusal to allow access to its books, has walked away from a potential bid for the housebuilder. Heron had built up a 23.4 per stake in Crest, and had previously...

Slump in shares for pubs and restaurants.
May 6, 2005... Investors are calling time on pubs. The pub and restaurant sector has slumped by nearly 9 per cent over the past month, compared with a fall in the wider stock market of less than 2 per cent. Fears of a deepening consumer slowdown have clearly...

Attentiv shareholders profit in bidding war.
May 6, 2005... Aim-traded software provider AttentiV, which came to market only a year ago, is at the centre of a bidding war. A 71p-a-share cash offer from Finland's TietoEnator - the largest IT services provider in the Nordic region - was initially trumped...

Heads roll at Bioprogress.
May 6, 2005... Graham Hind, chief executive of Bioprogress - the maker of dissolve-in-the-mouth breath fresheners and drug coatings - has resigned following last month's shock profit warning. Meanwhile, non-executive director Alan Clarke, who was planning...

Week Ahead...
May 6, 2005... NEWS Tuesday 10 May Jessops is unlikely to beat the consumer downturn when its half-year results are released on Tuesday. Broker Seymour Pierce believes that first-half underlying sales will rise just 1.1 per cent, well below earlier...

Reverse takeover saves hard-up Honeysuckle.
May 6, 2005... After three years of trading as a shell company, Honeysuckle has finally secured its future with a successful reverse takeover. It is paying GBP19m in new shares to acquire the private software concern, Business Control Solutions (BCS). ...

Subsea resources buys ship to salvage gold.
May 6, 2005... SubSea Resources has agreed to pay $1.5m for the survey and salvage vessel, Ocean Boomer. The ship will be used to recover high-value metals. SubSea has also brought forward a revenue-generating project with the planned salvage in July of...

Endace hopes to secure Aim listing.
May 6, 2005... Endace is hoping to become the first New Zealand-registered company to be spun onto Aim. The network security company is raising GBP14m to help boost its marketing and sales capabilities. The cash will provide a major boost to Endace,...

Inspace leaves family firm for market listing.
May 6, 2005... Support services company Inspace is spinning out of family-owned construction company Willmott Dixon and onto Aim. Inspace already has an impressive customer base, which should prove vital in a competitive arena dominated by the likes of Mears...

Shell steals march on rivals with Libya deal.
May 6, 2005... Shell has concluded a major agreement to explore for, and develop, gas reserves in Libya. It will modernise an existing liquefied natural gas terminal, and spend $187m (GBP98.9m) exploring five blocks in the Sirte Basin. The deal is the first...

New Aim indices create investment openings.
May 6, 2005... Currently home to over 1,100 companies, Aim is introducing a series of new indices. With the exponential growth of the junior market continuing at pace, the plan is to hand investors new opportunities to invest in, and track, the performance of...

INVESTMENT TRUST NEWS - Pig pens a note to shareholders.
May 6, 2005... Perpetual Income & Growth tries to win over Securities Trust of Scotland shareholders with superior performance Securities Trust of Scotland (STS) investors who wish to accept the takeover offer from Perpetual Income & Growth (Pig) must...

Future secures Highbury titles.
May 6, 2005... The consumer magazines publisher Future has agreed to buy 38 titles from its financially-distressed rival Highbury House for GBP30.5m. The deal comes just two weeks after Future pulled out of buying Highbury House outright in a takeover that...

Second time lucky for iTouch takeover.
May 6, 2005... Just a few months after an aborted takeover approach from rival MonsterMob, mobile content provider iTouch is the target of yet another bid. This time the deal looks likely to go ahead - the GBP180m offer from Japanese content specialist...

Visual Defence secures Aim debut.
May 6, 2005... Video-surveillance specialist Visual Defence is to become the latest spin-off from Israeli tech-bubble survivor, Emblaze. The company - which recently landed a GBP5m contract to supply security equipment at a major European airport - makes its...

Chief quits Universal Salvage after a year.
May 6, 2005... Nigel Sandy, chief executive of Universal Salvage since March last year, has suddenly quit. Having joined the vehicle-salvage group, Mr Sandy is understood to have found the business in worse condition than he had expected, and to have...

Is your retirement pot at risk?
May 6, 2005... For all the talk of a pensions timebomb, the immediate issue facing investors is whether or not you need to change your pension plans to cope with the government's new pension rules, which come into force on 6 April 2006 (known as 'A-Day'). ...

Torotrak's Italian job.
May 6, 2005... Torotrak, the vehicle transmission developer, has licensed rights to its technology to an Italian group that hopes to install it in agricultural and construction vehicles, and also in buses and trucks. The deal will bring E1.2m (GBP800,000) in...

A recipe for outperformance?
May 6, 2005... Multimanager funds are be-coming increasingly popular as a concept because they offer a one-stop solution for investors faced with a bewildering choice of individual funds. However, they are not without their disadvantages, and it may be better...

Fundamentally sound.
May 6, 2005... Emerging Markets have seen a spectacular rally over the past two years. In the six months to March this year alone, the MSCI emerging market index rose 25 per cent, compared with just 7 per cent for the world index and 12 per cent for the UK...

Eastern promise.
May 6, 2005... In the wake of the Bank of England calling last orders on the party in UK property, where are investors looking for the next growth story? Well, they've had to use their imagination a bit more - many are still focused on bricks and mortar, but...

IMPERIAL TOBACCO (IMT).
May 6, 2005... Smoking may be a dying habit, but Imperial Tobacco still has ways of breathing new life into its business. Despite tough conditions in many of its most lucrative markets, the maker of Lambert & Butler and John Player cigarettes enjoyed 7 per...

Questions & Answers.
May 6, 2005... Who's who In many best-buy saving-rate tables, Heritable Bank and MBNA tend to come near the top. But the average person knows little or nothing about these groups. Who is 'behind' them? For all we know, they may be worthy offshoots of...

SANDERSON (SND).
May 6, 2005... Sanderson joined Aim in December in a placing that raised GBP14m at 50p a share, but it still counts venture-capital backer Alchemy as its largest investor. The main areas it trades in are wholesale distribution, mail-order, manufacturing, and...

SOLITAIRE (STG).
May 6, 2005... Solitaire is used to turning in good results - and last year was no exception with another record performance, despite fears surrounding the state of the property market. Solitaire manages new-build flats and private-housing developments,...

HIGHBURY HOUSE COMMS. (HHO).
May 6, 2005... In February, ailing Highbury House Communications was thrown a lifeline. Publishing rival Future Ntework agreed a takeover deal worth 10p a share that would have made Future the third-biggest consumer magazine publisher in the UK. But the...

CASPIAN (CSH).
May 6, 2005... Shares in Caspian Holdings lost over 30 per cent of their value following these results. Chairman Michael Masterman admits that some shareholders had been expecting the company's oil production rates to be higher than they currently are. ...

Supercharger deal boosts Antonov.
May 6, 2005... Shares in Antonov surged 11 per cent this week as the automotive technology developer revealed that it has signed an agreement to sell a supercharger device, which will be sold into the US car aftermarket. The deal is with Rotrex, a component...

GRESHAM COMPUTING (GHT).
May 6, 2005... Despite seeing clear advances on all fronts, investors reacted badly to these latest results from IT services group, Gresham Computing. Shares in the company fell nearly 30 per cent to 192p, as the roll out of its Real Time Nostro (RTN) service...

EMBLAZE (BLZ).
May 6, 2005... A year ago, Emblaze's chief executive, Eli Reifman, promised to grow revenues six-fold in 2004. Having hit that target, he's now promising to more than double revenues to $120m (about GBP63m) this year. But after spinning-off most of its...

Travis Perkins pins hopes on consumers.
May 6, 2005... Builders' merchant Travis Perkins has reported that, after a slow start to the year, trading is gradually improving at Wickes, the DIY chain that it bought in February. Provided this slow recovery continues, the group will meet its financial...

EUROPEAN MOTOR (EMH).
May 6, 2005... Sales of European Motor's cars, which are almost all prestige models, have been holding up remarkably well. This is partly down to the fact that while the purchasing cost of prestige cars is higher than for value cars, the cost of ownership is...

HITACHI CAPITAL UK (HCU).
May 6, 2005... Hitachi shares rose when these results were announced as the hefty dividend increase came in ahead of analysts' expectations. But while the dividend demonstrates management's confidence in the future, there were some causes for concern. The...

EL ORO & EXPLORATION (ELX).
May 6, 2005... El Oro's chairman, Robin Woodbine Parish, was on good form in his traditionally-opinionated preliminary statement. The targets of his ire this time included Brussels bureaucrats, John Prescott, African leaders and the Strategic Rail Authority....

DE VERE (DVR).
May 6, 2005... With consumers cutting back on trips to the pub and health-club membership, it's only logical that weekends away should also be at risk. And that's what seems to be happening within De Vere's two hotel businesses. The company says that demand...

ATRIUM UNDERWRITING (AUW).
May 6, 2005... Like all insurers, Atrium has benefited hugely from the steep rises in insurance rates between 2001 and 2003. Chief executive Nick Marsh believes that the peak has now passed in this highly cyclical industry, but prospects remain attractive...

ALEXANDRA (AXD).
May 6, 2005... Alexandra's results were boosted by the news of its acquisition of Prima Corporate Wear for GBP4m in cash. Prima, which made pre-tax profits of GBP0.6m on sales of GBP6.2m in its last financial year, looks set to boost EPS by 1p in the first 12...

SOCO (SIA).
May 6, 2005... The suspense goes on. SOCO's CNV-3X appraisal well in the Cuu Long basin, off Vietnam, has reached its target depth (three miles beneath the sea), but testing operations have only just begun. And the success or otherwise of this complex...

EUROTUNNEL (ETL).
May 6, 2005... Eurotunnel has secured a waiver on its GBP6.4bn debt mountain, so negotiations with creditors can now finally begin. Chairman Jacques Gounon fired the opening shot with a demand that creditors wipe out a large portion of the company's...

SKYEPHARMA (SKP).
May 6, 2005... Skyepharma is regarded coolly by the City, due to its history of promising deals and then failing to deliver. But the recent share-price slide is not wholly of its making. The drug developer was hit by the US regulatory clampdown on...

FORTUNE OIL (FTO).
May 6, 2005... It may be no bad thing that the deal to sell Fortune's stake in China Bluesky Aviation fell apart. The venture was the single largest contributor to the increase in group profits last year, thanks to a general post-Sars recovery in air traffic,...

KENMARE RESOURCES (KMR).
May 6, 2005... Kenmare is currently a one-project company. Its Moma titanium minerals project in Mozambique, which is still under construction, is due to start production in a little over a year. But the company certainly seems to be doing everything...

TADPOLE TECHNOLOGY (TAD).
May 6, 2005... Tadpole's huge revenue growth was partly attributable to the acquisition of StreamTheory last October, which contributed GBP703,000 to the top line. But strip this out, and you're still left with underlying revenue growth of 153 per cent. This...

JENNING BROTHERS (JBC).
May 6, 2005... More so than ever before, brewing and pub ownership are big boys' games. It's getting harder for the country's small, local firms to compete and to create value for their owners. So, much as it saddens traditionalists, it does make sense for...

HIGHLAND TIMBER (HTB).
May 6, 2005... After eight years of losses since it floated, Highland admits that the current level of overheads is "not sustainable" and may de-list to reduce them. This news is particularly disappointing because, after a decade of falling prices, UK timber...

ADNAMS.
May 6, 2005... Adnams looks like a tasty acquisition, but family control and pre-emption rights should keep it independent. Its beer and wine businesses seem to have accounted for last year's rise in turnover, but results from its two Southwold hotels were...

BILLAM (BLLM).
May 6, 2005... Billam suffered a 47 per cent decline in net asset value last year. Much of the blame was due to a sharp fall in the price (since consolidation) of its largest investment, telematic service provider, Cybit. It has won lots of orders, but...

LUPUS CAPITAL (LUP).
May 6, 2005... Chief executive Greg Hutchings says that Lupus's core strategy is to find suitable acquisitions, turn them around, sell them on, and return the profits to shareholders. But he describes the past year as "frustrating", saying that the companies...

PUNCH TAVERNS (PUB).
May 6, 2005... The pub industry is getting nervous. There's growing talk that the public's greater frugality is hurting takings behind the bar. And then there's the longer-term trend of people staying at home to drink. So, if consumer spending doesn't improve...

COX INSURANCE (COX).
May 6, 2005... Almost six months after Cox first announced that it was in talks that could lead to its takeover, a bid is finally on the table. Fieldstreet - a consortium made up of Englefield Capital, Duke Street Capital and former Cox chief executive Neil...

JARVIS SECURITIES (JIM).
May 6, 2005... Formerly Jarvis Investment Manage-ment, Jarvis Securities moved from Ofex to Aim at the end of 2004. A placing at 82.5p raised GBP700,000 and first dealings were at 90p. But, despite a rise in daily trading volumes in 2005, its shares have been...

GREENWICH RESOURCES (GRWA).
May 6, 2005... Greenwich Resources first started exploring for gold in Thrace, north-eastern Greece, in 1991. However, it's clear that the locals don't want it to start drilling. So, not before time, it has teamed up with Cambridge Mineral Resources to...

REGEN THERAPEUTICS (RGT).
May 6, 2005... Other mini-bios should follow ReGen's change of tack. It realised that even with the backing of 11 patents - a new US patent was awarded in March - it has become increasingly difficult for small biotechs to raise regular tranches of new cash to...

AUKETT FITZROY (AUK).
May 6, 2005... Aukett Fitzroy Robinson is the new name for Aukett following March's acquisition of Fitzroy Robinson for GBP2.28m in shares. It's deemed to be a reverse takeover, broadens the UK business and makes it easier to compete for higher-profile...

CORPORATE SYNERGY (CSG).
May 6, 2005... Corporate Synergy (CS) is the new name for Abingdon Capital. CS raised over GBP40m for smaller-company clients in 2004 - 85 per cent on Aim - and client numbers more than doubled to 33. By end-February this year, another GBP19m had been raised...

SAMEDAYBOOKS.CO.UK (SDK).
May 6, 2005... With only eight stores, Samedaybooks is struggling to stop making losses. Last year's progress looks encouraging, given a void rent cost GBP94,000. But the deficit would have been double, but for a lease surrender gain. Nor are prospects good...

BLACKS LEISURE (BLSA).
May 6, 2005... Blacks Leisure seems as weatherproof as its high-altitude tents. Despite a wet summer, the company had another good year, with profits up, margins up and underlying sales rising 8.1 per cent. Indeed, the company is well placed to deal with all...

HYDRO INT'L (HYD).
May 6, 2005... There were Red faces at Hydro, when a bar-chart suggested that all of last year's profit was exceptional. In fact, none was - and, on a comparable basis, profits rose 8 per cent. It could have been more, but Hydro has been building up its US...

CHIEFTAIN (CFT).
May 6, 2005... After tracking sideways for six years, Chieftain's share price shot up in December when it reported that 2004's trading results were ahead of expectations, and that cash balances had improved dramatically - thanks to the settlement of several...

FUTURA MEDICAL (FUM).
May 6, 2005... Futura has entered "exclusive discussions" with a major pharmaceutical company to finance Phase III trials of its MED2002 rub-on gel - not a gel-filled condom as we reported in our 1 April 2005 issue. This will be the first drug to treat male...

INTERNATIONAL REAL ESTATE (IRE).
May 6, 2005... Uninspiring stock markets have meant that, over the past few years, a lot of British investors have turned to residential and commercial property. But apart from one or two niche sectors, such as NHS car parks, returns on many types of property...

HOLDERS TECH. (HDT).
May 6, 2005... Holders Technology's shares rose confidently throughout 2003 and 2004 on expectations of profit recovery. This was achieved - but there was a sharp share-price reversal in March, when the company announced that 2005 results would be...

Formation.
May 6, 2005... Aim. All of Formation's divisions are trading profitably. The focus now is on adding scale and depth wherever possible. It already has committed future gross profits of GBP4m.

QuestAir Technologies.
May 6, 2005... Aim. Questair has secured a number of new orders. Current trading is satisfactory.

COMMUNITY BROKING (CB.).
May 6, 2005... Since Community BROKING joined Aim in 2003, it has acquired four businesses, decanting three of them into its rented headquarters in Eccles. The company deliberately took on three times more space there than originally needed, and wants more...

Biofusion.
May 6, 2005... Aim. Biofusion's plan is to spin out companies in the current year. Biofusion joined Aim in February.