IRG.L Share News (IRG)

LONDON (Alliance News) - Polymer products manufacturer Fenner saw its shares plummet Friday, after it issued a profit warning that it blamed on a further deterioration in trading in the US and the loss of a profitable contract in Australia.

It is the biggest faller on the FTSE 250 after it said underlying pretax profit for the year to August 31 will be 10% to 15% below the prevailing market consensus forecast of GBP77.6 million.

Smith & Nephew is the biggest gainer on the FTSE 100 for a third consecutive day after UBS raised its price target to 1,100.00 pence from 1,000.00p, adding it to its M&A watch list. The bank said that it assumes a one-in-three chance that the medical devices company will be acquired in the next two years. The Financial Times Wednesday said Stryker was about to make an unquantified takeover bid for the British company, which the the US maker of hip implants and knee replacements quickly denied.

Miners Anglo American, Rio Tinto, BHP Billiton, Fresnillo and Randgold Resources are all down, the latter two hit by a 3% fall in the gold price in the last four days, and the first three hit by concerns about a manufacturing slowdown in China.

The fall in mining shares means the FTSE 100 is struggling to add to its recent strong gains. US futures trading currently indicate that Wall Street will open slightly lower, with the DJIA, NASDAQ Composite and the S&P 500, which closed at a record high on Thursday, all set to open down.

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FTSE 100: down 0.2% at 6,861.38
FTSE 250: up 0.5% at 16,041.12
AIM ALL-SHARE: down 0.2% at 801.05
GBP-USD: up at 1.6731
EUR-USD: up at 1.3608
GOLD: down at USD1,253.30 an ounce
OIL (Brent): down at USD109.62 a barrel
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Top UK Corporate News
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Polymer products manufacturer Fenner said underlying pretax profit for the year to end-August will be 10% to 15% below the prevailing market consensus forecast of GBP77.6 million, as trading conditions in the US continue to deteriorate while its Australian arm suffered a setback following the loss of a profitable contract. In the year ended August 31, 2013, Fenner's pretax profit was GBP67.9 million, down from GBP86.6 million a year earlier. The company, which reported a fall in profit and revenue for the first half of the current year, said trading conditions in the US have shown no sign of imminent improvement, while the coal industry remains cautious. It therefore expects its conveyor belts arm to report significantly weaker results in the US than previously expected for the rest of the financial year.
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Energy supplier SSE has made a payment of GBP750,000 to the Scottish Hydro Electricity Community Trust after the UK energy regulator Ofgem imposed the fine for providing too slow grid connections to around 200 customers between 2010 and 2013. The regulator said SSE's power distribution subsidiary did not provide the customers with an offer to connect to the electricity network within its prescribed timescale, and so the company was forced to pay out the cash in order to help customers with the cost of electricity connections in rural areas of the UK.
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P2P Global Investments and Clipper Logistics have seen their shares rise in early dealings after their initial public offerings. Meanwhile, Blue Inc, the fashion retailer focused on the under 25's, said it intends to float on AIM.
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GlaxoSmithKline has invited private equity firms to bid for some of its older drugs in the latest step by Chief Executive Andrew Witty to reshape the UK’s biggest drugmaker, the Financial Times reports, citing people familiar with the situation. Private equity companies including Advent International, Blackstone and KKR are among those to have been alerted to the opportunity, The FT quoted the people as saying.
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AIM MOVERS
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Cellcast is trading higher after its Cellcast UK Ltd subsidiary entered into a new joint venture by investing GBP1 million for a 49% stake in Euro TV. Tangiers Petroleum is up after it drew attention to a positive piece of research from Edison Investment Research, which initiated coverage on the stock. Alba Mineral Resources is up for a second day in a row, having closed up 10% on Thursday, after carrying out a share subscription that raised GBP60,000. Rurelec is another gainer after it signed a final agreement with the government of Bolivia which releases an immediate payment of USD31.5 million to the company, ending a four-year compensation battle over its former asset in the country. Independent Resources has slumped after it said it is looking to raise up to GBP2.8 million before expenses through a placing and open offer, money it will use to develop the Ksar Hadada onshore oil permit in Tunisia that is key to its survival. Ferrum Crescent is down after saying it has still not received the second GBP500,000 payment it is due from Anvwar Asian Investment as part of a deal to sell a 35% interest in a subsidiary that holds its Moonlight iron ore assets in South Africa for USD10 million. Formation Group is also down after it said its losses widened in the first half, as its cost of sales ballooned and gross profit margin narrowed. It later said it had appointed former Irish Minister for Defence William O'Dea as its non-executive chairman with immediate effect.
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Top Economics And General
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An index measuring consumer sentiment in the UK came in with a score of 0 in May, polling company GfK said. That beat forecasts for a score of -2 and was up from -3 in April. The May reading represents a nine-year high score for the index. All the five sub-indicators, used to calculate the total index, witnessed growth in May.
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Germany's retail sales fell unexpectedly in April after rising for three consecutive months, official figures revealed. Retail sales turnover declined by a real 0.9% from March, when it was up 0.1%, Destatis reported. Sales were expected to rise by 0.2%. Meanwhile, on a yearly basis, retail sales grew 3.4%, reversing the 1.1% drop in March. The rate also exceeded 1.5% rise expected by economists.
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Italy's harmonized consumer price inflation slowed unexpectedly in May, preliminary estimate from the statistical office Istat showed. The harmonized index of consumer prices rose 0.4% year-on-year in May, slightly slower than the 0.5% increase posted in April. The rate was expected to remain at 0.5%. Similarly, consumer price inflation eased marginally to 0.5% from 0.6% a month ago. Prices were forecast to rise by 0.6%.
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Industrial output in Japan dipped 2.5% on month in April, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry said. That missed forecasts for a decline of 2.0% following the 0.7% increase in March. On a yearly basis, industrial production added 4.1% - also missing expectations for 4.5% and down from 7.4% in the previous month.
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Nationwide core inflation in Japan was up 3.2% on year in April, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications said. That topped forecasts for 3.1% and was up sharply from 1.3% in March. Overall nationwide CPI climbed 3.4% - in line with expectations and up from 1.6% in the previous month. Meanwhile, the same government ministry said average of household spending in Japan was down 4.6% on year in April, standing at 302,141. That missed forecasts for a decline of 3.4% following the 7.2% jump in March. It also said the unemployment rate in Japan was a seasonally adjusted 3.6% in April, unchanged from the previous month and in line with expectations.
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Gunmen in eastern Ukraine have detained another group of international civilian observers, the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe says. The four observers and one Ukrainian translator were stopped by armed men in Severodonetsk, 100 km north of Luhansk at around 7pm on Thursday. The news comes after separatist leader Alexei Chmilenko told Interfax that the first group of four civilian observers to have been detained had been freed. There was no official confirmation from the OSCE of this.
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The Thai military junta is to send representatives to social media companies to ask them for access to chatrooms and groups that are deemed harmful to national security, reports said Friday. Facebook, Twitter, Google and popular instant messaging application Line are companies which the junta plans to talk to, a representative from Thailand's Ministry of Information and Communication Technology told Matichon Newspaper. The military government is asking for cooperation from the companies in taking down posts that are "sensitive" in the current political situation as well as group chats which might contain information deemed vital in protecting the nation.
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Afternoon Watchlist (all times British Summer Time)
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13:30 US Personal Income
13:30 US Core Personal Consumption Expenditure - Price Index
13:30 US Personal Consumption Expenditures - Price Index
13:30 US Personal Spending
14:45 US Chicago Purchasing Managers' Index
14:55 US Reuters/Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index
19:00 US Fed's Lacker speech
22:00 US FOMC Member Williams speech
22:00 US Philadelphia Fed's Plosser speech
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Monday's Key UK Corporate Events
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RWS Holdings Half Year Results
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Sunday's Key Economic Events (all times British Summer Time)
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02:00 China NBS Manufacturing PMI
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Monday's Key Economic Events (all times British Summer Time)
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All Day China Dragon Boat Festival
n/a Russia HSBC Manufacturing PMI
00:50 Japan Capital Spending
02:45 China HSBC Manufacturing PMI
08:50 France Markit Manufacturing PMI
08:55 Germany Markit Manufacturing PMI
09:00 EU Markit Manufacturing PMI
09:30 UK Consumer Credit
09:30 UK M4 Money Supply
09:30 UK Mortgage Approvals
09:30 UK Net Lending to Individuals
13:00 Germany Consumer Price Index
13:00 Germany Harmonised Index of Consumer Prices
14:45 US Markit Manufacturing PMI
15:00 US Construction Spending
15:00 US ISM Manufacturing PMI
15:00 US ISM Prices Paid
21:00 US Total Vehicle Sales
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