Johnston Press PLC Share News (JPR)

LONDON (Alliance News) - UK shares are slightly higher at the open Friday, as markets await the final reading of UK GDP in the first quarter.

Shares in Imagination Technologies Group PLC lead FTSE 250 fallers, down 11%, after Intel Capital Corp, the investment arm of chip giant Intel Corp, sold a 9.3% stake in the business, a move its banks said wouldn't impact the operational relationship the companies have.

Reed Elsevier and Meggitt lead FTSE 100 fallers, after Barclays cut Reed to Equal Weight from Overweight and UBS cut Meggitt to Neutral from Buy.

Here is what you need to know at the UK market open:
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MARKETS
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FTSE 100: up 0.1% at 6,742.04
FTSE 250: up 0.1% at 15,657.82
AIM ALL-SHARE: down 0.1% at 779.59
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Hang Seng: flat at 23,200.35
Nikkei 225: closed down 1.4% at 15,095.00
DJIA: closed down 0.1% at 16,846.13
S&P 500: closed down 0.1% at 1,957.22
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GBP-USD: flat at USD1.7024
EUR-USD: up at USD1.3625

GOLD: up at USD1,318.29 per ounce
OIL (Brent): up at USD113.11 a barrel

(changes since end of previous GMT day)
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ECONOMICS AND GENERAL
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Friday's Key Economic Events still to come
(all times British Summer Time)

09:00 Italy Business Confidence
09:30 UK Current Account
09:30 UK Gross Domestic Product
10:00 EU Consumer and Industrial Confidence, Business Climate, Economic Sentiment
11:00 Ireland Retail Sales
13:00 Germany Consumer Price Index
13:30 Canada Industrial and Raw Material Product Prices
14:55 US Reuters/Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index
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House prices growth in the UK continued to slow in June, results of a survey by Hometrack showed. House prices rose 0.3% on month in June, a slower rate of increase than the 0.5% rise in May. This marked the slowest growth in prices since January 2014. Housing demand remained unchanged after rising in the last 18 months. Meanwhile, the number of property listing rose 1.9% in June.
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EU leaders were gearing up Thursday for a showdown over who should next lead the European Commission, with expectations high that British Prime Minister David Cameron will not be allowed to throw a spanner in the works. The presidency of the commission, the EU's executive, is one of the highest political posts in the bloc. Former Luxembourg premier Jean-Claude Juncker has laid claim to the office, as lead candidate of the conservative party that came first in European elections in May. But Cameron has steadfastly opposed Juncker's appointment, arguing that leaders should not be restricted to picking among the lead candidates championed by the European Parliament.
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Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova are due Friday to sign much-touted agreements strengthening their ties to the EU at a summit in Brussels, despite warnings from Russia that the move could carry consequences. Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko will ink the free trade clauses of his country's EU deal, after the political chapters were signed in March. His predecessor's refusal to sign the agreement last year helped trigger the country's current crisis. Georgia and Moldova have steadfastly pursued their agreements. Both eventually aspire to join the EU, despite a lack of enthusiasm for enlargement among its 28 member states.
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The number of registered unemployed in France rose to a new record high in May, data from the labor ministry revealed late Thursday. Registered job seekers rose by 0.7% or 24,800 from April to 3.38 million, the highest on record.
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Japan's unemployment rate declined to 3.5% in May amid signs of economic recovery, the government said. But unstable forms of employment remained one of the nation's most pressing issues, analysts said. The number of temporary and part-time workers jumped by 300,000 from a year earlier to 19.21 million, while that of regular employees grew by only 10,000 to 33.24 million, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications said.
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President Barack Obama is seeking approval from Congress for USD500 million in aid to train "moderate" Syrian armed rebels. "These funds would help defend the Syrian people, stabilize areas under opposition control, facilitate the provision of essential services, counter terrorist threats, and promote conditions for a negotiated settlement," Caitlin Hayden, spokesperson for the National Security Council that advises Obama, said Thursday.
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The number of Syrians in need of humanitarian assistance has risen to 10.8 million, or about half the country's population, as conditions continue to deteriorate, UN humanitarian affairs chief Valerie Amos warned Thursday. Amos, who briefed the UN Security Council on the implementation of an humanitarian access resolution, said that thousands of Syrian civilians are dying every month in targeted or indiscriminate attacks.
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BROKER RATING CHANGES
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BARCLAYS CUTS REED TO 'EQUAL WEIGHT' ('OVERWEIGHT') - TARGET 1005 (1020) PENCE
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UBS CUTS MEGGITT TO 'NEUTRAL' ('BUY') - TARGET 505 (520) PENCE
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S&P CAPITAL IQ CUTS BARCLAYS TO 'HOLD' ('BUY') - PRICE TARGET 240 (300) PENCE
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UBS RAISES REDROW TO 'BUY' ('NEUTRAL') - TARGET 320 (350) PENCE
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UBS CUTS OPHIR ENERGY TO 'NEUTRAL' ('BUY') - TARGET 250 (280) PENCE
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SOCGEN INITIATES BBA AVIATION WITH 'BUY' - TARGET 360 PENCE
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PANMURE RESUMES JOHNSTON PRESS WITH 'BUY' - TARGET 5.30 PENCE
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COMPANIES - FTSE 100
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Large banks have begun to pull business from Barclays PLC's dark pool in the wake of New York State's top law enforcer filing fraud charges against it earlier this week, the Financial Times reports without saying where it got the information. According to the FT, Deutsche Bank, Credit Suisse, and Royal Bank of Canada were among the institutions to withdraw from LX. The FT said that asset manager AllianceBernstein has also said it had stopped using the Barclays dark pool, the newspaper said.
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United Utilities Group PLC said it has resubmitted its business plan for the period 2015-20 after regulator Ofwat said its proposals on risk and reward were not in line with its expectations. UK water companies submitted business plans at the end of 2013 setting out their proposed investments plans for the next five years and how much they plan to charge customers. United Utilities said, following Ofwat's risk and reward guidance, it is now proposing an average real term bill decrease of 2.3% for household customers across the five-year period. This compares with an average real term bill decrease of 1.7% in its initial plan, reflecting the combined changes of a lower cost of capital and expenditure revisions.
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Acron Group said it has formed a joint venture with Rio Tinto Group PLC to develop potash properties in Saskatchewan, Canada, and the next steps for the project include continuing an environmental assessment and developing a pre-feasibility study. The joint venture holds nine potash permits covering 586,000 acres in the southern region of the district, it said. The work undertaken so far has focused on permit KP 405, known as the Albany Project, where 13 wells have been drilled, a 3-D seismic survey completed, and a 43-101 compliant resource study prepared.
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Rosneft Says In Long-Term Deal With BP On Delivery Of Oil Products; Says BP Deal Is On A Pre-Paid Basis
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COMPANIES - FTSE 250
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Shares in Imagination Technologies Group PLC fell sharply early Friday after Intel Capital Corp, the investment arm of chip giant Intel Corp, sold a 9.3% stake in the business, a move its banks said wouldn't impact the operational relationship the companies have. Credit Suisse, which along with Jefferies International and JP Morgan, conducted the sale by Imagination Tech's biggest shareholder, said Intel Capital will be subject to a 90-day lockup on its remaining Imagination Technologies stake of about 5%. In total, 25 million shares were placed by the banks at 205 pence a share, raising gross proceeds of GBP51.25 million. The sale was done through an accelerated book build, meaning little or no marketing was done.
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Ultra Electronics Holdings PLC said it has won a contract worth more than GBP60 million from commercial aircraft maker Airbus to design and build an electrical ground door opening system for the new Airbus A350 family of aircraft. It said it expects the contract to be worth more than GBP60 million in revenue to Ultra Electronics based on expected sales of the aircraft.
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FTSE 250-listed engineering company Keller Group PLC Friday said there have been no significant changes to its trading or outlook since it published interim results last month. On May 16, Keller Group said trading has been in line with expectations this year, despite a decline in public construction expenditure in the US and a lull in activity levels for major project awards in Canada's oil sands industry.
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Fashion retailer SuperGroup PLC took back the rights to trading its Superdry brand in Denmark, Norway and Finland when it bought Scandinavian distributor SMAC Group. It didn't provide any financial details about the acquisition, but said it paid for the deal with cash from internal resources. Based in Aarhus, Denmark, SMAC has four of its own retail stores, eight franchise stores and a wholesale business.
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Berendsen Says Trading In First 5-Mo In Line With Management Expectations; Says Reported Revenue 1% Below Last Year; Says Reported Pretax Profit Ahead
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COMPANIES - MAIN MARKET AND AIM
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Debt-burdened pubs operator Punch Taverns PLC late Thursday said it has now agreed debt restructuring proposals with a majority of the stakeholders, a deal which, if implemented, would hugely dilute the equity held by its current shareholders. The company saw its shares plummet in late May after it said it had received a debt restructuring proposal from a group of its creditors which would reduce the group's total net debt by around GBP0.6 billion but significantly dilute existing shareholders' equity in the company.
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Solo Oil Says Planned Well, Horse Hill-1, Likely To Spud In Late July
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K3 Says Chairman Tom Milne To Retire Towards Ends Of This Year
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Montise Takes Full Ownership Of Indonesian JV PT AGIT Monitise Indonesia; Says Stake Worth GBP7.3M
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Camco Clean Energy To Raise GBP1.0M In Placing, Open Offer
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First Quantum Minerals Temporarily Halts Construction At Cobre Panama Project;Says Halt Due To Illegal Work Stoppage
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BowLeven In Drill-To-Earn Deal With Africa Fortesa Corp; Says AFC To Earn 20% Interest In Bomono Permit For Drilling 2 Wells
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Clean Air Power To Raise GBP1M In Share Placing Of 25M Shares At 4 Pence Per Share
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Stanley Gibbons 15-Mo Trading Profit GBP6.9M Vs GBP6.3M In Fiscal 2012; 15-Mo Sales GBP51.8M Vs Fiscal 2012 Sales Of GBP35.6M; 15-Mo Dividend 7.0P Vs Fiscal 2012 Dividend Of 6.5P
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Outsourcery Says Build Of Strategic Partner Channel Taking Longer Than Hoped; Says Slow Build To Weigh On Growth Of Monthly Recurring Revenue; To Cut Costs Due To Slower-Than-Expected Growth
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Rare Earth Minerals Says Bacanora Has Canadian Approval To Complete Financing; Says Bacanora Proposing To List On AIM
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COMPANIES - OTHER
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Alibaba Group Holding, in an amended filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday, said it plans to list its shares on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker "BABA", as the Chinese e-commerce giant approaches its much awaited initial public offering. The plans to have its shares listed on the NYSE goes against general expectations that Alibaba would prefer to patronize the Nasdaq Global exchange, in what is touted to be the largest ever IPO.
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Meanwhile in London, Student accommodation provider Liberty Living PLC late Thursday said that it has decided to pull its planned listing on the main market of the London Stock Exchange, citing adverse market conditions. Liberty Living, which becomes the fifth company to pull a planned IPO in London in 2014, said it had got a positive response to the company and its underlying portfolio of student properties from prospective investors.
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Friday's Scheduled AGMs/EGMs

AG Barr
Johnston Press
Asia Resource Minerals
Silence Therapeutics
Tesco
Tissue Regenix Group
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By Tom Waite; thomaslwaite@alliancenews.com; @thomaslwaite

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