UK small caps drop 0.7 percent, mirroring weakness on the widermarket, with the mid-caps and the blue chips sufferingrespective falls of 0.6 percent and 0.8 percent. Junior-listed AIM shares buck the weak trend, up 0.5 percent.
Asian Citrus sheds 1.1 percent after cutting its dividend by 44percent and unveiling a new strategy, which diversifies its product mix byplanting banana and grapefruit trees.
"These shares are cheap (1.1 times T2014E EV/EBITDA and 6.2 times PER) butnow have lower yield support. Confidence in the board and management needs to berestored and the new 'multi-fruit' strategy clarified to enable the market tobecome more positive on the shares," analysts at Liberum Capital write.
Produce Investments rises 3.4 percent after the potato specialistreports an improvement in results for the second half of its financial year toend-June.
"The second half has seen an improved financial performance along with a notinsignificant contribution from the acquisition of Rowe Farming," analysts atShore Capital write in a note.
"Whilst the late spring will inevitably bring further challenges, we believethe past year has highlighted the robustness of Produce's business model for allits stakeholders. Therefore, we are confident it can deliver further growth inFY2014."
Reuters messaging rm://antonina.vorobyova.thomsonreuters.com@reuters.net
