TALV.L Share News (TALV)

When the Chief Executive Officer says his company is facing one of the toughest periods in his 36-year business career, it should not be too much of a surprise that the shares take a hammering.ICAP, the inter-dealer broker, is the company in question and the shares were duffed over after the company revealed a 26% fall in interim headline profit before tax.Another stock taking a shoeing was British TV decoder maker Pace, which tried - and failed - to talk up its prospects for the remainder of the financial year. Pace expects revenues in the second half of 2012 to be around $180m, up 16% from the same time the previous year. 2012 revenues are now expected to be flat on 2011 actuals with 2% underlying growth before the impact of hard disk drive supply disruption.JP Morgan was unfazed enough by the update to reiterate its "overweight" rating on the stock. Acting as a counterweight to the two dogs of the Footsie were Britain's two biggest soft drinks companies, Britvic and AG Barr, which announced they will definitely tie the knot in an Anglo-Caledonian marriage.The merger has been in discussion for at least two months, and the pair finally agreed on terms which will see Britvic shareholders receive 0.816 of a Barr share for every Britvic share owned. Both shares rose following confirmation of the deal. Panmure Gordon was positive on the merger. "Management believes that the merged company should be able to achieve annual cost synergies of £35m and revenue synergies of £5m by 2016. This would appear to be in the middle of the range of £5m to £75m, of which we were at the top end. We believe there is a good chance the enlarged company will be able to achieve its cost synergy targets but feel there is a greater degree of uncertainty regarding its revenue synergy targets," the broker said.Also on the rise was under pressure nickel miner Talvivaara, which revealed that the widely-reported leak of waste water at a mine in Finland which led to the temporary shut down of operations has been plugged. FTSE 250 - RisersTalvivaara Mining Company (TALV) 99.75p +19.60%Britvic (BVIC) 386.80p +5.02%Telecity Group (TCY) 854.00p +3.52%JD Sports Fashion (JD.) 725.00p +3.42%SIG (SHI) 106.00p +3.31%Barr (A.G.) (BAG) 445.00p +2.96%Fidessa Group (FDSA) 1,311.00p +2.82%Computacenter (CCC) 350.40p +2.61%Daejan Holdings (DJAN) 2,775.00p +2.55%Inmarsat (ISAT) 558.50p +2.20%FTSE 250 - FallersICAP (IAP) 280.00p -9.65%Pace (PIC) 184.90p -5.18%TalkTalk Telecom Group (TALK) 210.00p -4.98%Dechra Pharmaceuticals (DPH) 567.00p -4.38%Perform Group (PER) 394.00p -3.88%Ferrexpo (FXPO) 199.60p -3.71%Dialight (DIA) 1,053.00p -3.31%Petropavlovsk (POG) 355.10p -3.22%Man Group (EMG) 78.25p -3.10%IG Group Holdings (IGG) 428.10p -3.06%JH