Torotrak PLC Share News (TRK)

Shares are in full-scale retreat around the World with the Dow over 250 points lower soon after the opening bell.London is lower by a similar amount in percentage terms, as concerns over a possible bail-out of Spain and growing military tensions between North and South Korea.Moves by Spanish regulators to encourage consolidation in the Spanish banking sector have put the wind up the UK banks, with Lloyds Banking, Royal Bank of Scotland and Barclays taking a pounding.Mining stocks are also taking a bashing. ENRC, Kazakhmys, Vedanta and Antofagasta as industrial metals prices head south.Semi-conductor designers are taking their lumps on reports of a slowdown in demand. ARM is the highest profile faller after JP Morgan Cazenove downgraded the stock to "underweight" from "neutral" after casting an eye over the sector. The broker thinks a weaker euro is likely to dampen demand for electronics products that are priced in dollar terms in the wholesale chain. Even chip designer Imagination Technologies cannot shake off the gloom encompassing the sector despite saying it is to license technology to device developer Silicon Integrated Systems to use in semiconductor devices.Preliminary results from Marks & Spencer (M&S) came in with a slightly better than expected profit but the retail giant said it remains cautious about the outlook for the year ahead. Profit before tax and property disposals came to £632.5m in the 52 weeks ended 3 April, an improvement on last year's £604.4m.UK insurer Prudential took a tumble when its shares began trading in Hong Kong for the first time today. The company, in the process of raising $21bn to fund the $35bn purchase of American International Group's Asian life insurance business, watched its shares drop over 2.5% early on in Hong Kong trading.Some of the FTSE 250 are making progress despite the red ink elsewhere. South west England-focused water group Pennon hailed another successful year after lifting revenues and profits in the year to March 31 and raising the full year dividend by 7.4%. Pre-tax profits climbed to £183.8m from £159.4m on revenues that rose to £1.068bn from £958.2bn. The shares' appeal seems to have rubbed off on fellow water company Severn Trent, which is the best performing FTSE 100 constituent.Private equity trust Electra is another riser after it lifted net asst value by 10.5% to 1,900p in the six months to March, up from 1,881p at end September.Losses at its cash processing division meant profits came in little changed last year at banknote printer De La Rue, despite good sales growth. Pre-tax profits in the year to March were £96.6m, up from £96.1m, on sales of £561m some 12% higher. Operating profits rose by 13% to £109m driven by good growth from the banknote arm.Plastics group Victrex reported record half year revenue and profits and said second half revenues will be broadly in line with the first half. Underlying pre-tax profits rose to £31.8m in the six months compared with £21.1m last year. Underlying revenue was up 36% to £76.5m. Home maintenance specialist Homeserve posted a 13% increase in full year pre-tax profit driven by the strong performance at its UK and international operations. Hull-based telecoms group KCOM reported a 64.2% surge in annual adjusted profit as it reduced costs and increased its full year dividend by 25%.BSS Group, a distributor of equipment for plumbing and other trades, reported a drop in full-year profits but said it made a strong start to the new year.Gearbox designer Torotrak made its first annual profit in the year to end March with a surplus of £197,000 against a loss of £2m. Revenues rose to £7.6m from £4.6m. Operating cash flow turned negative at a £1.1m outflow as a result mainly of licence fees which were recognised in revenue during the year. Software group Endace posted a loss of $367,000 in the year to March against a profit of $4.73m last time. Sales rose to $31m from $30.4m. There was a bad debt charge of $1.2m. "The current sales pipeline is the strongest that Endace has had in its history and the markets we address give us good near- and longer-term growth potential," chief executive Mark Riley said.