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The bolognese sauce contributed circa 0.3m of 1.16bn turnover in Greencore's last financial year. The annualised revenue of all products withdrawn represents less than 1.0m. "The company is currently awaiting the results of further quantitative tests on the 350g Beef Bolognaise Sauce that will validate the presence and the extent of the equine DNA," the group said in a statement.

John Warren, a non-Executive Director of Irish food producer Greencore, has increased his stake in the company just a few days after the company was forced to admit horse meat had been found in its beef bolognese sauce. The director purchased 25,000 shares at 105.60p each, costing �26,400 before tax. Greencore last week confirmed that its Chosen By You 350g Beef Bolognese has been withdrawn from Asda supermarkets following the detection of horse DNA. Three other Greencore products were taken off shelves "as a precautionary measure" but they did not test positive for horse meat. Items included the 600g Beef Broth Soup, 500g Meat Feast Pasta Sauce, and 400g Chilli Con Carne Soup.

Positive Points: Accompanying management comments provided confidence with regards to the outlook for its important North American beverage can business. The CEO noted that "we expect to make further progress in 2013." The board noted that "we continue to focus on generating cash, managing costs and improving return on capital employed, and our progress to date gives us confidence in achieving our 15% return on capital employed target by the end of 2013." Growth in the Emerging Markets continues to be targeted. Rexam enjoys leading market positions in beverage cans in three out of the four BRIC countries. A new beverage can plant in Finland and a new line of operation was opened in Austria during the year. It also converted a line in Chicago to specialty cans, allowing it to meet growth in this segment in North America. Furthermore, a new line for aluminium cans was opened in Mumbai, India, at the end of the year, and a plant in Belém in Brazil is due to come on stream in the first quarter 2013 in time for a number of major sporting events such as the FIFA World Cup and the Olympics. Costs are still being targeted. Management noted that "we achieved another year of good cost savings." Group net debt at 31 December 2012 was £800 million, down from the previously reported £1.2 billion. Cash from the sale of its Personal Care business is being returned to shareholders. Rexam intends to return around £395 million to shareholders by way of a redeemable B share scheme, together with a share consolidation, a structure that gives shareholders flexibility in terms of tax treatment. A progressive dividend policy continues to be pursued. The total dividend for 2012 was increased by 6% compared to 2011

Negative Points: Difficulties at the group's Healthcare business continue to be suffered. Management noted that "Healthcare had a difficult year largely due to one of our customer's products coming off patent." Organic sales at the business were down 2% over the year. Management made reference to "an uncertain macroeconomic environment." The loss of a major customer contract could have implications. Rexam's top 10 beverage can customers accounted for over 70% of sales. Volatility in the price of key raw materials such as aluminium provides concern. Rexam is subject to foreign exchange movements.

Financial Highlights: Revenues from the continuing business rose by 2% to £4.31 billion Underlying or adjusted profit before tax rose by 1% to £418 million The total dividend for the year was increased by 6% compared to 2011 Following the sale of the Personal Care business, £395 million is being returned to shareholders

Full year results: The news generally pleased investors, with the share price rising by over 5% in mid morning trading. Underlying or adjusted profits materialised at the upper end of analyst expectations, whilst accompanying management comments helped raise confidence in the future. The Chief Executive noted that "we expect to see high-single digit to low double digit growth in North America" given growth in specialty cans there. He also noted that "further contractual gains in North America and continued growth in our European and South American beverage can businesses give us confidence we will achieve our 15% Return On Capital Employed (ROCE)" target for the company. Growth in the Emerging Markets continued to be pursued - almost 34% (2011 restated: 33%) of its sales now come from such regions - whilst new plants, cost savings and product innovations also remained in focus. In all, headwinds are being battled. The macroeconomic environment remains uncertain, whilst cost pressures (largely group raw material costs) remain. Nonetheless, a more focused approach is now being pursued, with its Personal Care business sold and investor returns being made.

Valiant Petroleum: Westhouse Securities upgrades from neutral to buy with an unchanged target price of 440p

Schroders: Morgan Stanley takes target price from 2250p to 2290p and reiterates an overweight rating.

Morgan Sindall: JP Morgan downgrades from overweight to neutral.

Morgan Crucible: Credit Suisse cuts target price from 290p to 260p downgrading from neutral to underperform.

InterContinental Hotels Group: Morgan Stanley raises target price from 1850p to 2200p keeping an overweight rating. Exane BNP ups target price from 1900p to 2100p, while leaving its outperform rating unchanged.

Cable & Wireless Communications: Exane BNP shifts target price from 33p to 39p and stays with its underperform rating.

However, Leinster noted that the stock has risen around 23% over the past year against EPS growth of just 9.0%. He said: "We have previously based our investment case on cashflow growth and cash returns but we note in FY'13 that the share repurchase will be lower than FY'12 and the cashflow will be impacted by higher expected capex, the rationalisation in Southern Europe and payments into the pension fund. Therefore the re-rating of the stock is far more apparent in cashflow yield terms."

UBS has downgraded its rating for contract caterer Compass Group from 'buy' to 'neutral', but has raised its forecasts for the company after accounting for foreign exchange changes. Due to the strength of the US dollar and euro, the broker has upgraded next year's forecasts (year ending September 2014) for earnings per share (EPS) by around 2.0%. "This change is entirely currency translation related but we would note that Q1 organic sales growth, at almost 6.0%, was in excess of our FY'13 estimate (4.2%), though this was partly the timing of the ramp up of the Ascension contract [large contract with US healthcare group]," said analyst Jonathan Leinster. The target price for the shares has been raised from 770p to 790p.

Meanwhile, Ryan said that "economic torpor" and competitive insurance rates across the globe mean that RSA will struggle to grow its top line. He pointed out that reported premiums were flat last year which is an issue "because operational costs always rise and claims costs often spike". The shares are currently trading at 1.7 times Investec's 2013 tangible net asset value estimate of 75p, which the broker thinks is "too expensive". "RSA is a well-run business, but growth will prove elusive, so we retain our 'sell' recommendation," Ryan concluded.

Investec has kept its 'sell' rating and 101p target price for insurance giant RSA after the company surprised the market with a dividend cut on Wednesday morning. While results were largely in line with market expectations, the company reduced its payout by a third, causing shares to tank early on - by mid-morning, the stock was down as much as 12.81% at 118.85p. Analyst Kevin Ryan from Investec said: "We commented in our sector review of January 7th 2013 that the company was just one catastrophe loss away from being forced to cut the dividend. "Management has clearly decided to re-base the dividend as, on our estimates, it could grow the dividend modestly but had little spare cash to invest in the business. Prudence rather than a large loss seems to have driven the cut."

Basic industrial group Brammer's figures for 2012 suggest that Britain is doing well enough, with sales per working day up 7.6%. Germany and Spain are flat, a good enough performance in the latter given the state of the economy, and Eastern Europe is weak. Profits before tax were 19% higher at £34.5m, helped by the purchase of the Bucks & Hickman business from Travis Perkins in late 2011. The total dividend is up a healthy 12% at 9.4p. The shares, up 7p at 348p, have advanced by 45% since November. They sell on almost 15 times' this year's earnings. The low market share suggests plenty to go for but, as a proxy of European economic trends, they look high enough for now, Tempus believes.

While the latest data showed the European car market continued to suffer in January, the UK-focused dealership Pendragon was reaping the benefits of a stronger market in Britain. Pendragon further signalled confidence with a return to dividend payments, albeit at a low level of 0.1p a share for the final dividend, to be paid following the annual meeting in May. There is every reason to suggest that trend will continue in the near term. UK trade body the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders is forecasting registrations will grow by 0.6% this year to 2.057m vehicles, and by 2.6m to 2.11m vehicles in 2014. Given 2013 got off to a strong start, with registrations up 11.5% in January - traditionally the third strongest month - the forecast for this year could well prove conservative, although it is still early days and the economic backdrop remains weak, The Telegraph's Questor team says.

IHG's figures yesterday nevertheless suggest that the group is moving ahead on all the relevant metrics. Revenues per room were up 5.2 per cent, both the United States and China doing better than the average despite some fourth-quarter underperformance in the latter because of the change of leadership in Beijing and a dispute with Japan. The positive trends continued into January, although there was an extra kick-up in China from the timing of the New Year. Long-term prospects, in terms of the growth of emerging markets, are there. But until financing comes back into the global hotel market, growth in net rooms will be constrained at 2 to 3 per cent a year. On just under 20 times' this year's earnings, the shares look up with events. Hold, says The Times's Tempus.

Since the company decided to sell its estate of hotels to concentrate on managing them InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) has returned 9 billion dollars to shareholders. The idea was that a hotels manager did not actually need to own the property. The above numbers suggest that was right. But the well is about to run dry. IHG has two more properties going through the sale process, on London's Park Lane and in New York, this last delayed when a buyer dropped out.