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The relative performance of specialist investment management company Polar Capital Technology Trust fell slightly short of the benchmark with the net asset value per share falling 5.6 per cent in the six months to October 31st 2012. In the FTSE 250-listed company's half yearly results, published on Monday morning, a number of factors were outlined as underlying reasons for the modest shortfall. Ben Rogoff, investment manager at Polar Capital Technology Trust, commented: "The performance of small-caps was not the primary cause of this modest shortfall as they fell broadly in-line with large-caps over the period, as measured by the Russell 1000 and 2000 technology indices respectively. Instead, the portfolio was negatively impacted by its underweight position in Apple -which outperformed during the period-, poor returns from communication stocks due to continued weakness in service provider capital spending while semiconductor stocks bore the brunt of weaker economic trends and a contracting PC market."

An aggressive trenching and drilling programme is being designed for 2013 in order to upgrade the resource potential of Chaynoye for future exploitation via the Company's operations at Mnogovershinnoye. Highland Gold Mining was incorporated in Jersey in May 2002 for the purpose of acquiring, consolidating and developing a portfolio of gold mining projects in the Russian Federation and Central Asia. The company has a market capitalisation of £273.17m

AIM-listed mining company Highland Gold Mining has acquired a license for exploration and mining rights for the Western Flank, a property located adjacent to the company's existing Mnogovershinnoye mine operations in Russia. The acquisition resulted from an open auction held on December 6th in the regional capital of Khabarovsk for a bid price of 8,690m roubles (approximately $280,322). The new license area includes the Chaynoye zone which the company believes has good potential to deliver new resources at Mnogovershinnoye. The Chaynoye prospect is approximately 1,000 metres in length and varies from 40 to 150 metres in width. It is situated near the intersection of two major faults immediately northwest and adjacent to the current Mnogovershinnoye license area. Chaynoye was partially explored in the past and has a historical reported prognostic resource of 3.5 tonnes (112,500 oz) of gold. Gold mineralisation is hosted within zones of quartz and quartz-carbonate veins and veinlets as well as within areas of quartz-sericite altered and silicified volcanic rock. Explored vein widths range between 0.3 to 3.0 metres for up to 115 metres along strike and reported historic gold grades as high as 207 g/t.

Ken McMeikan, the Chief Executive Officer of bakery and hot snacks retailer Greggs is to leave the company for catering firm Brakes Group. McMeikan has been at the head of the company since the summer of 2008, having previously worked at supermarket giant Sainsbury as its Retail Director and Tesco as the CEO of its Japanese division. He said: "It has been a great honour to lead Greggs since 2008. It is a wonderful company with fantastic people and I am enormously proud of all that we have achieved together. "There are many exciting growth opportunities ahead for the business and the team are well placed to deliver them." McMeikan will stay on as Greggs' frontman until a new CEO can be found, the company said. At which point, he will move over to head Brakes Group, the supplier to the food service sector in the UK, Ireland, France and Sweden. Derek Netherton, Chairman of Greggs, said: "We are very grateful to Ken for the valuable contribution he has made to Greggs. "He has led the company through the major changes that have put us in a strong position for the future with a clear strategy for growth in a difficult environment. We wish Ken well in his new role."

Oil and gas group Salamander Energy has announced that it has started drilling at its Bontang project in the North Kutei basin in Indonesia. The company has spud its South Kecapi-1 DIR and DIRA exploration wells in the wholly owned and operated project in East Kalimantan. South Kecapi-1 DIR will be drilled to a depth of around 2,450m total vertical depth sub sea and, once completed, will be sidetracked around 1.5km to the west with the DIRA well being drilled to a depth of around 2,100m TVDSS. Salamander said that the wells are targeting gas and oil pay in a series of stacked Pliocene-Upper Miocene sandstone reservoirs. "The combined mean pre-drill estimate of prospective recoverable resources is approximately 275 Bcf and 20 MMbo," the company said in a statement.

Iberia, the Spanish airline operating under International Consolidated Airlines Group (otherwise known as IAG), will resume talks with its labour unions on Monday under request by the Service for Interconfederal Mediation and Arbitrage (SIMA). A meeting held last Friday ended with the announcement that six days of labour strikes will be upheld as a protest to the airline's restructuring plan that includes 4,500 job cuts. Iberia hopes the strike will be called off. Nonetheless, the company said it will not allow arm-twisting by what it defined as an "unnecessary and disproportionate" strike, Spanish daily El Pais reports.

Bankia announced that it plans to take a 900m-euro charge this year in order to eventually compensate British insurance group Aviva for damages after breaking the conditions established in their alliance in the insurance business. Spanish daily El Economista reports that the British company demanded a payment of €934.6m and took Bankia to arbitrage court at the Commerce Chamber of Madrid for breaking the alliance that Bancaja signed in 2000 to distribute Aviva's insurance products. Bancaja is one of the saving banks that merged to form Bankia. The merger created a conflict because three other savings banks that make up Bankia also had exclusive distribution contracts with rival insurers. Aviva wants Bankia to buy a 50% stake of their Aseval joint venture. In recent months, however, both parties have reached common grounds in order to avoid anything from being decided by an arbitrator. A resolution was expected by the end of this year although it can be delayed if both parties maintain talks for an agreement. The nationalised Spanish bank opened Monday's trading session with the largest loss on Madrid's Ibex35, down as much as 5% before trimming the loss down to 2.22%.

TV decoder maker Pace has made an indicative proposal to Google for the acquisition of its Motorola Home business and suspended its ordinary shares. In a statement issued by Pace, the company said that discussions with Google were at a preliminary stage and there was no certainty as to whether any agreement regarding any transaction would be reached. The company further confirmed that the potential acquisition of Google's Motorola Home business would be classified as a "reverse takeover" under the UK Listing Rules given its size relative to Pace. As a result, the ordinary shares of Pace were suspended from trading as of Monday afternoon. Pace stated that the shares would recommence trading either on sufficient information of any potential transaction being provided publicly to shareholders or on the release of an announcement confirming that Pace is no longer in discussions with Google regarding the potential acquisition of the Motorola Home business. Pace confirmed that it continued to deliver on its strategic plan as outlined in November 2011. In its third quarter trading update released on November 14th, the company outlined that it was expecting final year 2012 revenues to be flat on final year 2011 with 2% underlying growth before the impact of HDD [High Definition displays] supply disruption) with increased operating margins of greater than 7%. Pace's share price was down 3.39% to 185p before suspension on Monday.

A third-quarter trading update from Costa and Premier Inn owner Whitbread is due on Tuesday morning, with the company expected to reveal the extent of the slowdown in like-for-like (LFL) sales growth that it guided to in October. At the company's interim results on October 23rd, in which it reported a 4.3% increase in LFL group sales, Whitbread said that post-Olympics, the London hotel market is "settling" and consumer markets remain "broadly flat". Chief Executive Andy Harrison said: "Against this background we expect to continue to outperform our competitors and LFL sales growth to be more moderate than the high levels achieved in the first half." Panmure Gordon expects LFL sales at Premier Inn and Restaurants to be up around 2%, while the broker predicts that Costa may have received a boost in recent weeks from customers boycotting rival Starbucks. However, in a research report last week, Panmure said: "We remain cautious on current trading and the increasingly competitive environment in budget hotels and hence reiterate our 'hold' recommendation."

The head of British Airways has accused the Government of failing with its economic strategy and being "fixated" with immigration. In a gloomy verdict on last week's Autumn Statement, which extended austerity until 2018, Willie Walsh complained that the coalition Government had no growth strategy. The chief executive of BA's parent, International Airlines Group, suggested that if the Chancellor were running a business, it would be destined for deep losses. "When I look at what I've done to restructure my business, I've been very clear - you can't downsize a business to profitability," he said. "You can downsize to minimise losses, but you've got to pursue growth." [The Times]

Standard Chartered (SCB) announced late on Monday afternoon that it had reached a final settlement with the main US state and federal financial oversight agencies regarding allegations of 'money laundering.' The above after the bank voluntarily reported its findings concerning past sanctions compliance to the Office of Foreign Assets Control ("OFAC"), the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the Department of Justice and the New York County District Attorney's Office regarding historical sanctions compliance and US dollar payment practices primarily between 2001 and 2007. Under the terms of the agreement no further action will be taken against Standard Chartered by these authorities if it meets the conditions set out in the agreements. Among the conditions is payment of a cash amount of $327m, which will be paid in the second half of 2012. OFAC found that "while SCB's omission of information affected approximately 60,000 payments related to Iran totalling $250bn, the vast majority of those transactions did not appear to have been violations of the Iranian Transactions Regulations". In fact, approximately only $24m of transactions processed on behalf of Iranian parties and a total of $109m on behalf other sanctioned entities from other countries (Burma, Sudan and Libya) appeared to be in violation of sanctions laws.

Allergy Therapeutics (AGY) Director name: Mr Ian D Postlewaite Amount sold: 140,000 @ 12.50p Value: £17,500

Top Director Sells Judges Scientific (JDG) Director name: Mr David Barnbrook Amount sold: 3,000 @ 975.00p Value: £29,250

Global Energy Development (GED) Director name: Mr David P Quint Amount purchased: 13,110 @ 110.00p Value: £14,421

Falkland Islands Holdings (FKL) Director name: Mr John Laurence Foster Amount purchased: 5,000 @ 325.00p Value: £16,250

Chamberlin (CMH) Director name: Mr Keith Butler-Wheelhouse Amount purchased: 14,500 @ 168.50p Value: £24,432

Assura Group Ltd. (AGR) Director name: Mr David H Richardson Amount purchased: 85,811 @ 34.90p Value: £29,948

Access Intelligence (ACC) Director name: Ms Marguarite Joanna Arnold Amount purchased: 875,000 @ 4.00p Value: £35,000

Top Director Buys Chamberlin (CMH) Director name: Mr Keith Butler-Wheelhouse Amount purchased: 30,000 @ 168.51p Value: £50,553

Castings and engineering group Chamberlin announced on Monday that its Chairman has topped up his stake in the company twice over the couple of weeks. Keith Butler-Wheelhouse acquired a total of 44,500 Chamberlin ordinary shares through his family trust, BW Family Limited (BWFL), representing 0.56% of the total voting rights of the company. The two transactions cost the trust nearly £75,000. BWFL bought 30,000 shares on November 19th at a price of 168.5083p each for £50,5533, then on November 29th the trust purchased a further 14,500 shares at 168.5p a pop for £24,432. The transactions take Butler-Wheelhouse's total interest in Chamberlin to 0.74% of the total voting rights of the company. Two days before the latter purchase, Chamberlin reported its interim results, in which it revealed an 11% increase in underlying operating profit to £0.93m.