Member Info for jange

Company overview Prudential PLC is a major financial services company. The company has over 21 million customers worldwide. As well as the UK arm of its operations it has operations in 12 countries. The Company has four business units. Prudential UK, M&G, Prudential Corporation Asia and Jackson National Life in the United States. It has been in existence for over 160 years and has £363 billion in assets under management (as at 30 June 2012). It is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index.

Persimmon: Deutsche Bank raises target price from 710p to 801p, hold recommendation kept.

Moneysupermarket: Investec raises target price from 130p to 140p, hold recommendation maintained.

Lonrho: Panmure Gordon maintains a target price of 11p and downgrades from buy to hold.

Inmarsat: Jefferies cuts target price from 660p to 655p and reiterates buy recommendation.

Goldenport : Panmure Gordon cuts target price from 50p to 40p keeping hold recommendation.

Fidessa: Jefferies raises target price from 1275p to 1510p and upgrades from hold to buy.

Darty: Panmure Gordon reduces target price from 50p to 40p and reiterates sell recommendation. Seymour Pierce reduces target price from 55p to 50p, hold recommendation reiterated.

Daily Mail and General Trust: Deutsche Bank upgrades to hold, target price kept at 445p.

CRH: UBS raises target price from 1110p to 1140p, neutral rating unchanged.

Chemring: Credit Suisse reduces target price from 330p to 210p, neutral rating kept.

Anglo American: Deutsche Bank reduces target price from 2700p to 2600p, buy recommendation unchanged.

"With this negative short-term impact, and the ongoing weakness in certain major European markets, we anticipate that EBITDA for the last three months of the year will be below 2011," CRH said. What's more, the group is facing tough comparatives: mild weather in November/December 2011 in both Europe and the US contributed to a strong fourth-quarter EBITDA outcome last year. Full-year EBITDA this year is expected to come in at €1.6bn, below 2011's€1.65bn. The company's guidance in August was for a flat reading year-on-year, with adverse exchange rate movements also having an impact.

Building materials giant CRH has scaled back its earnings forecast this year on the back of ongoing weakness in Europe and Hurricane Sandy disrupting its operations in eastern America. After a flat like-for-like (LFL) sales performance in the first half, with an 8% increase in the Americas being offset by a 5% decline in Europe, CRH experienced "much lower growth in our Americans operations and a higher rate of decline in Europe" in the third quarter. As such, group LFL sales declined by 3% and were down a total 1% for the first nine months of they year. However, overall sales revenue (which includes the net impact of acquisitions, divestments and exchange rate movements) rose 1% in the quarter to €5.3bn, with nine-month revenues up 4% at €13.5bn. Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) was flat in both the third quarter (at €0.65bn) and year-to-date (€1.2bn). Going into the final three months of the year, the company said that while the storms in the US should result in increased demand for reconstruction work next year, they have caused "significant disruption" to its operations over the past two weeks.

Return on capital employed will continue to increase, as it continues its tight control over development costs. The group, which acquired over 5,500 plots since 1 July, including 1,600 plots in the South East, said it expects to hold an increased level of cash at the close of the year compared to £135.2m at the end of June, following strong free cash generated by its operations.

House builder Persimmon said the UK housing market continues to be challenging and mortgage availability remains the key constraint however it is still confident about future growth. "With the adoption of our new Long Term Strategy at the start of the year we remain confident of the future successful growth of Persimmon," the group said in a company statement. The group's weekly private sales rate is around 4% higher on the previous year, but down slightly from 5% as reported in its half year results at the end of August. Visitor levels to its sites have been roughly 6% ahead of last year from the start of the autumn season and cancellation rates continue to run at historically low levels of around 20%. Persimmon also highlighted that the cost of mortgage loans has recently reduced slightly as lenders access the Government's Funding for Lending Scheme. The group re-iterated that it expects the group to return to underlying operating margins within the range of 15% to 17% in the medium term. "We are confident that the second half of 2012 will demonstrate further good progress along that path, building upon the improvement to 12.2% secured in the first six months of the year," it added.

Continuing delays on Anglo American's Minas-Rio iron ore project in Brazil are likely to push up the cost of the project more than the market had been expecting. The group had been facing three licensing challenges affecting construction activities at the beneficiation plant, as well as land access issues affecting the 525 kilometre pipeline route. Two of these injunctions were removed in September, enabling construction of the primary crusher and conveyor system at the mine site and pre-stripping work to resume, but wrangling over the injunction preventing the construction of the electricity transmission line is dragging on. Construction work not covered by the injunctions is on schedule, Anglo American said. The mining group is carrying out a detailed cost review to assess the impact of the already announced delay and the other disruptive challenges faced by the project which include high cost inflation across the construction industry in Brazil. The review includes an independent external assessment commissioned by the board. The current indications are that capital expenditure for the project is likely to be more than the $8.0bn upper end of the current range of analysts' expectations.

The firm also revealed that it has entered into agreement with a group of banks with regards to new group debt facilities of $244m, which represent an increase and reorganisation of its existing debt arrangements, "providing greater assurance and flexibility with regards to the group's project expansion plans." Dippenaar said: "This financing is an important and independent validation by the lenders of the quality of Petra's asset base and our strong management team. "These facilities further strengthen our balance sheet and lend assurance to the company's ability to deliver on its core objective of rolling out its stated expansion plans and ramping up production to five million carats per annum by 2019."

FTSE 250 miner Petra Diamonds recorded a strong rise in revenue in the first quarter of its fiscal year as production surged, while the firm announced that it has signed new debt facilities with a group of banks. Revenue in the quarter between July and September totalled $51.1m, up 188% on the $17.7m recorded the year before. Only one tender was held during this quarter due to the timing of industry holidays, the group said. The second tender of this fiscal year closed in early October and achieved sales of $45.8m. The firm said that overall prices per carat this year continue to be in line with guidance. Production increased by 70% year-on-year to 654.690 carats in the first quarter, mainly due to the inclusion of the Finsch mine for the full quarter, which was acquired last year. Chief Executive Officer Johan Dippenaar said: "This is a further solid set of results, demonstrating that the company continues to deliver on its growth ambitions." Petra said that "challenging labour relations" in the South African mining industry have affected work and caused brief stoppages at some of its operations in the country during October. However, the group assured that the lost production will to some extent be made up during the coming months. As such, there is no material change to its full-year output guidance of 2.85m carats. Petra arranges up new debt agreements

"Workspace has had an active and productive first half of the year reflected by the growth of both our core operational income as well as the capital value of our assets," said Chief Executive Jamie Hopkins. "During the period our marketing efforts have continued to drive occupancy and rent roll and we have pushed forward with various repositioning, refurbishment and redevelopment initiatives."