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Unite Group, the UK's largest developer and manager of student accommodation, has announced an extension of its existing joint (JV) with GIC Real Estate, the real estate arm of the government of Singapore Investment Corp. as well as the creation of a new partnership through which Unite will undertake its next phase of London development activity. The life of the JV will be extended until September 2022 from its original maturity date of March 2013, and Unite will be able to increase its stake in the JV from 30% to 50% by the 2016 year-end. Approximately £100m of the JV's existing assets, equivalent to around 25% of its total portfolio at June 30th 2012, will be sold over the next four years. The disposals will be targeted so as to focus it's remaining holdings on its highest quality London locations and the majority of proceeds will then be applied to de-leveraging in the JV. The JV's existing senior debt facility of £236m, provided by a syndicate of lenders headed by HSH Nordbank, matures in September 2014 and will need to be replaced with a new facility. It is UNITE's intention to have the replacement facility arranged and in place during 2013. A separate 50/50 JV between the two organisations will be established with the aim of investing £330m in development activity in London. As part of this, Unite will sell two of its existing London development projects to the new JV for cash consideration in line with previously disclosed valuations on completion. The two JVs can be combined once Unite increases its stake in the original JV to 50%.

While acknowledging that the 22p a share offer represents a premium to the 19.5p at which Timeweave's shares were trading on September 5th, the day before Mayfair's approach became public knowledge, it is still a valuation which only reflects the early stages of implementing Timeweave's stated strategy, according to Parr and Craven. The statement from the independent directors noted that the offer represents no premium whatsoever on the 12-month volume weighted average price of Timeweave prior to September 5th, 2012, and is a discount of around 5.2% to the 24-month volume weighted average price of 23.2 pence per Timeweave share prior to 5th September 2012. Mayfair is an investment vehicle controlled by Joe Lewis, who has a track record with sporting investments as he is the major investor in Tottenham Hotspur football club.

Timeweave, which owns half of racecourse TV Channel TurfTV, has rejected the 22p a share cash offer from major shareholder Mayfair Capital. Graham Parr and David Craven, the independent directors of AIM-listed Timeweave, have concluded that recommending Mayfair's offer would not be in the best interests of shareholders. The shares rose by 0.375p to 22.5p on the bid rejection, 4.75p below its 52-week high. Mayfair, which is controlled by Bahamas-based billionaire Joe Lewis, owns just under 30% of Timeweave. The company has received irrevocable undertakings to accept its offer in respect of another 35.6m shares, representing 15.8% of Timeweave's issued ordinary share capital. The bid terms put a price of around £50m on the AIM-listed tiddler. That valuation is too low in the opinion of Messrs Parr and Craven, as it does not reflect the "full value inherent in Timeweave's investments", which principally comprise a 50% holding in Amalgamated Racing Limited (AMRAC), a 49.99% shareholding in DCD Media and the wholly-owned sports corporate risk business, SportingWins. AMRAC holds exclusive licences with 34 racecourses to broadcast pictures, audio and data from these racecourses to licensed betting offices in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland on its dedicated television channel, TurfTV. DCD Media is an AIM-traded independent TV production, rights and distribution group, and SportingWins covers corporate risk exposure to clients based on sporting events.

First Property Group, a commercial property fund management group, will say at Friday's annual general meeting that trading has continued well and in line with the firm's expectations, despite the difficult economic conditions. It's clients have also performed well, but the weakening euro has resulted in some capital value reductions in sterling terms, leading to a decrease in its overall assets under management (AuM) from £365m at March 31st to around £350m at the mid-September point. However, the group was keen to underline the robustness of the underlying income generation of its client funds. "We are working to grow the business of the company in three main ways," the firm said. "The raising of a new fund to invest in recessionary resilient relatively high yielding UK commercial investment property; the raising of a new fund to invest in debt secured on income producing UK commercial investment property; and expanding assets under management in Fprop Opportunities (FOP). "We are making progress in raising new funds and hope to report further in this respect in due course. We are also working on some attractive property investment opportunities on behalf of FOP and similarly hope to report on these in due course."

Songbird Estates, which through its subsidiary Canary Wharf Group, owns much of the iconic office development in London's east end, has benefited from strong lease renewals in the first half of 2012. Bank of New York Mellon extended terms on its 152,000 square feet site at One Canada Square while a further 20,000 square feet of leasings were completed between January and June. The crucial net asset value per share figure increased by 4.7%, or 9p, to £1.99 between December and June. Underlying profit before tax for the first half was £17.3m compared with £6.6m for the equivalent period in 2011. The increase of £10.7m was mainly attributable to an increase in net property income of £8.3m, combined with a reduction in administrative expenses of £2.5m. The Loan to Value rate is now at 64.6%. Songbird has also lowered the coupon on its preference shares and removed the option of early redemption, the effect being to "eliminate short term refinancing risks

The palm oil and beef producer M.P. Evans has seen profits hit by a reduction in beef prices but the palm oil operation is seeing productivity surge. Evans's livestock division is based in Australia and has been hit a by a fall in prices for beef since the highs of late 2011. The herd at the fattening site in South Queensland known as the Woodlands has been kept at 10,000 and the animals showed weight gains during the first half. But the fall in prices saw the unit lose US$0.57m in the six months to the end of June. The group also owns a share in the huge North Australian Pastoral Company which runs a herd of around 200,000 cattle in the Northern Territory and Queensland. That share produced a post tax loss of US$1.24m in the first half against a $2.88m profit in the prior year. The story at Evans's palm oil sites in Indonesia is quite different, with production of oil-palm "fresh fruit bunches" expected to hit 300,000 at the group's majority owned sites by year's end. Current numbers show the crop is 22% better than the same period of last year. Prices for palm oil have declined 8% compared to the first half of 2011, to $1,096 per tonne which has led to a 31% decline in profits before tax to $15.33m. But the market likes the increased production profile, with the stock up 1% since the half year report was released on Friday morning. Commenting on the results, the chairman of M. P. Evans, Peter Hadsley-Chaplin, said: "Overall, the Group has performed well in the first half of 2012 and it is particularly pleasing to note the increase in palm-oil profits from the majority-held operations...Projected growth in the Group's crops to 300,000 tonnes in 2012 is expected to continue to around 500,000 tonnes in 2015. Although the beef-cattle operations suffered a loss in the first half, the prospects for Australian beef remain favourable."

finnCap is one of those currently reviewing its forecasts, even though it only updated them six weeks ago. "Assuming that margins are maintained, and the costs remain as per our model, then sales of £47.9m would lead to PBT [profit before tax] of £8.3m and adjusted EPS [earnings per share] of 44.0p (22.7p basic)," postulated finnCap's Keith Redpath. "Whilst the current share price places IDS on un-demanding multiples, even with reduced expectations, concerns over IDS's ability to continue to grow iSYS revenues significantly remains. At best the shares are a Hold," Redpath believes. House broker Peel Hunt has gone ahead and chopped its earnings forecasts. It now predicts profit before tax of £9.4m for the current financial year, down from its previous forecast of £13.5m. The EPS forecast is chopped to 23.5p from 33.6p. "On the bright side placements of ISYS are tracking ahead of our expectations and remain the key driver of strategic value," said Peel Hunt, which has retained its "buy" recommendation despite chopping its price target from 450p to 375p.

IDS-iSYS revenues grew strongly by 15% over the prior period whereas manual revenues declined, as expected, by 19%, reflecting the continuing competitive environment of this market place and the transition of certain laboratories from manual to automated testing. A total of 32 IDS-iSYS instruments have been sold or placed to reagent rental IDS end user customers during the period, net of returns, representing an increase of 18% over the installed base as at 31 March 2012. Panmure Gordon reacted to the trading update by downgrading its full-year sales forecast by some 7%, and next year's forecast by 9%. As a result of this, the broker's price target for the stock has been chopped to 350p from 400p, although the "buy" recommendation is retained, "as we continue to see value in the platform". "Looking at valuation (1.2x Revenues & 6.1x PE [price/earnings]), it is obvious to us that perhaps further market downgrades to forecasts will materialise in coming months," the broker said. "The business remains in choppy waters, with the well-known entrance this year of a number of larger competitors in IDS's relatively small market. The macro environment, particularly in Europe, is not helping either," Panmure Gordon continued. "Despite the challenges, we believe there are still significant niches in the market (smaller laboratories that cannot afford the larger fully integrated machines which Roche, Abbott and Siemens sell, hospital labs or teaching hospitals that require better precision etc) which the company can target to boost its recovery. Overall we have been comforted from what we heard in our meeting that Patrik Dahlen and his vision seems sensible to us," Neophytou concluded.

Immunodiagnostic Systems (IDS), a producer of manual and automated specialist diagnostic testing kits, reported a decline in unaudited revenues for the five months ended August 31st. Turnover was down to £19.9m from £22.7m in the same period the previous year, partly the result of an adverse £0.5m impact of exchange rate differences between the two periods. It expects the impact of exchange rates compared to the prior year to continue to have an adverse effect on full year revenues, but the impact on earnings is expected to be mitigated to some extent as the cost base of the group's foreign currency denominated operations will generate a favourable variance. The five month period in 2011 included a £0.4m one off licence fee and no such fees were generated in the comparable period to August 31st 2012. On a like-for-like basis revenues fell by 9% compared to the same period the previous year. Broker Panmure Gordon said the 12% revenue decline was worse than expected. "Although automated revenues grew 15%, this was considerably lower than our expectation of [greater than] 30% growth," Panmure analyst Savvas Neophytou said. "On outlook the company guided to FY2013 [fiscal 2013] revenues of £48-50m, which is below our forecast of £55m," the broker added. More positively, the recent launches of 1,25 Dihydroxy vitamin D, renin and aldosterone automated assays have been well received in the market, despite these occurring later than planned.

Paul Wilkinson, a Senior Independent Director of chocolate maker Thorntons, has put his money where his mouth is after the firm said full-year profit before tax and exceptional items fell sharply in the face of continued tough trading conditions. Wilkinson, who was this week unveiled as the company's new chairman, purchased 665,503 shares at 29.748p each on Thursday, costing him a total of £197,987. He will take up his new role when current chairman, John von Spreckelsen, retires on February 1st next year. The company posted a decline in adjusted pre-tax profit to £0.9m for the 53 weeks ended June 30 2012 from £4.3m the same time a year earlier. Pre-tax losses widened to £2.21m during the period compared to £1.071m in 2011. Revenues slipped to £217.1m from £218.3m previously. As a result of the poor results, Thorntons opted to cancel its final dividend payment, having paid a 2.20p payment in 2011.

The wait is over for InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) shareholders waiting for details of the hotels group's special dividend, with the group announcing it will be paying out 108.4p per share. The Holiday Inns group announced on August 7th that it planned to return $0.5bn of funds to shareholders via a special dividend tied to a share consolidation, plus another $0.5bn through a share buy-back programme, and it has now made good on that pledge. The board is proposing to pay the special dividend to shareholders on the register as at 6.00pm on Monday, 8th October 2012 in sterling and $1.72 per ADR to ADR holders on the ADR register as at 4.00pm (New York time) on Monday, 8th October 2012. The share consolidation will replace every 15 existing ordinary shares with 14 new ordinary shares.

Net cash at the end of August 2012 was £2m. Net cash and cash equivalents at the end of April stood at £19.6m; the group noted that £17.8m has been spent on the acquisitions of Graph-Tech and PostJet since the end of April. "Looking further ahead, we see good opportunities for growth of the business in the medium term, assisted by legislation and our strategic initiatives, and will continue to invest so as to position the group to address them," the company said.

Industrial coding, printing and marking technology firm Domino Printing is sticking with its forecast that full-year sales will be at a similar level to last year. Sales in the ten months to the end of August were 1% ahead of the equivalent period last year at constant exchange rates. Movements in average rates over the period result have not been favourable, however, and more or less wiped out that gain. Equipment revenues were 2% down year-on-year with average selling prices broadly stable. Fluids and other consumable revenues were 5% ahead of the prior year, in line with year-on-year growth of Domino's installed base of printers. Spares and services revenues were marginally ahead of the prior year after adjusting for the disposal of the non-coding element of the solid state laser business of Photon Energy made last year. The above performance has been achieved in an environment where customers in some mature markets have been putting off decisions on upgrading equipment, while even in developing markets the appetite for investing in new kit is not as sharp as it has been. "Confidence levels among manufacturers in China continue to fall and expansion plans in many customers have been put on hold. Our businesses in India and North America continue to report good growth," the company reported.

Defence contractor Chemring has pushed back the deadline for The Carlyle Group to make an offer, after not receiving word the US asset management group. Carlyle previously had until 17:00 today (September 14th) to announce a firm intention to make an offer in accordance with rules of the Takeover Code. This deadline has now been extended until 17:00 on October 12th "to enable the parties to continue their on-going discussions regarding a possible offer for the company." As always in these situations, Chemring said that there can be no certainty that an offer will be made at the end of this period. Chemring, which makes energetic material products and 'countermeasures' for the defence, security and safety markets, announced on August 17th that it had received a "highly preliminary expression of interest" from Carlyle in relation to a possible offer. Analysts at Credit Suisse said at the time: "Given Carlyle's historic experience with UK defence companies, including QinetiQ (which in our view has a considerably higher level of security IP than Chemring), we believe the bid is credible." Following a big spike in the shares after the announcement to over 400p, they have come back down in recent weeks, particularly after Chemring revealed a profit warning on August 28th. The company said that a computer glitch and production delays were likely to have a £15m adverse impact on its bottom line.

As at 29th July 2012, the company's total net debt, including bank borrowings and finance leases, but excluding derivatives, was £462.6m, up from £437.7m a year earlier. The group spent £75.4m in the fiscal year just ended opening 40 new pubs, and ploughed £45.2m into sprucing up its existing pubs estate. Year-end net-debt-to-EBITDA (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation) was 2.96 times, an improvement on the 2.98:1 ratio a year earlier. Martin expects that taxation and input costs will continue to rise. "Overall therefore, the company is aiming for a reasonable outcome, in the current financial year," he concluded

The market had pencilled in £1.23bn for sales and pre-tax profit of £71.2m. Earnings per share were tipped to advance to 41.6p while the dividend was seen climbing to 12.95p. No one ever says "Let's spend a night down the supermarket" As is well-known, there are only two certainties in life: death and taxes, but almost as certain is a complaint in a Wetherspoon trading statement about the government's tax treatment of pubs in comparison with supermarkets. "As previously indicated, the biggest dangers to the pub industry, are the VAT disparity between supermarkets and pubs, combined with the continuing imposition of stealth taxes, such as the late-night levy and the increase in fruit/slot machine taxes," grumbled Tim Martin, sounding like a broken record. "The pub trade has lost 50% of its beer sales, for example, in the last 30 years, to supermarkets. We believe that supermarkets have been increasingly able to undercut pubs' prices, as a result of the tax disparity between these types of business. In particular, pubs pay 20% VAT in respect of food sales, while supermarkets pay virtually nothing. This enables supermarkets to cross-subsidise their alcoholic drinks' prices, resulting in large numbers of pub closures and also applying enormous pressure to those pubs which remain open," Martin added. The company pays over £11 of tax for every £1 of net profit, it noted, pointedly. "Unless there is tax equality, pubs will continue to lose trade to supermarkets - and this will be detrimental to the government, since pubs pay far more tax per meal or per pint, and employ more people, than do supermarkets," Martin noted. Despite the tax man's demands, the company still intends to open around 25 pubs in the current financial year.

Like-for-like bar sales increased by 2.8% (2011: +1.7%), LFL food sales increased by 4.8% (2011: +4.2%) and machine sales decreased by 2.8% (2011: -3.9%). Full-year revenue was up 11.7% to £1,197.1m from £1,072.0m the year before. Sales would have been up 9.3% even without the extra week and were up 3.2% on a like-for-like basis. Profit before tax and exceptional items rose 8.4% (+5.8% stripping out the extra week) to £72.4m from £66.8m in the previous year. Statutory profit before tax dipped 4.1% to £58.9m from £61.4m. Exceptional items before tax totalled £13.5m, versus exceptional charges of £5.4m the year before. Most of the exceptional charges this time round were paper adjustments, with just £0.6m being a cash charge. The exceptional items relate to the impairment of trading pub assets of £7.8m (2011: £4.4m), a provision for onerous leases of £2.2m, an information technology (IT) related asset write-off of £1.7m, a loss on the disposal of property, plant and equipment of £1.1m and restructuring costs of £0.6m. Adjusted earnings per share rose 17.0% (52 weeks basis: +14.4%) to 41.3p from 35.3p a year earlier. The full-year dividend has been held at 12p, which means a final dividend for the period of 8p. The market had pencilled in £1.23bn for sales and pre-tax profit of £71.2m. Earnings per share were tipped to advance to 41.6p while the dividend was seen climbing to 12.95p.

Helped by a summer of special events and the fact that it is going up against soft comparatives, pubs group JD Wetherspoon has made a flying start to its new financial year, but conceded it won't be able to keep up the record pace. In the first six weeks of the financial year just ended, like-for-like (LFL) sales were up just 0.4% year-on-year, whereas this time round in the six weeks to 9th September 2012, like-for-like sales increased by a far more eye-catching 8.4%, with total sales increasing by 12.8%, helped by a strong performance during the Olympic and Paralympic Games. "Sales this summer have been enhanced by a number of one-off events and we do not expect to sustain this level of growth," cautioned Tim Martin, the founder and Chairman of Wetherspoon. Broken records Looking back on the financial year to July 29th, 2012, comparisons are complicated by the fact that it is a 53-week year versus a 52-week period the year before, but that did not stop the group boasting of record sales, profit and earnings per share (EPS) before exceptional items.

Ahead of Imperial Toabcco's pre-close trading update next Friday, Panmure Gordon has reiterated its 'buy' recommendation and 2,900p target price for the cigarette and tobacco giant. Panmure expects to see a 2% decline in stick equivalent volumes for the full year, slightly improved from the 3% fall in the nine months to the end of June due to the strong growth in its Rest of World division. Full-year tobacco revenues are forecast to rise 3.5% at a constant currency basis, better than the 3% increase at the nine-month mark. The shares - down 8% since early August - have been hampered by the negative news flow about potential increased regulation in markets such as France and Russia. While this is expected to remain a near-term headwind, Panmure expects it to be offset by "evidence that its organic growth strategy is delivering and confirmation of continued strong cash generation." The broker says that the current 20% discount to the peer group (price-to-earnings ratio basis) is too great: "We continue to regard this discount as too large given its attractive cash generation (free cash flow yield is 8% in FY 2012E) and believe the discount should narrow on evidence that Imperial's organic growth strategy is delivering results."

Clyde farm, the wind farm owned by SSE, is now officially open after Scotland's First Minister, Alex Salmond, cut the ceremonial ribbon. It is one of the largest single consented wind farms in Europe and is SSE's largest onshore wind project. The 152 turbines at Clyde wind farm are split into three sections with a total installed capacity of 350 megawatts, capable of producing enough energy during a year to meet the needs of around 280,000 homes. The project is situated between Biggar and Moffat occupying around 47 square kilometres. "Scotland has astounding green energy potential and vast natural resources. Harnessing this through renewable energy offers the prospect of tens of thousands of new jobs and billions of pounds of investment in our economy - nothing less than the reindustrialisation of Scotland," Salmond said. "Quite apart from the jobs and economic benefit being created through SSE's 350 megawatt wind farm, almost £22m will be ploughed into communities across South Lanarkshire, the Borders and Dumfries and Galloway over the next 25 years from their profits," Salmond said.