Member Info for jange

"RGI aims to create not only a modern development for future generations, but also introduce a dramatically different concept of a comfortable and harmonious family environment. In keeping with this aim, the kindergarten is going to overlook the existing woodland that will remain untouched, and will comprise a walking area and shaded alleys for the use of both parents and children," the company said

RGI International, the AIM-listed developer of residential and retail properties in and around Moscow, has been given the go-ahead by the state to construct a kindergarten in the in the Krasnagorsk Region, near Mitino. The 3,690 square metre pre-school building is part of phase one of the residential project Micro city 'V Lesu', "the best product currently on the market," according to RGI's Chief Executive Officer Andrey Nesterenko. "Now that we are able to start construction of the kindergarten we can continue to create a modern European residential complex. We are pleased that when people start to move in to Lesu, they will already be able to send their children to a fully-fledged kindergarten, where children will not only receive education, but also build a community spirit," he said. RGI, which plans to build three kindergartens and two schools on the site of the Micro city, said that it has started the preparation for the construction work and expects to begin building in the fourth quarter of this year. The launch is estimated to be 2014.

Coastal Energy has entered an agreement with the Malaysian government owned company, Petronas, for the production of petroleum from the Kapal, Banang and Meranti cluster of small fields offshore Malaysia. Oil and gas group Coastal (with 100% equity interest) will be the operator of the so-called "KBM cluster" fields. Part of the agreement means Coastal must recruit a Malaysian company to participate in the field at a 30 - 40% equity interest. Coastal will provide the upfront development capital and undertake the drilling while Petronas will remain the owner of the project. Subject to its performance, Coastal will recover its capital and operating expenditures and will be paid a remuneration fee. First oil from the Kapal field is scheduled within one year followed by production from the Banang field a year later.

At the firm's next annual general meeting, it will propose to change its name from PSG Solutions to Security Research Group. "This reflects the fact that the vast majority of the Group's profit is now produced by its specialist electronics subsidiaries. The group said it remains optimistic about its future prospect but says they are "subject to the changing economic circumstances and policy requirements of current and potential customers." "It is anticipated that a further share tender offer will be made to all shareholders during the current financial year," the firm said.

Shares in PSG Solutions rocketed on Friday morning after the group revealed that sales more than tripled in the year to March 31st following the major expansion of its specialist electronics business. PSG provides property information services and packaging solutions but also manufactures Technical Surveillance Countermeasure (TSCM) products which are part of its specialist electronics division. Turnover totalled £37.3m, up from £10.7m the year before, helped by specialist electronics which saw revenue surge from £4.1m to £31.3m. In May and August 2011, the Ministry of Defence (MOD) awarded the firm ia £50m contract to manufacture and supply C-IED (Counter Improvised Explosive Device) equipment to the UK Armed Forces. Group pre-tax profit increased from £1.1m to £7.9m. Excluding exceptional items, pre-tax profit rose from £1.1m to £12.1

All very sad....had such great hopes........no big contracts have come to fruit...............

Ian Cheshire, Chief Executive Officer of do-it-yourself retailer Kingfisher, has sold 994,482 shares in the company after earning them through the Performance Share Plan and the Kingfisher Incentive Share Scheme. Cheshire earned himself £2.87m after selling the shares for 288.42p each. He now has just under 1.13m shares in the company. He sold the shares to meet his tax liabilities following the exercise of the shares and to diversify personal finances. At the end of May the company posted a 3.6% decline, or 1.3% on a constant currency (CC) basis, in total sales for the 13 weeks to April 28th from a year earlier at £2,632m, as poor weather across Europe affected footfall. Like-for-like (LFL) sales were down 4.8% on a CC basis. The share price is up six per cent over the past year, and four per cent in the past month.

The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of FTSE 250 electronics and maintenance products distributor Electrocomponents has, alongside the group's Finance Director, sold off a number of shares awarded under the company's deferred bonus plan. CEO Ian Mason earned himself £100,554 after selling 48,460 at 207.50p each, while Finance Director Simon Boddie ditched 32,307 for 207.50p each, pocketing a total of £67,037. Under the plan Mason was awarded 93,005 shares and Boddie was given 62,003, all of which full vested on Monday. The company's shares are currently trading down 22%, equal to 61.30p, compared to a year ago, although they have risen 9.0%,, or 17.80p in the last month. At the end of May the company reported in its final results that the current financial year did not get off to a particularly good start, with the International business declining 2.0%, although the UK grew by 4.0%.

UBS has reduced its target price for Spanish oil firm Repsol from 18 euros to 16 euros, but has maintained its 'buy' rating on the stock, saying that whilst there is a 'winding path ahead', there still is 'worthwhile upside'. The broker said that it is not easy to invest in Repsol considering Spain's financial crisis, the Argentinian nationalisation of YPF, the potential destabilisation of its shareholder base and expected dilution. Nevertheless, UBS says that Repsol has an "attractive, high growth and self-funding portfolio". One of the negative factors, the dilution effect, appears to be well compensated with debt reduction, the broker said. The dividend should be sufficient to meet Sacyr's obligations and Caixabank is unlikely to crystallise capital losses. "We think realisation of the upside will require some normalisation of Spanish sovereign risk and piece-by-piece execution of the debt reduction le

Distribution and outsourcing firm Bunzl has acquired MMH Holding, which trades under the name Distrimondo, the Swiss group involved in the distribution of food-service disposables and cleaning and hygiene products. Distrimondo will be acquired from Markus Meier, Daniel Meier and Reto Hofmann for an undisclosed sum. The business, based near Zurich, generated revenues of 17.3m Swiss francs in 2011 and the gross assets acquired were valued at 16m francs by the end of that year. "The acquisition of Distrimondo extends our operations in Switzerland which is a key market that we entered in 2010 with the purchase of Weita," said Chief Executive Michael Roney. "The business has a strong customer base and a leading position in the sectors in which it competes. We are pleased to welcome their employees to Bunzl."

Dunelm, which opened a new superstore at Greenford in the quarter, now operates 115 superstores. The pipeline for new superstores remains strong, with a total of ten stores contractually committed, including its store in Cambridge. The group had net cleared funds of £60m at 30 June 2012 compared to £31.6m a year earlier. Chief Executive Nick Wharton commented: "The final quarter has seen further strong progress throughout the business, with robust like-for-like sales trends." "Looking ahead, we anticipate that consumer spending will remain under pressure. Nevertheless, with ten further store openings committed, a strengthening multi-channel offering and with our unique proposition resonating with a wide range of customers, we remain confident in the future growth prospects for the business."

Homewares retailer Dunelm said total revenue increased 21.2 per cent in the fourth quarter of the group's fiscal year, boosted by the unusually wet weather but cautioned that it expects consumer spending to remain under pressure. Like-for-like sales grew 10.4% in the final quarter compared to 1.9% growth the same time a year earlier as consumers took to the shops to avoid the dreary weather conditions. The group said it enjoyed strong footfall into stores and estimates that the net benefit to total revenues from the weather conditions was around £8m during the period. The board now expects that pre-tax profit for the year will be around £96m, ahead of current consensus expectations. "We estimate that approximately £2.5m of this outperformance is attributable to the exceptional weather benefit over the second half of the financial year," it said in a statement. Gross margin is expected to increase by approximately 20-30 basis points for the full financial year.

Gearing is at 40% and since the year end a £510m debt facility has been secured at an average interest rate of 4%. Martin Scicluna, Chairman of Great Portland Estates, isn't afraid to blow the firm's trumpet, in his speech to the AGM today he will say: "With our developments attracting healthy tenant interest and delivering material surpluses, combined with our conservative gearing and plentiful, low-cost firepower [...] we look to the future with confidence."

Ahead of its annual general meeting today, Great Portland Estates has revealed its net asset value per share and portfolio valuation are on the up. The firm focuses on central London properties, 80% of which are in the "under-supplied" West End market. For the 12 months to March 31st, net assets per share increased by 11.9% and the property portfolio delivered like-for-like valuation growth of 9.2%, outperforming its central London benchmark index (known as IPD) which increased by 7.5%. The firm secured £25m of annual rent during the year at levels it says are "well ahead" of the estimated rental value. Great Portland's development programme has seen four schemes complete since March, delivering a 31% profit on cost. The group also has five committed developments on site which it expects to deliver a 38% profit on cost and which have already been "significantly" de-risked through pre-lettings.

Engineering support services group Babcock said the new financial year had started well and it was confident of meeting expectations. The company said the economic environment was playing into its hands as customers sought to outsource more of their technical, engineering and training support needs. Bidding activity across the group had remained strong, the firm said, and as a result its bid pipeline had increased to £13bn from £9.5bn in May. This had been driven mainly by new bidding activities within its support services division, Babcock said. The firm added that its order book was stable at around £13bn. "This provides us with excellent visibility of future revenues, with around 80% of the group's anticipated revenue for the 2012/13 financial year currently contracted," the company said. "This reinforces the board's confidence of meeting its expectations for this financial year and delivering strong progress on last year," it added.

Electronics components supplier Premier Farnell has completed the acquisition of Shenzhen Embest Technology, a Chinese provider of embedded system development boards and tools, as well as design engineering services. Financial terms of the acquisition were not divulged but Premier Farnell did reveal that Embest has gross assets of around £0.5m. Embest will report through element14, Premier Farnell's operating business in Asia Pacific, while providing solutions to customers across the world.

Rain, rain, go away' should be the mantra for landscaping products firm Marshalls, which issues a pre-close trading update on Friday. In its interim management statement in May the firm grumbled about the rainfall in April being an important factor in sales being down that month by £5m on April 2011, so the wettest June in living memory in the UK will not have pleased management. "Construction markets remain subdued with growth only really visible in larger infrastructure schemes where Marshalls is less well exposed. So, it is unlikely that we'll see any market-led improvements," suggests Peel Hunt. "Marshalls remains very active, however, on self-help measures to underpin the revenue while markets are tough. Ultimate recovery in markets and growth from self-help feeding through to high marginal profitability remains the key attraction," the broker added.

Positive Points: GKN’s Volvo Aerospace acquisition will help the engineering group to benefit from global growth in airlines’ aircraft orders, boosting its exposure in civil aerospace. The group's Driveline unit, which makes products such as driveshafts, chassis and axles reported underlying sales growth during April and May of 10%, with year to date margins running at similar levels to 2011. Within Aerospace, underlying sales grew 9%, ahead of expectations due to a variation in delivery schedules. GKN Land Systems saw sales increase 16%, although the company said the rate of growth is slowing reflecting weaker European industrial markets. The diverse engineering group has operations in more than 25 countries, has around 45,000 employees in subsidiaries and joint ventures and sales of £6.1 billion as at 31 December 2011.

Negative Points: GKN faces risks from volatility in vehicle production, continuing pricing pressure from car assemblers and warranty claims. As at 31 March, net debt rose to £625 million (31 December 2011: £538 million), reflecting last year's acquisitions and the expected seasonal increase in working capital requirements. The multinational company is exposed to currency exchange rates and raw material prices.

Financial Highlights: GKN advised that its performance in April and May had continued in line with the first quarter with group sales for the five months to 31 May 2012 increasing 17%, with underlying sales up 9%. Net debt at 31 March 2012 stood at £625 million (31 December 2011: £538 million), reflecting higher capital expenditure to support growth in the business, added management. The Board anticipates increasing the interim dividend by 20% to 2.4 pence per share, when half year results are announced on 31 July.