Member Info for jange

Jet2.com and Jet2Holidays owner Dart Group lifted full year revenue and pre-tax profit as passengers at its package holiday business more than doubled in the period. Jet2holidays is set for further growth in the current year, with forward bookings at encouraging levels. We have expanded Jet2.com's flying programme by 10% for summer 2012, although margins remain challenging in this sector," said chairman Philip Meeson. Group turnover for the year ended 31 March 2012 grew by 26% to £683m and pre-tax profit rose to £28.1m from £26.2m before. Earnings per share increased 31% to 16.01p.

Meanwhile, underlying pre-tax profit improved by 3.5% from £11.7m to £12.1m, up 5.7% on a LFL basis. Reported pre-tax profit jumped 25.3% from £7.5m to £9.4m. The total dividend per share was increased by 16.7% year-on-year to 0.42p. The first two months of the current year have been in line with the group's expectations, though Triton Shower has been weak. "The strength of our brands, our market positions, our customer relationships and the encouraging operational improvements in the latter part of the year in both the South African and UK tiles businesses gives the Board confidence that unless markets deteriorate further, our businesses will continue to make progress in the coming year," said Chairman John Brown.

Norcros, the supplier of branded showers, tiles and adhesives focused in the UK and South Africa, rose strongly on Thursday after its full-year results came bang in-line with earlier guidance, with underlying growth in revenues and profits robust despite 'difficult' markets. Revenue in the 52 weeks to March 31st increased by 2.1% to £200.3m from £196.1m in the previous year (which consisted of 53 weeks). When adjusted for currency movements and period duration, like-for-like (LFL) sales increased by 5.6%. In the UK, the company saw strong sales growth in Johnson Tiles and Norcros Adhesives, which offset a slight decline in Triton Showers given challenging Christmas sales and revenue from exports to Ireland. Tiles and Adhesives sales growth in South Africa was stron

Pinewood Shepperton, the famous British film studio, is holding a general meeting on Friday so shareholders can vote on the company's decision to save a few bob my moving from the main market to its junior partner, AIM. The company intends by 31st March 2013 to increase the free float - the quantity of shares not held by committed long term stakeholders - by another 10% or so of the company's issued share capital following its move to AIM, whether by way of further issues of shares or by way of existing shareholders selling part of their holdings in the company.

opened up at 0.73 this morning......straight to 0.78 looking v strong gl.........

Financial service group Brightside said its Chief Executive Arron Banks had resigned with immediate effect. The company's current insurance broking director, Martyn Holman, will take over as CEO with immediate effect. "Arron has taken this opportunity to step down from the board to review his options and will remain focused on his private interests," the firm said.

Big spread though..........

TEP Exchange, a web-based exchange for traded endowment policies, leapt back into profit, delighting shareholders who pushed its shares up 26%. Pre-tax profits for 2011 came in at £666,082 compared to a loss of £86,458 in 2010. Revenue increased significantly in 2011 due to the firm licensing its electronic platform to SL Investment Management, it said.

Galleon Holdings, the AIM quoted entertainment media company, announced pre-tax loss of £0.9m for the six months to the end of March. The company said problems with third party developers in China meant the company was unlikely to go into profit this year, pushing shares down 8.7%

Engineering firm Costain said it was teaming up with Skanska again to carry out a £40m joint venture for Crossrail. The project will build shafts providing access for ventilation, maintenance intervention, emergency exit and emergency services access for the railway at Eleanor Street and Mile End Park. This is the fifth contract which a Costain-Skanska joint venture has won from Crossrail.

AIM-listed Net Dimensions fell on Wednesday despite announcing it had done a deal to provide talent management software to Metersbonwe, mainland China's largest casual wear company. Metersbonwe will implement NetDimensions' Talent Suite software to address the increased training and talent management requirements of its 20,000 employees. Net's shares were off 0.7% in early trading following the announcemen

"I believe that MDM has now achieved the critical mass required in terms of skilled resources, as well as the correct mix of projects to sustain gradual organic growth and be highly profitable," said Chief Executive Martin Smith. "Looking ahead we plan to maintain our culture of keeping close to clients, build fit-for-purpose plants and making sure we deliver on our promises." He attributed the company's success to senior executive's hands-on management efforts, minimising costs and focusing on efficiency.

MDM Engineering Group rose almost seven per cent on Wednesday after its results topped market expectations and the company said there was more to come in 2013. The firm bounded into the black reporting a full year pre-tax profit of $7.8m, up from a loss of $2.1m the year before. Revenues rocketed up 428% to $89.1m, taking earnings per share up to 15.37c. The company also increased its final dividend substantially from 3c a share to 5.2c. This meant a doubling of the full year dividend to 7.70c per share. MDM also said it had secured a pipeline of projects sufficient to improve the firm's numbers further in its 2013 results.

Initiated in October 2010, the JIP is focussed on developing a new sub-sea well-head, the HGSS, to address key technical issues and requirements highlighted by regulators following the Gulf of Mexico incident in April 2010. All members of the JIP will be contributing to the design and engineering process with the intention that they potentially become end-users and commercial partners once the well-head has been fully built, tested and commercialised. The project is anticipated to take between 18-24 months from the initiation date at a cost of around £1.5m to £2.0m. Any intellectual property generated by the project will be owned by Plexus.

Plexus Holdings has bagged a couple of big names in the oil business to help on its project to develop and commercialise a new and safer sub-sea well-head in response to the Macondo tragedy in the Gulf of Mexico. The AIM quoted oil and gas engineering services business, announced that Eni, an Italian oil and gas major, and Oil States International, a leading USA manufacturer of capital equipment, have both signed up as additional consulting partners to Plexus's Joint Industry Project (JIP) to develop and commercialise a new and safer sub-sea well-head. The project, which uses Plexus's patented POS-GRIP technology, has already received the support of five other major oil and gas companies who will act as consultants in the JIP.

"Yaoure is fast becoming a major component in delivering our stated strategy for becoming a mid-tier gold producer."

Cluff Gold, the west Africa-focused gold miner, says it has made a new discovery at its Yaoure Project in Cote d'Ivoire. The near-surface find suggests there is gold mineralisation across an area of around 650m near a current Cluff Gold pit. The firm has now increased the number of drill rigs on site from three to four. Peter Spivey, Chief Executive of Cluff Gold, commented: "These results reinforce our continued confidence in the Yaoure gold project. The location of the project, situated close to existing infrastructure, means that the cost base for development is much lower than other projects located in West Africa.

Healthcare Locums, the troubled nursing, medical and social services recruitment firm has had some good news on the legal front. It was being sued in the US by an outfit called Permian Master Fund. That fund has now pulled out of the court case, leading to a 20% rise in Healthcare Locum's share price on Wednesday morning. Peter Sullivan, Chairman, commented "The board welcomes this decision. The filed legal proceedings were an unwelcome distraction and the board was always of the opinion that the claims were wholly without merit." Healthcare Locums announced in January of 2011 that it had discovered accounting irregularities, which led to a suspension in trading in the shares until September of last year. The irregularities amounted to the inclusion in the revenue figures of amounts which had not even been invoiced, as well as intangible asset valuations that were later found to be mistakes. Since then the entire board has been replaced. So far in 2012 the firm's shares have gained 46% although they are still down 96% on the price before the accounting problems were detected.

Commenting on the results, Chairman Dr. Jacob Mwanza, said: "We are happy to see continued strong performance of our core business areas, aided by the continued growth of the Zambian economy, together with the expansion of Zambeef's operations. "Our main challenges have been the weakening of the Zambian Kwacha (particularly against the US Dollar) the ZRA Zamanita tax liability, and supply and/or capacity constraints in meeting continued growth in demand for our core products."

The African agricultural business, Zambeef Products, has reported a sharp upturn in revenues and profits although it is struggling against currency headwinds. The group is one of the largest agri-businesses in Zambia, principally involved in the production and retailing of beef, chicken, pork, and dairy products. It also has operations in Nigeria and Ghana. Revenues for the six months ending on March 31st were $127.6m, up 32% on the same period last year, while pre-tax profits gained 53% to $8.1m. The profit figure, however, excludes a rather nasty $9.7m provision for a tax bill on one of the group's subsidiaries: Zamanita.