Member Info for jange

For retail bellwether Marks & Spencer (M&S), the market is expecting profit before tax of £693m, down from £714m the year before, on sales of £9.97bn. The dividend is seen rising to 17.05p from 17.00p the year before. Consensus forecasts have drifted down in recent weeks as the weather in the UK remains miserable, for the most part.

Technology group Emblaze saw shares surge on Monday after announcing that its UK subsidiary, Emblaze Mobility Solutions, has recovered 1.5m pounds which was part of the VAT repayments claimed withheld by HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) since March 2006. HMRC has been withholding VAT repayments but was ordered to pay Emblaze $4m (£2.53m at today's exchange rate) in 2011 for reclaims that were not disputed. Now, the High Court of Justice has ordered that Emblaze be paid the balance of sums withheld by HMRC. After legal and other expenses, the group said the net cash proceeds would be $1.5m (£0.95m)

Since the end of March, Mytrah Energy has increased its total installed and commissioned assets to 224.2 megawatts (mw), significantly short of its target to build 500mw by June. The sum included the total capacity of three of its fully completed projects, totally 106.2mw. The remaining megawatts are at four sites, and once these are fully completed - expected in the next eight weeks - the company will have 337.1mw commissioned and connected to the grid. The Maharashtra State Electricity Board has increased its tariff, meaning the company will benefit from a significant increase in the overall return on three of its projects.

Bullabulling Gold's latest results confirm potential to further expand the 3.2m ounce resource base at its wholly-owned Bullabulling Gold Project in Western Australia. At the Gibraltar asset the results reveal significant intercepts, which include 13 metres (m) at 2.87g per tonne of gold, 3m at 6.82g per tonne of gold an 11m at 2.44g per tonne gold. At Geko, preliminary drill testing produced significant intercepts including 14m at 2.02g per tonne, 7m at 2.07g per tonne, and 14m at 2.21g per tonne, confirming historic drill intercepts and indicating that mineralisation extends beyond the limits of the historic resource.

"As a result of this, the company's revenues for the year ending 30 September 2012 will be materially below the Company's earlier expectations," said interim Chief Executive, Jeremy Pelczer. "The company has been undertaking a strategic review of the business and in light of the P&G decision the review will be accelerated to allow an update to be provided by the end of June 2012," he said. "Although the resulting revenue shortfall will constrain growth we will continue to pursue a range of commercialisation opportunities while we conduct the strategic review."

The firms signed an agreement in 2010 that saw P&G developing specific applications using Pursuit's reactor technology in a wide range of its production processes. However, following completion of evaluation trials, the American multinational decided it would not pursue further evaluation or development or enter into exclusive licensing discussions with Pursuit.

Shares in fluid technology firm Pursuit Dynamics crashed 77% on Monday morning after Procter and Gamble ended an agreement to use the former's technology. Pursuit has now been forced to undertake a strategic review of its business and said profits would be "materially below" previous expectations.

Hi mark hows things.......

Lets have a good end to the week mark good luck.....

Catastrophe reinsurance gross written premium amounted to £307.3m, a 20.3% increase relative to the same period in 2011.

Margins across our catastrophe reinsurance business are strong and our US and international books are trading at near peak levels." During the four-month period, US catastrophe reinsurance renewal rates improved by an average of 13.7%, while renewal rates for its international business increased by an average of 16.7%. Rate increases have been more marked in loss affected territories, such as New Zealand and Japan.

In a statement the company said: "Amlin is in a strong financial position and is well capitalised to support growth as conditions continue to improve and opportunities present themselves. "The underlying profitability of our London and Bermuda businesses is strong, profitability is improving in our UK business and there are signs that the action taken at ACI is having a positive effect. Profit focused underwriting remains at the core of our strategy which, in a challenging investment environment, should allow the business to prosper,

However, volatility remains in the investment markets and the company continues to hold a cautious position. The group's investment return for the four month period is estimated to be 2.0%, with average funds under management of £4.2bn. During this period bonds returned 1.9%, cash and cash equivalents 0.2%, absolute return funds 2.5%, equities 8.7% and property 2.1%.

Within insurance markets, the firm continued to see improvement in its UK commercial business, particularly for UK motor, where increases to fleet motor rates averaged 9.4%. Rate increases for US commercial property have also continued to improve, building on the modest increases experienced at January 1st, while the US liability business has begun to show signs of improvement.

The trading environment for Amlin UK continued to improve in the first four months with an average renewal rate increase of 5.0%. The firm said strong rate improvements had been evident in key classes underwritten by the group in the year-to-date, and that more than 70% of its portfolio has achieved rate increases in the period to April 30th.

Amlin, the insurance and reinsurance company, said that the trading environment since the start of the year has been 'considerably more encouraging', and that catastrophe loss activity has also been limited in the first quarter of the year.

"We see significant opportunities ahead of us to grow both revenues and profitability." Over the next five years the company plans it increase its network capacity by over 100 times and will optimise its network for video content, security and access to cloud services.

We are underscoring our confidence in the long term prospects for the business by raising our medium term EBITDA margin target to 25% and a commitment to grow the FY13 and FY14 dividend by at least 15% per annum, while at the same time investing in growth.

Dido Harding, Chief Executive, said: "Our focus on improving customer service has driven a real improvement in customer numbers and we are on track to deliver total customer growth in the current quarter. Our strategy has delivered a materially more profitable and stable customer base and a leaner, more efficient cost structure, giving us a strong platform from which to invest in growth opportunities such as YouView.

Headline earnings per share rose 33.3% from 13.5p to 18p. The final dividend was raised to 6.4p, taking the full year dividend to 9p per share (2011: 5.6p) ahead of expectations of 8.19p.