Member Info for mulledwine

http://www.investegate.co.uk/Article.aspx?id=201202170700125955X

The Telegraph’s Questor column takes a stand for its long held buy rating for BAE Systems. There isn’t much that would shock long time BAE investors. It sells the most deadly machines on earth and was implicated in vice and corruption scandals as it sought to maintain market share, but Questor argues the financials are sound. BAE trades on just 8.3 times forward earnings and yields 6.1%, even after Thursday’s less than stellar results. With a company policy of returning cash to shareholders, often through buybacks, Questor shoots from the hip and orders readers to buy.

Nomura raises target from 1,404p to 1,424p, neutral rating maintained.

Panmure Gordon raises target from 1,555p to 1,625p, buy rating unchanged;

CONT This integrated pilot plant continues the Group's investment in infrastructure to assist commercial activities, including client evaluations and client operator training. In 2011, the Group also stepped up other activities in support of commercialisation, including the addition of key staff, substantially enlarging both the process engineering and business development teams, as well as appointing a Group Chief Operating Officer. The Group's integrated GTL demonstration, which includes both its FT and SMR reactors, began operations in Fortaleza, Brazil in late 2011. This project has been entirely funded and managed by Toyo Engineering Corporation ("Toyo") and MODEC, Inc. ("MODEC") in collaboration with Petróleo Brasileiro S.A. ("Petrobras"). As with most field demonstrations, the precise timing of this programme is subject to change and therefore cannot be reliably estimated, however the Group remains confident of a successful outcome and is encouraged by the level of support and commitment being provided by Petrobras, Toyo and MODEC. Additionally, the Group is pleased to report the attainment of a significant milestone of over one year of successful continuous operation of its FT catalyst. This long duration test provides further validation of the superior performance of the Group's technology and the impressive stability of its FT catalyst. Activities to advance supply chain capabilities to support higher volume sales have made good progress over the course of the year. The Group is comfortable of its ability to supply both catalyst and reactors for orders in 2012 and beyond. In addition, the Group is developing key partnerships that will provide engineering and other capabilities to execute and support new projects and customer installations. Reflecting the Group's ongoing progress towards commercialisation, revenues are continuing to transition from development funding to commercial income streams. Consequently and as expected, revenues for the financial year ended 31st December 2011 are estimated to be lower than 2009 and 2010. The Group continues to maintain a healthy cash balance to support this phase of its commercial transformation; as at 31 December, year end cash stood at approximately £17m.

Trading Update Oxford Catalysts Group PLC, the leading technology innovator for clean synthetic fuels, is pleased to provide an update on trading. Market conditions for distributed scale synthetic fuels production are better than at any other time in our experience, and the Group is enjoying record levels of interest and enquiries in its technology. The energy world is changing, with oil majors having to look to different sources of fuel. The hydrocarbons that have long been considered too expensive and difficult to extract, such as shale gas and oil sands, have now been re-evaluated and we're seeing significant expansion in these programmes with the large-scale entry of major energy companies. The US is the driving force behind this. As the increasing demand for oil and sustained production constraints have continued to drive and maintain crude prices over $100 per barrel, gas prices have remained low and are forecasted to continue to do so. Consequently the environment for synthetic fuels production is increasingly attractive, especially in North America. Oxford Catalysts continues to actively evaluate partnership and sales opportunities with major corporations, and has been engaged in and successfully progressing through extensive engineering cost studies with a number of significant prospective customers. These have demonstrated consistently attractive economics for its technology under a range of market scenarios and across several applications. The positive industry feedback being received further validates the Group's confidence in the strong competitiveness of its products. These factors have already translated into orders, with the sale of five commercial scale Fischer-Tropsch ("FT") reactors and catalyst announced to date: two units to SGC Energia, SGPS, S.A.; an order by a Fortune 500 company in July 2011 for two full scale FT units that form the first instalment of reactors towards a commercial synthetic fuels plant; and as announced in January 2012, an order for a full scale FT unit from a diversified energy company. The latter will provide detailed engineering parameters for that customer's first plant, being part of their plan to aggressively pursue production of synthetic fuels through medium scale modular facilities located at sites internationally. These orders are an essential precursor to widespread adoption, as they allow for further validation of the technology on larger scales and follow the positive progress made at our previous successful demonstration in Güssing, Austria. Demonstration activities there are now complete and the FT equipment is in the process of being returned to the Group's US site where it will form part of an integrated Gas-to-Liquids ("GTL") pilot plant alongside the Group's Steam Methane Reforming ("SMR") and hydro-processing technologies.

http://www.investegate.co.uk/Article.aspx?id=201202170700146034X

Paul Hooper, group Chief Executive at Alumasc, a building and engineering products company, has acquired over 37,000 shares in the firm on the same day the firm admitted that full year results will be materially below previous expectations. The company attributed this to margin pressures had overshadowed revenue growth in the second half of 2011. The news sent the stock tumbling on Thursday, with shares trading at the 94p mark, down nearly 28% on last night’s close of 130p. Reported profit before tax for the half year dropped from £1.9m to £0.7m, hit by a rise in the cost of sales to support a recent surge in demand.

A good day ahead then for HVN

Summary and Outlook The strong financial results for the year ended 31 January 2012 , market share gains and client wins have been driven by the Group's market leading brand positioning and its broad portfolio of services. Tight cost control and management of working capital have facilitated growth without negatively impacting cash flow. As our clients begin to focus increasingly on the Asia Pacific region, we will invest £0.75m in new offices in 2012 in Asia Pacific to meet growing demand in the region and to supplement our existing offices in Vietnam. This year we also intend to relocate our London office to achieve significant economies of scale and take advantage of a subdued rental market. The relocation will result in a circa £0.8m exceptional item in the first half with savings flowing through into the final quarter of the year and savings over a ten year period expected to be in the region of £1.0m per annum. Capital expenditure, expected to be approximately £1.5m, will be fully funded through financial incentives which have been secured in the lease agreement. Ongoing economic uncertainty about the Eurozone means that our clients continue to be cautious although the outlook for freelance contracting remains encouraging with little evidence of a slowing of temporary recruitment. However, should executive recruitment globally continue the trend seen in the fourth quarter of calendar year 2011 then this is likely to result in profits being lower than the previous year, excluding the effect of the relocation and fresh investment in Asia. With the benefit of an experienced management team, continuing strong trading cash flow and a healthy balance sheet the Group is confident of making further progress as markets stabilise and business confidence begins to rise again.

Trading Update Harvey Nash, the global professional services group, announces that its results for the full year ended 31 January 2012 are expected to be ahead of expectations and that it intends to recommend an increase in its final dividend of circa 10%. Trading The Board is pleased to confirm that unaudited results for the full year ended 31 January 2012 are expected to be ahead of expectations with total revenue of circa £532 million, gross profit of circa £78.0m and profit before tax of circa £8.2 million, up 31% on the previous year. Skills shortages in niche markets, and the fast growing digital and mobile markets in particular, continued to drive demand for technology professionals. However, the general decline in business confidence in Europe and the UK has impacted the executive appointment market. Whilst a general softening of demand for permanent recruitment was evident across the world, technology outsourcing and freelance contracting continued to be robust in the second half and increases in the productivity of consultants working on client projects, particularly in December and January, exceeded our expectations. Harvey Nash will announce on the 30 April 2012 preliminary results for the year ended 31 January 2012. Cash Position Despite the increase in turnover and higher demand for contract recruitment, the Group's net cash position at the year end was strong, being circa £5.0m. The Group has no long term debt and bank facilities are available to fund working capital as required Dividends The Board is pleased to confirm that it intends to recommend an increased final dividend of 1.635p per share (2011: 1.48p), resulting in a total dividend up 10% to 2.66p per share (2011: 2.42p). The dividend timetable will be announced with the preliminary results.

http://www.investegate.co.uk/Article.aspx?id=201202170700135986X

The market does not seem to read to much negativity into it - so far!

Richard Glynn, Chief Executive, commented: "We are continuing to make progress with our plan to reinvigorate Ladbrokes. The UK Retail business has performed strongly this year. OTC has continued to prove resilient in a weak economy with stakes marginally up on 2010. The contribution from machines has been excellent and we have grown profit per shop for a second consecutive year despite a comparatively poor gross win margin in the second half of 2011 and continued cost pressures. In 2012 we expect to build on this with further growth in machines, robust cost control, a renewed focus on local market competitiveness and the evolution of the retail customer experience. In Digital, we are pleased to have seen acceleration in the growth of customer numbers. Sportsbook and casino sign ups and actives have increased strongly in H2 following the start of increased marketing investment in August. We are continuing to invest in technology to improve our trading capabilities, expand our range of products and improve our delivery to the customer. Mobile is delivering impressive growth with further product expansion and innovation to come throughout the year. We have begun investing consistently in brand and Digital marketing and we will continue this investment process in 2012 having begun to see tangible benefits in 2011. Whilst we remain cautious on the outlook for the economy, we are now starting to see real momentum within the business. We are planning for further growth in UK Retail and in Digital, we expect revenues to grow throughout the year as we build upon the positive growth in customer acquisition achieved to date. We have a number of important milestones in the next few months and are confident of delivering growth in profit during the second half of the year as the benefits from our investments combine."

Retail profit growth and Digital momentum into 2012 Financial highlights · Group net revenue (1) grew by 0.4% to £980.3 million · Group operating profit (1) (2) of £193.5 million, down 0.4% after excluding one off VAT credit (3) in 2010 with profit before tax and net finance expense down 6.1% · Net debt reduced by £38.1 million and continued strong cash generation · Increased dividend per share; final dividend of 3.90 pence up 4.0%; full year of 7.80 pence, up 2.6% UK Retail highlights · UK Retail operating profit (1) (2) of £152.3 million, up 2.1% · Profit per shop up 6.9% (3) year on year · Resilience of OTC (over the counter) with amounts staked marginally up in 2011 · Machines gross win of £360.9 million, up 19.2%, with gross win per terminal week of £860 for the year and £930 in Q4 · Continued cost discipline with like for like operating costs up only 0.9% (3) · Further growth and cost control initiatives underway for 2012 Digital highlights · Net revenue decline of 3.5% driven by poker and Q4 sportsbook margin mask underlying improvement in Digital customer acquisition and conversion · Q4 sportsbook sign ups up 77%, actives up 24% and amounts staked up 22% · Strong mobile growth with net revenue up 174% to £15.6 million · 33% of sportsbook customers placing a mobile bet in H2, up from 12% in FY 2010 · Significant expansion of Bet in Play with another 20,000 events to come in 2012 · Beta testing of new website underway; full launch in coming weeks

http://www.investegate.co.uk/Article.aspx?id=201202160700215177X

Commenting on trading, Ian Cheshire, Group Chief Executive, said: "With sales growth in each of our three main divisions and further solid profit growth in our final quarter we have ended another challenging year in robust shape. Our established programme of self-help initiatives has continued to serve us well and so we expect to announce full year adjusted profit in line with the current consensus of analyst expectations.* "Looking ahead the global economic outlook is uncertain and so we will remain focused on self-help measures to trade the business effectively, whatever the market conditions. Our medium term ambition remains to reposition the business as the industry leader at the forefront of innovation, helping our customers have 'better homes, better lives'."

Kingfisher reports total Q4 sales up 2.2%, up 4.0% in constant currencies (LFL up 0.9%), expects full year adjusted profit to be up around 20%, in line with current analyst estimates* and announces updated organisation structure.

http://www.investegate.co.uk/Article.aspx?id=201202160700175146X

The Times column also touches on the high tech carbon and ceramics manufacturer Morgan Crucible, highlighting a very strong trading update yesterday, with a dividend increase of 20% but Tempus does not provide a recommendation. In the Telegraph, Questor is not so shy. The column takes a look through Morgan Crucible’s results: a pre-tax profit rise of 64.5% for 2011 with sales growing at 8.2%, and again, that rather tasty dividend increase. The strategy of developing “differentiated” products to then sell at high margins, combined with a focus on emerging markets is clearly paying off for the firm. It is also a genuine British manufacturing success story to bring a tear to the eye of people who still believe there is a future in making things in this country. The stock rocketed yesterday but at 11 times earnings, Questor still says buy.