Member Info for mulledwine

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John Wood Group PLC ("Wood Group") Interim Management Statement Wood Group, the international energy services company, issues the following Interim Management Statement. A full year trading update will be provided on 15 December 2011. Market conditions remain as outlined in the interim results statement of 23 August. Commodity prices have remained at favourable levels for our customers and we continue to see good momentum, despite financial market volatility. Overall, the Group's performance for the year to date is in line with expectations. Growth in Engineering continues to be driven by our upstream and subsea & pipeline activities. Our backlog and bidding pipeline remain robust. In Wood Group PSN, we are seeing good activity levels in the North Sea and North America. In international markets, as previously reported, performance for the year to date has been held back by start up delays in Australia and Oman. In GTS, we are confident of delivering an improved second half maintenance performance and have started recognising profit on our EPC contracts with Dorad and GWF. Our financial position remains strong and we anticipate good cash flow for the second half of the year. In early October, we received an $81m net working capital adjustment relating to the divestment of the Well Support division to GE. We continue to anticipate that full year performance for the Group will be in line with expectations and believe we are well positioned to deliver good longer term growth.

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Thorntons counting on Christmas Date: Wednesday 05 Oct 2011 LONDON (ShareCast) - FTSE Flegling group Thorntons saw its sales decline 7.6% in the fourteen weeks to 1 October, owing to the tough current retail environment. The fall in sales to £46.5m was in line with management expectations, the chocolate maker said. Commerical channel sales decline 4.9% to £18.9m, which the firm said reflected the timing of retailer's Christmas orders, which will now fall into the second quarter. The firm was keen to emphasise that the order book for Christmas remains strong and in line with expectations. Further declines were seen in own store sales, which fell 10.1% to £23.4m, with like-for-like sales decreasing 7.8%. Franchise sales fell 6.4% to £2.6m, whilst Thortons Direct sales decreased by 8.1% to £1.2m due to the loss of a large corporate order. Looking up were consumer online sales, which continued to grow by 5.1% year on year. Chief executive Jonathan Hart: "As expected, the retail environment continues to be challenging with weakness in High Street footfall. Our consumers remain cost conscious and continue to select promoted products. Our programme to improve own store merchandising and layout launches in October. We are now starting to roll out our new ranges of 'little gifts' into the stores and are pleased with our strong Christmas seasonal offer across all channels. "The commercial sales order book for Christmas is in line with our expectations and we would expect to report strong year on year growth within this channel by the half year." The share price fell 1.09% to 45.5p by 08:38.

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Coverage IP Group sees success in new anti-bacterial trial Date: Wednesday 05 Oct 2011 LONDON (ShareCast) - Photopharmica, a company in which IP Group has a 49.9% beneficial holding, has announced positive results from the trial of antimicrobial photo-dynamic therapy. Photopharmica achieved positive results from the second phase of its randomised, placebo-controlled trial of antimicrobial photo-dynamic therapy using PPA 904 in the treatment of chronic leg ulcers. The trial successfully met its primary goal and was able to show significant reduction in bacterial load in such wounds. Professor Keith Harding, head of wound healing at Cardiff University Medical School and chief investigator on the trial, said: "In 30 years in the field, I have never seen a topical treatment with efficacy anywhere near which PPA has demonstrated. Very few significant advances have been made in this field over the last decade. I believe the PPA technology is the disruptive change needed." Significantly fewer patients treated with PPA 904 experienced bacterial load levels above the cited threshold for prevention of healing than placebo-treated patients. Furthermore, significantly fewer PPA 904-treated patients experienced very high bacterial load levels compared with placebo-treated patients, suggesting that PPA 904 may reduce the risk of development of clinical infection. All bacterial species investigated were substantially and significantly reduced, including MRSA. The trial was conducted across 11 centres in the UK, with bacterial load measurement carried out centrally to ensure consistency of data. The company believes it is now well placed to capitalise on these results and has engaged with pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies searching for acquisition and partnership opportunities. John Lyon, chief executive officer of Photopharmica, stated: "This result, which shows that the technology kills antibiotic resistant bacteria and is not itself susceptible to resistance, demonstrates a robust proof of principle of the technology and offers the company a number of pathways to reach the market with its products." The share price rose 8.46% to 54.5p by 13:34.

IP Group plc - Portfolio company Photopharmica reports positive Phase 2b results IP Group plc (LSE: IPO) ("IP Group" or "the Group" or "the Company"), the developer of intellectual property based businesses, is pleased to note that Photopharmica Limited ("Photopharmica") has today announced positive results from a Phase 2b randomised, placebo controlled trial of antimicrobial photodynamic therapy using PPA 904 in the treatment of chronic leg ulcers. The trial successfully met its primary endpoint with statistical significance (p < 0.0001). Antimicrobial photodynamic therapy using PPA 904 was shown to produce a substantial and significant reduction in bacterial load in chronic leg ulcers. Photopharmica is a spin-out company from the University of Leeds in which IP Group has a 49.9% beneficial holding.

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Coverage Sportingbet beats forecasts, reports strong start to new year By Benjamin Chiou Date: Wednesday 05 Oct 2011 LONDON (ShareCast) - Sportingbet, the online sports betting firm in discussions with Ladbrokes over a possible takeover, reported that the new financial year has started well as it beat earnings forecasts in the year ended 31 July despite tough comparatives. Full-year earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) rose 11% from £46.5m to £51.4m, beating analysts’ forecasts, helped by tighter cost controls. Peel Hunt expected EBITDA of £49.6m while Evolution Securities was predicting £49.2m. Chief executive Andrew McIver said, “The benefits of operating across a broad geographical base were demonstrated with strong growth in our Emerging Markets division, Australia and some of our European territories, offsetting the economic weakness in Greece and Spain.” However, total revenue fell by 1% from £207.5m to £206.3m, as the previous year was helped by the FIFA World Cup which contributed £8.5m to net gaming revenue (NGR). Greece and Spain were the worst performing regions – “affected by particularly challenging economic conditions” – as amounts wagered fell by 22% and 2%, respectively. However, strong growth in the Emerging Markets, Australia and Turkey countered this. Nevertheless, Sportingbet revealed that NGR has increased by 17% in the first two months of the current year. Pre-tax profit jumped to £23.8m, from just £6.9m the year before which saw large exceptional items including a £22.8m Department of Justice settlement. Basic earnings per share rose from 0.8p to 3.9p. The total dividend was raised from 1.6p per share to 1.7p per share. “On a medium-term view, we see a group that has a leading position in sports betting risk management and branding in key European/Australian territories that faces material growth opportunities and zero ongoing regulatory risk,” said Evolution Securities analyst James Hollins. In regards to the Ladbrokes discussions, Sportingbet said that talks are ongoing to which may or may not lead to an offer. The group is also in discussions with Gaming VC regarding the disposal of its Turkish language website. By 15:14 on Wednesday, shares were 6.59% higher at 44.5p.

Evolution Securities maintains buy rating and 750p target.

Nomura has kept its buy rating and 530p target price on homewares retailer Dunelm, saying that despite weakness in the macro environment, the firm's space growth strategy on track. Dunelm reported on Wednesday that first quarter sales had fallen 2% on a like-for-like (LFL) basis. Despite the LFL decline, the group said that a 7.3% contribution from new space drove total sales up by 5.3%.

Financial Position As at 1st October 2011 net cleared funds amounted to £34.3m, after funding the freehold acquisition referred to above and after completing the development of the new head office. Daily average net cleared funds over the quarter were £43.1m. Nick Wharton, Chief Executive, commented: "Despite the challenges provided by the UK consumer environment, our Simply Value for Money proposition continues to resonate with customers in both established and new stores. Given the current environment we continue to take a disciplined approach to operating costs. Nevertheless, we remain confident about the growth opportunities provided both from store expansion and via the web, where we have just completed the launch of full Reserve and Collect functionality."

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Vitec Group Buy 05-Oct-11 £25,000.00 Stephen Bird 5,000 @ 500.00p

Richard Parris, Intercede Chief Executive, commented: "Intercede continues to supply its MyID software in support of homeland security initiatives around the world. Intercede MyID is already used to issue ICAO compliant documents for the government of Kuwait and this new contract reinforces our reputation for producing software capable of managing the issuance of biometric passports to citizens. This puts Intercede in an excellent position to benefit from the growing market in secure electronic travel documents."

Contract value exceeds $1m Released 4 October 2011 Intercede (London Stock Exchange AIM: IGP) announces that it has won an order for the supply of Intercede MyID Identity and Credential Management software licenses totaling in excess of US$1m. This contract is in support of the issuance of ICAO(1) compliant smart card travel documents. The country and partner cannot be named at this time. This contract will contribute more than $1m to current year sales as well as generating a long term annuity support and maintenance revenue stream. At a time of global recession and spending cuts, this new government related order underscores the resilience of Intercede's business model and places Intercede on track to meet full year market trading expectations.

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Geoff Wild, CEO of AZ, commented: "This small but strategically important acquisition allows us to consolidate our global position in polysilazane technology and provides us with access to key raw materials necessary for our planned growth in the LED and solar markets."

AZ ELECTRONIC MATERIALS S.A. AZ acquires coatings and resins business from Clariant AG AZ Electronic Materials S.A. ("AZ"), a leading global producer and supplier of high quality, high-purity specialty chemical materials used in the manufacture of integrated circuits and flat panel displays, today announces that it has acquired the polysilazanes coatings and resins business of Clariant AG, for a cash consideration of approximately €4m. The acquired business, which has become a wholly-owned subsidiary of AZ, includes the world's only commercial organic polysilazane manufacturing plant, located in India, as well as certain laboratory assets, intellectual property and contracts. The acquisition will enable AZ to expand its portfolio to organic polysilazanes, thereby facilitating the development of new business in displays, lighting, solar and non-electronic markets.

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