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French Connection Group PLC ("French Connection", "the Group") today announces a growth in revenue and profit for the first six months of the financial year. Highlights · Revenue up 7% to £102.8 million (2010: £96.5 million*) · Profit before tax of £0.7 million (2010: £0.2 million*) · Closing net cash of £30.9 million (2010: £30.2 million) · Interim dividend increased 20% to 0.6 pence per share (2010: 0.5 pence per share)

http://www.investegate.co.uk/Article.aspx?id=201109190700184410O

Interim Management Statement Good start to the year Photo-Me (PHTM.L), the instant service equipment group, is today issuing its Interim Management Statement, which covers the period from 1 May 2011 to date. The Group is pleased to report a good start to the year, with results ahead of both the comparable period last year and management's expectations for the current period. Profit before tax for the first quarter to the end of July 2011 was around one-third higher than the same period last year, driven by the Operations division which benefited from a very strong performance in its French business, Photomaton. This was down to both continued strong management, as well as the law change in France which protects the private sector's position in the provision of photos for biometric passports. The Group is anticipating that the capture of ID photos will be completely removed from town halls in France by the end of 2011. The roll-out in Europe of the new Starck photobooths is progressing according to plan and the booths are being well received. The UK launch is scheduled for November 2011. The Sales and Services division has started more slowly, but it is not a seasonal business and has the roll-out of Group's new minilab the DKS4 to handle during the year. As usual, the performance to date should not be taken as a guide for the year as a whole, because the Group generally enjoys much stronger trading in the first half compared to the second half, due to the Operations division. In addition, the trading background in many markets - including the UK - remains difficult due to the global economic backdrop. The Board will provide a further update on trading and outlook at the time of the Company's AGM on 6 October 2011.

http://www.investegate.co.uk/Article.aspx?id=201109190700364462O

Clock ticking for Ladbrokes on Sportingbet talks Date: Monday 19 Sep 2011 LONDON (ShareCast) - The online betting firm Sportingbet has confirmed talks are continuing with Ladbrokes over a possible takeover. The original offer was first announced on the 23rd of June but Ladbrokes has until the 17th of October to firm up its offer. The acquisition could give Ladbrokes access to Sportingbet's revenues which are around £200m. The online sports betting specialist also has useful interests in the Australian market.

http://www.investegate.co.uk/Article.aspx?id=201109190700384612O

Orderly wind down of Adventis Health As a result of continuing losses incurred at Adventis Health, Adventis announces that following a strategic review, it has commenced an orderly wind down of the division's operations. It is expected that all 24 staff of Adventis Health will either be redeployed or made redundant on completion of their client projects over the next few months. The orderly wind down will result in the impairment at the year-end of the remaining consolidation goodwill carried in respect of Adventis Health, amounting to approximately £1.0 million. Further details will be set out in the Group's interim results that are scheduled to be released on 27 September 2011.

http://www.investegate.co.uk/Article.aspx?id=201109190700134289O

Exane BNP Paribas downgrades Aegis Group from outperform to neutral, target price cut from 145p to 140p.

ARM Holdings president sells again Date: Monday 19 Sep 2011 LONDON (ShareCast) - The president of ARM Holdings Tudor Brown has taken advantage of strength in share price of the designer of chips used in devices such as smartphones and tablet computers to offload large chunk of his holding. He sold 100,000 shares at 600p a time, pocketing a total of £600,000 shares and now has 651,308. Earlier this month he sold 181,740 shares at 550.15p a go. The shares have defied to recent downturn to post strong gains over the past month and are up by 50% from a year ago. In a note late last month, the broker Merchant Securities said that ARM was well placed to benefit from the popularity of Apple’s iPhone 5.

Axis-Shield urges shareholders to reject offer Date: Monday 19 Sep 2011 LONDON (ShareCast) - Dundee diagnostics firm Axis-Shield has reaffirmed its recommendation to shareholders to reject an offer from Alere AS saying it was "low and opportunistic". Alere made a hostile bid on 5 August, offering 460p per share. The group has once again addressed its shareholders, saying: "We remain as confident as before in the prospects of the company and therefore your board firmly rejects the offer by Alere and unanimously recommends that you reject it too. "Nearly three months into the second half of the year we continue to believe that we are on track to build on the excellent progress across our business that we reported in our interim results released on 24 August and remain very encouraged about the company's future prospects. " "Therefore we firmly stand by our original recommendation that you reject the Offer from Alere, which fundamentally undervalues the company by failing to reflect Axis-Shield's current strengths and future prospects." The group added that it was confident that the majority of its shareholders are aligned with its belief that the offer should not be accepted because it "does not reflect the company's current and future value". The warning comes just three days before the cut-off point after which shareholders who have accepted the offer cannot withdraw their decision. The share price rose 1.25% to 466.00p by 15:11.

http://www.investegate.co.uk/Article.aspx?id=201109190700294443O

Specialist miner Fluormin floated on Aim last week through an effective reverse takeover of Maghreb Minerals. It is looking to develop a range of mines producing fluorspar, a mineral whose uses include smelting fluxes, enamels and glass used in microscopes and telescopes. Fluormin has raised £3.7million, giving it a market value of about £56million, in a move advised by Westhouse Securities, according to the Daily Express.

Lord Waheed Alli, the Labour peer and chairman of ASOS, has sold nearly half of his £30m stake in online fashion retailer, reports the Sunday Telegraph. According to company filings, Lord Alli exercised an option to buy 750,000 ASOS shares at 12.67p last week, then immediately sold them at £19 a share – valuing the stake at £14.25m and netting Lord Alli £14.15m in the process. He still has 830,000 shares in the business, worth £15.7m. The transaction knocked more than 5% off ASOS' market value last Friday, but his move is thought to have been triggered after he lost his investment in Chorion, the media group, rather than a lack of confidence in the retailer. Nonetheless, the newspaper indicates that there are some concerns about the firm’s buying talent, after a string of well-respected mid-ranking buyers left for rival retailers

Last week there was the somewhat unlikely sounding story that M&S could be the subject of a £4.50 a share bid from private equity group Apax Partners. I would suspect that the only way of ensuring this will happen would for me to suggest that the story is clearly totally bogus – so there is a now a chance! As far as the charting position is concerned on the daily timeframe the view is that the post June extended RSI bullish divergence as the stock made new price lows is very helpful, and to seal the buy argument a weekly close above the blue 50 day moving average now at 334p is ideally what we are looking for. Therefore above the 50 day line on an end of day close basis the upside here should be towards the black 200 day moving average at 360p over the next couple of weeks – even without the fabled takeover. So reckons Zak Mir

Given the recent rally in Domino left me somewhat puzzled, the sharp decline to end it has been less of a surprise. The current position is that while there is no end of day close below a line of support from January at 497p one could give Domino the benefit of the doubt. However, even under this scenario the best that a dead cat bounce may deliver is a test of the green 10 day moving average at 545p. So reckons Zak Mir

Rather surprisingly Polish eating habits are not an area of my expertise, although I imagine they like a good pizza. This may be just as well for DP Poland, the owner of Domino's rights in the country. The charting message is that we are waiting on a weekly close above recent 90p resistance in order to raise the prospect of a retest of the year's best levels at 110p over the next 4-6 weeks. So reckons Zak Mir

Results for the first six months of this year (to 30th June 2011) were poor operationally but financially more encouraging. Revenue rose 6.5% to $395 million. That was good given the problems in parts of the Middle East and North Africa, the fact that a generic product called Cochine had a notably strong performance last year. (Generic sales were actually down 12.4 %.) The weakness of some Middle Eastern currencies, including the Egyptian pound, against the dollar hurt profitability. Gross margins fell from 49.9% to 43.7% and operating margins from 20.8% to 12.4%. In simple terms dislocation meant a 14% increase in cost of sales contributing most of the 10.6% rise in overall operating expenses leading to a 20% decline in operating profits. The company had cost problems which it is now sorting out. On the finance side; operations were impacted by a financially highly geared balance sheet in December 2010, with a total debt to equity ratio of 53%. All of this was reflected in the first half cash flow where operating cash flow plunged 81.5% to $19m; not enough to pay for capital expenditure of $40 million (down 24%) and financing costs. As part of the financial reordering, the management raised an extra $195 million of new cash meaning that balance sheet cash on 30th June rose from just under $63 million to just under $90 million So what is the outlook now? The company was confident about performance for the rest of this year. Sterling value estimates for the current year to 30th December 2011 is revenue of £548 million, earnings per share of 31p valuing the equity at 2.1 times revenue and 19 times estimated very depressed earnings. Next year earnings are estimated to jump 35% to 42p driven by a forecast 19% rise in sales to £652 million reducing the valuation of the equity to forecast 14.2 times price to earnings multiple and 1.8 times sales. At the last balance sheet date assets attributable to ordinary shareholders stood at $779 million, accounting on my figures, at about 40% of the share price. The risk reward relationship favours reward. In my opinion they are cheap. Buy.

Buy Hikma Pharmaceuticals Says Robert Sutherland-Smith of UK350.com

LONDON (SHARECAST) - A harder operating environment plays to the strengths of those companies which are ‘best of the breed’. This is the thesis expounded recently by Michael O’Leary, chief executive officer of Irish low-cost airline operator Ryanair. Thus, he believes, in relative terms higher oil prices will pressure his competitors more as they will be forced to increase fares and fuel surcharges. As well, a higher oil price environment will lead to further consolidations and fewer competitors. Furthermore, as more O’Leary asserts, Ryanair operates the most fuel efficient fleet, has the strongest balance sheet and the lowest operating costs. Morgan Stanley last week chose the company as its top sector pick, seemingly validating such arguments. The bank put emphasis on the fact that Ryanair is coming to the end of a decade-long capex cycle. In fact, it recently put a brake on expansion plans when it decided to cancel an order for 200 new planes. That may mean that it is moving towards free cash flow generation and that another special dividend may not be far off, perhaps in 2013. In the opinion of the Questor team at the Sunday Telegraph, “Ryanair is trading at a price to earnings ratio of 10.5 for the year to March, which is much lower than warranted.” Questor says Buy