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WPP acquires a majority stake in Gringo, a leading digital agency in Brazil WPP announces that its wholly-owned operating company, Possible Worldwide, the global interactive marketing agency that is part of WPP Digital, has acquired a 70% stake in Grïngo Publicidade Ltda ("Grïngo"), a leading digital agency in Brazil. Founded in 2006, Grïngo is based in São Paulo and employs 65 people. Clients include Coca-Cola, Absolut Vodka, Microsoft and Itaú Unibanco, one of Brazil's largest banks. Gringo is one of the southern hemisphere's most awarded agencies winning more than 40 in the last three years for its cutting-edge creativity, including three Cannes Lions. Grïngo's unaudited revenues for the year ended 31 December 2010 were R$10.4 million, with unaudited gross assets at the same date of R$3 million. This acquisition of a leading digital agency in the dynamic Brazilian market is central to WPP's overall strategy of expanding its capabilities in the digital, direct and interactive disciplines and strengthening its presence in faster growing markets. Collectively, including associates, the Group employs over 4,500 people in Brazil, WPP's eighth largest market, generating revenues of over R$1.1 billion. Based on the last two years' billings figures*, WPP's full-service agency networks rank one, two and three in Brazil, and as a Group, WPP ranks number one by a considerable distance with billings in 2010* of nearly R$11 billion.

http://www.investegate.co.uk/Article.aspx?id=201106030700117804H

http://www.investegate.co.uk/Article.aspx?id=201106020700096815H

McKay Securities profits fall Date: Thursday 02 Jun 2011 LONDON (ShareCast) - The so-called north-south divide has been a common theme in company results lately, but commercial property developer McKay Securities pointed to the differing pace of recovery between London and the rest of the South East as it delivered full-year results. Pre-tax profits for the year to 31 March came in at £4.5m, down from £15.3m the previous year due to reduced valuation gains. The total dividend for the year edges up to 8.3p from 8.2p. “Over the year there has been continued improvement across all the Group's markets, with the pace of recovery in central London greater than in the South East,” the company said. “Improving rental values and diverse investor demand generated income and contributed to capital growth within the group's central London office portfolio.” The company, which has properties in locations such as the City of London, Croydon, Reading and Staines, said the potential of its portfolio will be released once the pace of recovery in the South East picks up. McKay also has a large office in Glasgow, which saw its valuation fall, but the company said it has been held due to its prime location.

Deutsche reiterates buy Imperial Tobacco Group, target price 2800p.

Star wars products still making money for whoever has a link with them!

Numis upgrades Hornby from add to buy.

Hels79 - have a look at your Banks website - they most likely offer a share dealing service

Finncap reiterates sell on ASOS, new target price 1630p.

The headline figures in Redhall‘s half-yearly results were not exactly cheery. Revenues in the six months to March stood at GBP64.3m, down from GBP65.4m in the first half of last year. Adjusted pre-tax profits at the engineering support services group came in at GBP1m, down from GBP3.3m. The main driver of was the termination of a major contract with Vivergo Fuels. That was negative. From an investment point of view, however, the more pertinent point is uncertainty caused by Redhall’s continuing process to recover the costs of GBP14.6m from before the termination. Sell, says the Independent.

The B&Q-owner Kingfisher enjoyed a sharp rise in profits in its first quarter, boosted by warm weather in its major markets, a later Easter and a glut of bank holidays in the UK. However, the company, which has 860 stores in eight countries including France, Turkey and Poland, warned that it expects this year to be a “tough” one for retailers, especially in the UK, which accounts for nearly half of group profits. Kingfisher’s shares trade on 12 times forward earnings, a slight premium to the sector. Its global scale will provide it with partial shelter from any UK economic storms. Buy, says the Independent.

Impax Asset Management, which has a couple of investment trusts in quoted companies and a couple for private equity. The quoted companies include Rotork, a long-time favourite of retail investors, and Ceres Power, the fuel cell business also much debated on bulletin boards. One for those utterly convinced that the environmental sector will continue to grow; not for doubters on green issues, says the Times. The Independent says Impax’s confidence that an increasing number of investors will look to alternative energy certainly appears to be well-placed in light of yesterday’s interim results. Confirmation of further growth should send the shares higher. Buy, says the Independent.

Johnson Matthey, originally in precious metals such as platinum and palladium, still refines and distributes these. But it also puts them into technologies that are used to reduce pollution, such as autocatalysts in cars and devices to cut emissions from power plants. Shares in Johnson Matthey, which through its exposure to car production, coal and gas use and power generation is heavily tied to further progress for the world economy, are on 15 times’ this year’s earnings and 13 times’ next. This can only be justified by a rosy outlook for industrial production, while recent macro-economic indicators have not been that positive. Hold, says the Times.

Goldman reiterates sell on Tate & Lyle, target price raised to 557p

Goldman reiterate conviction sell on Associated British Foods

The man who made £13m from Southern Cross believes that ministers should let the care home business fail and says that board directors must share blame for the company’s plight. In an interview with The Times, Philip Scott, who built the company into the biggest elderly care provider, also accused its new bosses of scaremongering. He said that directors, including Baroness Morgan of Huyton, the new head of Ofsted, who had been brought on to the board because she had been Tony Blair’s policy chief, were partly responsible for the decline, reports the Times.

http://www.investegate.co.uk/Article.aspx?id=201106030700137974H

Scotty swings into the red Date: Friday 03 Jun 2011 LONDON (ShareCast) - Shares of video equipment firm Scotty tanked 14% after it posted a pre-tax loss for the 17 months to 31 December 2011. The group reported a pre-tax loss of £2.4m after an exceptional impairment charge compared to a profit of £0.5m. Operating profit fell to £166,000 from £490,000 in 2009. Revenue slumped to £4.9m from £7.1m previously. Scotty said it has started a cost reduction programme with full cost savings expected to be realised in 2012. Chairman Ernst Wustinger commented, "Notwithstanding these results, our priorities for 2011 are to consolidate market position and improve profitability and working capital, which we plan to achieve through a programme of cost reduction." "The savings will take some months to come through, but we hope that our new structure will be complete by the end of 2011, enabling full cost savings to be realised in 2012." Net cash reduced to £228,000 from £267,000 in 2009. Scotty is not recommending a dividend payment.

Finish line in sight for News Corp's BSkyB takeover By Benjamin Chiou Date: Friday 03 Jun 2011 LONDON (ShareCast) - While the completion of the £7.8bn proposed bid for British Sky Broadcasting (BSkyB) may not come until July, Rupert Murdoch’s media conglomerate News Corp has taken one step nearer to closing the deal, after reports that regulators have “agreed in principle” to grant clearance. The controversial takeover has been hit with numerous delays since being first proposed last June, most recently surrounding issues with broadcasting regulator Ofcom and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport regarding the fate of Sky News. Regulators have been concerned about the level of media plurality the merger would have in the market, and spinning off BSkyB’s Sky News has been suggested as a ‘merger remedy’. Ministers are allegedly turning to external lawyers to review the remedy in order to avoid referring the matter to the Competition Commission (CC). Once this review has been seen by the culture secretary Jeremy Hunt, he is expected to grant clearance after a short consultation process. Hunt is not expected to pass on the matter to the CC, people close to the situation have said. Shares in BSkyB have edged higher on Friday.

RIT looking for the next BRIC Date: Friday 03 Jun 2011 LONDON (ShareCast) - The net asset value (NAV) per share of investment trust RIT Capital Partners hit a new high at the end of March, though it has eased back since the end of the trust's financial year. In the year to 31 March 2011, the trust's NAV per share appreciated by 9.3% to 1,289.4p from 1180.1p a year earlier. Over the same period, the MSCI World Index in Sterling, the most relevant benchmark, rose by 5.2% and the FTSE All-Share Index rose by 5.4%. Total net assets improved to £1,984m at the end of March from £1,815.7m the year before. As at May 20, NAV per share was 1,265.4p. Over the past five and 10 years the trust's returns stand at 31.2% and 166.2% as compared with MSCI World Index returns in Sterling of 8.2% and 11.1%. The level of public market exposure stayed broadly between 50% and 70% over the last financial year. The trust maintained above-average exposure to the commodity and related sectors as well as a significant exposure to emerging markets, in particular to sectors aimed at growing domestic demand within these economies. Recently, the trust has started to build modest exposure to what it calls "frontier markets" in an attempt get ahead of the sort of trend that saw investors clamour for exposure to the so called BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) countries. "The unquoted portfolio as a whole produced gains of a little over 15%. Notable disposals in the period under review included our holding in The Economist Newspaper which was sold for £24.7 million in December 2010," said company chairman, Lord Rothschild. The company paid £1.5m for the stake in 1988, since when it has banked dividends of £15.1m from the holding. On the subject of its own dividend payment, the board has proposed a final dividend of 4.0p.