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CHERKIZOVO GROUP ACQUIRES MOSSELPROM TO COMPLETE THE LARGEST TRANSACTION IN RUSSIA'S AGROINDUSTRIAL SECTOR Production capacity in the poultry segment is expected to increase by 25%* Production capacity in the pork segment is expected to increase by 11%† Moscow, Russia - May 16, 2011 - OJSC Cherkizovo Group (LSE: CHE) one of Russia's leading integrated and diversified meat producers announces that it has completed the transaction to acquire 100% of Mosselprom. Mosselprom is a large, diversified vertically-integrated agro-industrial holding company, and the transaction is fully consistent with Cherkizovo Group's strategy of dynamic development. The transaction has been approved by the Russian anti-monopoly authorities. The inclusion of this large producer into the Group brings one of the best known Russian brands to Cherkizovo's consumer portfolio, significantly increasing the scope of the Group's activities. The transaction will strengthen Cherkizovo's position in the high-margin Moscow region market and will also increase Cherkizovo's market share in Russia's poultry segment (in 2010 Cherkizovo Group had 7% of the market and Mosselprom had 2%)‡. Mosselprom is a multi-industrial agro holding, that comprises poultry production and feed production, as well as land cultivation and cropping.

http://www.investegate.co.uk/Article.aspx?id=201105161233306618G

Frontier Mining (FML:AIM 4.13p; Hi-Lo 9-3.63p) Subject of an in-house note this week, this Kazakh and Russian-focused gold and copper exploration and development company has received official approval and registration of a Russian Compliant Resource Estimate on the Maminskoye Gold Deposit located on the Southern Ural Metallogenic Belt in Russia. The near 1.0 million ounce Maminskoye Gold Deposit is the most explored of the three known deposits within the Maminskoye Exploration Licence Area, and represents 8% of the total licence. The deposit has a surface footprint of 300m wide, 650m long and is known to a depth of over 250m, with significant upside potential to expand the resource. Approval by the GKZ, the Russian State Commission on Mineral Reserves, is a formality which mineral explorers within Russia have to obtain as they move up the value curve. Under the Soviet system all minerals were owned by the State, a concept which continues to this day in modern Russia. As such these contributed to the “National Raw Material Balance” as a “Balance” of reserves of all minerals, with the terms reserves and resources interchangeable unlike the western reporting systems. The National Raw Material Balance was used to compute the National Net Worth of the State. As mining companies reduced this balance during their operational life there was a burden on the miner to restore the “National Raw Material Balance” in the form of a mining royalty. Thus the Russian system is more conservative it’s prescriptive calculation of resources than the subjective western systems which establish analogies with comparable type deposits. We view the GKZ approval as significant progress for Frontier Mining at the Maminskoye Gold Deposit as authorisation will be followed by conversion to a JORC resource in 2011 and a BFS in 2012 on this now mine ready gold resource.

The Russian economy is tied to the performance of commodities because the country has significant reserves of gas, oil, gold, diamonds and other commodities, explains the Questor team at the Sunday Telegraph. It is because of this that, “its economy was hit hard by the commodities rout of 2008”. Questor then goes on to say that it, “does not expect basic materials prices to slump much further and believes this is a good buying opportunity for the Russian market. (…) Of course, there are many risk factors associated with doing business in Russia. (…) However, its commodity wealth means it has impressive prospects, despite the governance issues in the country. JP Morgan Russian Securities is an investment trust investing in Russian equities. (…)The shares were first recommended on January 2 last year at 470½p and they are up 35pc, compared with the FTSE 100 up 7pc”. Questor says Buy.

The London Stock Exchange is facing a rival for its proposed £4billion merger with its Toronto counterpart. Maple Group, a collection of Canadian pension funds and banks has made a £1.8billion cash and shares proposal for the TMX Group in an attempt to keep the owner of the Toronto stock exchange in the country, reports the Daily Express.

Randeep Grewal, Chairman, CEO and Founder, commented: "We were clear with Sinoenergy on the required reorganization of the corporate entity to give us comfort in converting the investment into an equity relationship which was not accomplished timely as required. The Company has been repaid in full plus interest with a 13% return and acquired the CNG stations in Henan which are synergistic to our own gas production. We are very pleased with this outcome and wish Sinoenergy continued success in their business." "Green Dragon Gas has a clear vision and strategy to build a significant China CBM upstream business complemented by a substantial gas distribution network supported by proprietary technology. We are committed to executing this strategy with a disciplined capital approach. The opportunities that exist to add business units to complement the Company's first mover advantage in monetising its upstream assets remain paramount to the Company. We are currently conducting due diligence on such an opportunity."

Capital Discipline Results in Sinoenergy Divestment Green Dragon Gas Ltd. (AIM: GDG), one of the largest independent companies involved in the production of CBM gas and the distribution and sale of wholesale gas in China, announces that it has acquired Pingdingshan Sinoenergy Gas Co Ltd ("PSG") and has concurrently been repaid its investment in Sinoenergy Corporation ("Sinoenergy") having elected not to proceed with this acquisition. The investment of US$34.7 million in Sinoenergy was announced in October last year and required the completion of a corporate reorganisation of Sinoenergy prior to completion. However the required reorganization failed to complete and Green Dragon elected to divest its interest. Under the terms of the divestment Green Dragon has been repaid a total of US$37.9 million (including US$ 2.8 million in interest), representing a 13% return (annualised) on capital. As part of this transaction, Green Dragon has acquired PSG, a subsidiary of Sinoenergy, which owns and operates two CNG retail stations strategically located in Henan. These CNG retail stations synergistically get their gas supply from Green Dragon's Midstream Distribution station in Zhengzhou.

http://www.investegate.co.uk/Article.aspx?id=201105161102416535G

Markets remain challenging at RM Date: Monday 16 May 2011 LONDON (ShareCast) - Education IT services provider RM swung to a pre-tax loss and said UK and US markets remain challenging amid ongoing spending cuts. Budget cuts in the UK and US has hurt demand for its services while trading conditions continue to be very challenging, RM explained. For the six months ended 31 March 2011 adjusted loss before tax of £1.4m compared to a profit of £1.2m in 2010. Restructuring charges increased to £1.8m from £0.8m the year before. Revenue for the half year fell 15% to £133m. Commenting on the results chief executive Terry Sweeney said, "We experienced challenging market conditions in our core markets in the first half, as customers continued to respond to changes in policy and funding in both the UK and the US." "We have realigned our cost base through a restructuring programme to reflect the changed conditions and to protect group profitability." RM said it continues to attract new business and win major contracts. Forward committed revenues rose 12% to £436m at 31 March 2011. The interim dividend rose by 6% to 1.47p.

http://www.investegate.co.uk/Article.aspx?id=201105160700106162G

http://www.investegate.co.uk/Article.aspx?id=201105160700106193G

Phoenix Group on course for 2011 Date: Monday 16 May 2011 LONDON (ShareCast) - Phoenix Group, the closed life funds insurance group formerly known as Pearl Group, said it remains confident that it will be successful in delivering all of its 2011 financial targets. The group said it has delivered over £300m of operating cashflows in the four months to end April 2011 and is on track to meet a £750-850m target for operating cash generation in 2011. Chief executive Clive Bannister commented, "I am confident that we will continue to deliver throughout the rest of 2011 and meet the challenging targets we set for the year." Assets under management slipped to £67bn at March 31 2011 from £67.5bn a year earlier.

Moscow improvement cheers ITE Date: Monday 16 May 2011 LONDON (ShareCast) - Exhibitions organiser ITE said it is now operating in a ‘business as usual’ environment in its main market Moscow after recovering from the global economic downturn. In the six months to 31 March, headline pre-tax profits climbed to £9.1m from £6.4m over the same period the previous year on revenues that were up to £53m from £39.2m. “ITE has delivered a good performance during the first half of the year as the recovery seen last year turned to sustained growth in our core markets,” ITE chief executive Russell Taylor said. “This momentum has been complemented by the initial contribution from the recently acquired businesses as well as the organic development of our exhibition portfolio.” During the period ITE acquired Moscow exhibitions business MVK and southern Russia exhibitions group Krasnodar Expo. “The first half of the financial year has seen the group benefit from continually improving trading conditions, most notably in Moscow, the group's largest market, which is now clearly operating in a 'business as usual' environment,” ITE said. “Elsewhere, the group's markets continue to recover, albeit more slowly, from the global recession of 2009/2010 and all are now showing signs of continual improvement.” Trading in April was ahead of expectations, ITE said. “With good trading conditions in its markets allied with their longer term prospects for further development the board has confidence in ITE's future prospects,” it added.

Wood Group buy back set at 605p - 625p Date: Monday 16 May 2011 LONDON (ShareCast) - Oilfield services group Wood Group is to return £1.05bn to shareholders by way of a tender offer to repurchase up to 173.6m Wood shares, equivalent to 32.1% of the issued ordinary share capital of the group. The company flagged its intention to shower shareholders with cash back in February after it agreed to sell its Well Support division to US giant GE for $2.8bn cash. Shareholders wishing to sell their shares back to Wood Group may do so by choosing a sale price of between 605p and 625p inclusive. The strike price range represents a discount of 6.1% to 3.0% to the closing price of Wood shares on 13 May, the last trading day before the announcement of the tender offer. Closing time and date for the tender offer is 3:00pm on 1 June. Once all the tenders are in, a strike price will be set and qualifying shares will have their shares repurchased. Should the strike price be set at the lowest point of the range then shareholders have a guaranteed entitlement in respect of up to 32.1% (roughly) of their Wood shares. “Following the return of cash, our balance sheet will continue to provide a strong platform for growth," said Allister Langlands, chief executive of Wood Group.

Cranswick brings home the bacon Date: Monday 16 May 2011 LONDON (ShareCast) - Pork sausages maker Cranswick enjoyed a record year of sales and profitability, despite sales growth petering out in the first quarter of 2011. Underlying sales in the year to to 31/3/11 were up 4% from the previous year at £758m, on volumes that were 6% higher. Sales in the group's final quarter, however, were flat, year on year. Bacon sales rose by 17% while sausage sales were up 7% year on year. Pre-tax profit rose 8% to £47.1m from £43.8m the year before, while earnings per share climbed 7% to 74.5p from 69.7p. Net debt during the course of the reporting period came down by £6.5m to £48.3m. The company has appointed Adam Crouch, currently manager director of the group's Fresh Pork division, as chief operating officer. “Record levels of sales and profitability have been achieved and substantial investment has been made in the asset base to improve efficiency and to provide the capacity for continued growth. That said, the difficulties facing the UK consumer, along with rising raw material prices and the dynamics of the competitive market in which the company operates suggests that the year to 31 March 2012 may be more demanding than usual,” said chairman, Martin Davey. “However, the board anticipates that with the company's well invested asset base, strong range of products, experienced management team and robust financial position it is well positioned to continue the successful long-term development of the company,” Davey added. A final dividend of 18.7p has been recommended, a 10% increase on the previous year. The full year dividend, at 27.5p, is also 10% up on the previous year's payment.

LSE still keen on TMX merger Date: Monday 16 May 2011 LONDON (ShareCast) - London Stock Exchange says it remains committed to its proposed merger with its Canadian counterpart TMX despite learning that TMX has received an approach from Maple, a consortium of Canadian financial institutions and pension funds. “The proposal from Maple is not a formal offer for TMX and accordingly there is no certainty that such an offer will be forthcoming,” LSE said. “LSEG remains committed to its recommended merger with TMX on the terms set out in the announcements made on 9 February 2011.” LSE said the merger would offer financial, strategic and operational benefits for shareholders. “The outward-looking, highly international transatlantic group, jointly headquartered in London and Toronto, will be a global leader in capital formation, liquidity and exchange technology,” LSE said. “The all-exchange merger is expected to have a direct positive impact on Canada, the UK and Italy, enhancing the position of each country amongst the global business community and driving economic growth.” The Maple proposal may be more popular in Canada, where some are unhappy about their exchange falling into the hands of a foreign company.

Positive news regarding issuance as far as LSE is concerned will have removed a certain sinking feeling bulls of the stock may have had in the recent past. It would appear that we have a rebound off the floor of a falling price channel (well above the black 200 day moving average at 787p.) While there is no end of day close back below the bottom of today’s gap higher at 829p the upside for the stock should be towards February / March resistance well above 900p. So reckons Zak Mir

African Barrick Gold plc Reduced Capacity at Buzwagi Process Plant due to SAG Mill Motor Failure Short-Term Production Loss - Minimal Full Year Impact Following a power outage and attempted plant restart at the Buzwagi mine, there was a malfunction in the SAG mill motor. As part of our critical spares programme, we have a replacement motor available and preparations are being made for its installation following removal of the existing motor. The current estimate is that this will take up to two weeks given the scale of the unit being replaced and the need for specialist equipment to remove and install the motors. During this time the plant will run at reduced capacity. We estimate that the production impact in the current quarter will be approximately 10,000 ounces of gold, but we would expect to recover most of this over the second half of the year. As such, our full year production expectations for Buzwagi remain unchanged. We are implementing a range of measures to mitigate the impact of this incident on the overall mining schedule while engineers and technicians are investigating the causes of the failure and assessing damage to the motor. We will continue to work with the state power utility TANESCO in order to seek to improve the quality and reliability of the power supply to Buzwagi in order to help prevent issues of this nature and improve the performance and throughput of the process plant. As previously communicated, we are also installing 6MW of back-up spinning diesel power which is on target to be completed by the end of July.

uwin - absolutely - ABG the ultimate swinger

The bluff here as far as the daily chart of African Barrick is concerned is that whatever level gold goes to, this stock does its own thing, which currently means coming back towards 500p on a regular basis. The view now is that while there is no end of day close back below the intraday low of May so far at 490p we can expect a bounce back towards the blue 50 day moving average at 531p as a minimum over the next couple of weeks. So says Zak Mir !