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Shore Capital reiterated its "buy" recommendation for NCC Group (NCC) ahead of the IT security firm's trading update due Thursday 18th October. The broker expects the firm to have had a busy summer period, with demand driven by increasing security threats for both the private and public sectors. Shore forecasts organic growth of 7% for the firm's escrow business, while noting that the assurance division will have been boosted by two acquisitions for a total consideration of 7.6 million pounds.

Oriel Securities upgraded its stance on Air Partner (AIP) from "hold" to "buy", citing an undemanding prospective earnings multiple of 12 times for 2013 and an attractive dividend yield of 7%. The air charter company successfully reduced its cost base by £0.9 million and the broker believes that the firm's new focus on the private jet broking market will help drive growth. Oriel noted that the group achieved sales growth of 67% last year in the UK private jet sector, with the number of clients rising by 32%.

More consternation today then? coverage of last link The reputation of Nat Rothschild was in tatters last night after the billionaire financier resigned as a non-executive director of the Indonesian coal miner he floated in London. In his resignation letter, Mr Rothschild said he had been forced to quit Bumi plc because his Indonesian partners, the Bakrie family, were “abusing” and “oppressing” minority investors. Mr Rothschild had lent his name and his money to the task of bringing the FTSE 250-listed miner to the London stock market in 2010, promising to impose Western standards of corporate governance and to protect minority shareholders’ interests. “It is a matter of great regret for me that I was a party, with our advisers, to bringing the Bakries to London,” he wrote, according to The Telegraph.

Current Trading and Outlook Our Managed estate continues to perform well and like for like sales were up by 4.8% in the first four weeks of the new financial year. Our Leased estate has started the year in line with expectations with like for like net turnover down by 1.8% in the first four weeks and, with rent rebasing impacting the comparatives, like for like net income down by 4.8%. Looking ahead, we expect the consumer environment to remain tough but stable. While general cost pressures are easing slightly the tax burden on our input costs continues to be a headwind, primarily through the beer duty escalator and the expected impact of the CRC Energy Efficiency scheme. Despite these challenges we believe that the continuation of our strategy to deliver retail excellence throughout our business will allow us to make further progress in the year ahead.

Mike Tye, Chief Executive Officer, commented: "I am delighted with the progress we have made during our first year as an independent business. Profit before tax is up 16%, earnings per share are up 21% and we have commenced the payment of dividends. We have delivered further strong growth in Managed sales through continued investment in our brands, estate, infrastructure and people while cost control has been robust in the face of inflationary pressures, enabling continued expansion of Managed margin. Our Leased pubs have performed in line with our expectations this year and we have now laid the foundations from which to drive performance improvement. The consumer environment remains tough but our ongoing focus on delivering retail excellence sees us well placed to make further progress in the year ahead."

Managed · Like for like sales up 4.8%, continuing to outperform the market2 · EBITDAR1 margin up 120 basis points · EBITDA1 up 11% at £109m · Operating profit1 up 13% at £73m Leased · Like for like net income down 4.9% · EBITDA1 of £38m (2011: £42m)

Group Financial Performance · EBITDA1 up 5% to £146m (2011: £140m) · Profit before tax1 up 16% to £51m (2011: £44m) · Earnings per share1 up 21% at 5.8p (2011: 4.8p) · Dividend per share of 1.95p (2011: nil) · Net cash outflow of £42m, used to repurchase £28m of bonds and extend the capital expenditure programme due to continued strong returns · Nominal value of net debt at £710m (2011: £704m): net debt to EBITDA ratio of 4.9 times (2011: 5.0 times) · Significant headroom on DSCR3 covenant Statutory Results (including exceptional items) · EBITDA of £151m (2011: £118m) · Loss before tax of £589m (2011: loss of £207m) including £595m non cash charge (2011: £nil) relating to the revaluation of the property portfolio · Net exceptional pre-tax costs of £640m (2011: £251m) · Basic loss per share of 85.4p (2011: loss of 22.7p)

Announcement of Annual Results for the 52 weeks to 18 August 2012 A successful first year for the new Spirit business Highlights · Strong earnings growth · Continued market outperformance and margin expansion in Managed · Foundations in place to drive performance improvement in Leased · Proposed final dividend of 1.30p per share

http://www.investegate.co.uk/Article.aspx?id=201210160700057467O

Darren Shapland, Chief Executive, said: "We are pleased to report like-for-like sales growth in the UK. Excluding the expected contraction in sales from the wholesale business (note 4), our core UK retail business would have reported like-for-like sales growth of 2.4% for the period. Whilst the underlying floor coverings market remains volatile, our self-help actions such as the development of our bed proposition, extension of our laminate range to more stores and the impact of our store refurbishment programme, continue to deliver positive results. "Gross margin for the period continued to improve in line with our previously announced expectations and our guidance of a full year gross margin improvement in the range of 200-250 basis points above the prior year, remains unchanged. The majority of this margin improvement will be realised in the first half, as we annualise the margin improvement measures implemented in the second half of last year (note 5). "The key driver in the performance of the Rest of Europe continues to be the deterioration of consumer confidence in the Netherlands, where the floor coverings market remains very weak. "The Group result for the year to date is in line with management's expectations and, our view for the year as a whole remains unchanged."

Pre-close trading update Carpetright plc, Europe's leading specialist carpet and floor coverings retailer, today announces a trading update for the 12 weeks ended 13 October 2012. Highlights · The Group result for the year to date is in line with management's expectations. · UK o Like-for-like sales (note 2) in the UK increased by 0.6%. Total sales in the UK declined by 0.6% due to the reduction in the number of stores year on year. o Store base decreased by two during the period to 484, of which 82(note 3) have now been refurbished. · Rest of Europe o In local currency terms, like-for-like sales in the Rest of Europe (Netherlands, Belgium and the Republic of Ireland) decreased by 12.7%. Total sales declined by 12.2%. o Store base decreased by two to 141, expanded the bed trial to two stores in the Netherlands.

http://www.investegate.co.uk/Article.aspx?id=201210160700047434O

JKX Chief Executive, Dr Paul Davies, said: "We are encouraged by the progress made on the three producing wells at our Russian gas plant and we remain on course to reach plant capacity of 40 MMcfd in the first half of 2013. Preparations for the Rudenkovskoye multi-frac project in Ukraine next spring are on-schedule with results of the initial injectivity test expected next month. "We are achieving strong oil, gas and LPG realisations in Ukraine and are beginning to see an improving revenue stream from our Russian development. We anticipate average daily production in the fourth quarter to reach 10,000 boepd."

Highlights · Good progress in increasing Russian gas production with current rates in excess of 50% of plant capacity (40 MMcfd) · Award of Rudenkovskoye multi-stage frac contract with preparatory work ongoing for project execution in spring 2013 · 3D seismic acquisition underway in Zaplavskoye exploration licence in Ukraine following well Z-04 exploration success · Commencement of stand-alone development of Elizavetovskoye licence in Ukraine with production planned for the second half of 2013.

http://www.investegate.co.uk/Article.aspx?id=201210160700047461O

Further to previous announcements, the Boards of Sportingbet plc ("Sportingbet"), William Hill plc ("William Hill") and GVC Holdings plc ("GVC Holdings") have reached agreement regarding a revised, increased proposal (the "Increased Proposal") to acquire the entire issued and to be issued share capital of Sportingbet. The Increased Proposal values each Sportingbet share at 61.1 pence per share, including the recently announced proposed final dividend of 1.1 pence per share, based on a closing middle-market GVC Holdings share price of 233.5 pence on 15 October 2012. The Increased Proposal comprises 48.9 pence in cash, 1.1 pence dividend in cash and 0.0475 new GVC Holdings shares per Sportingbet share. The Increased Proposal implies a fully diluted equity valuation (including the Sportingbet Convertible Bonds due 2016 and existing options and LTIP in accordance with Rule 15 of the Code) for Sportingbet of approximately £530 million.

http://www.investegate.co.uk/Article.aspx?id=201210160700077674O

One positive impact of the tough market environment is that price expectations for assets, even high quality digital subscription businesses, have eased. We are well placed, both strategically and financially, to capitalise on this trend through selective bolt-on acquisitions. While these are likely to continue to be relatively small-scale, the pipeline is healthy, as illustrated by the recent successful acquisitions of Primal Pictures and Zephyr Associates. Events and Training: The Summer period is typically quiet for our Events businesses with few large events scheduled, while delegate sales across smaller conferences are also muted by the holiday period. We have seen no change in this type of seasonality and this year there has also been a particularly high number of events that have moved between quarters, distorting organic growth figures. This includes the Broadband World Forum, Cityscape Global/Saudi Arabia, TOC Middle East and a number of Agra Events. Offsetting some of this effect, we successfully ran our Brazilian biennial show Formobile in July, although the scale of this single show does not fully compensate other movements. Organic growth across the Events & Training division was -2.6% after nine months. If we adjust for biennials and the other timing differences outlined above, the nine month like-for-like growth rate would have been broadly similar to the H1 organic run rate. With the benefit of a number of key events moving into Q4, we are anticipating positive organic growth across the division through the final quarter of the year. Within the Events business, small conferences remain tough, particularly in Europe, and we continue to actively manage down volume in areas where demand is limited. By contrast, large events continue to grow healthily, at similar rates to peers and with strong rebookings for 2013. This provides us with confidence that our strategy to cut back on small conferences and redirect our efforts into large-scale events is the right one and we remain very active on this front, both via geo-cloning activity and acquisitions. Corporate training remains weak, reflecting a broad lack of corporate confidence, particularly in the US, where the Presidential election is further discouraging companies from committing to new projects in the short-term. Earlier this year we successfully disposed of Robbins Gioia, our government training business, reducing our exposure in this area. The recent strengthening of Sterling against the US Dollar and the Euro is unhelpful to Informa's reported financials reflecting the high proportion of its earnings that are generated overseas: approximately 46% of group sales are in US Dollars or other currencies that are closely aligned with the US Dollar. A one cent movement on the average full year £:$ exchange rate impacts group adjusted operating profit by circa £1.4m and EPS by 0.20p. Our exposure to the Euro is lower.

The visibility and resilience of Informa's cashflow remains very strong and we view this as a key attraction of the business. We are on track to report another year of 100% cash conversion which should leave our leverage ratio well within our target range of 2.0 to 2.5x net debt to EBITDA, even after recent bolt-on activity. Academic Information: We continued to trade broadly as expected through the Summer months with revenue growth for the division after nine months at +5.5%. Like-for-like revenue growth over the same period was +2.2%, the easing in growth rate since H1 as anticipated, reflecting the tough comparable for the division through H2 after its success in securing a number of significant 'one-off' content access deals in 2011. Looking forward, the Academic subscription season is just underway. While budgets in developed markets remain relatively tight, this is not the case in other geographies where demand for our content continues to grow strongly, underpinning the overall resilience of this business. Our investments in product development and our new online platform, which has been warmly welcomed by our customer base, also continue to reap benefits. As a result, we anticipate Q4 organic growth close to the nine month run-rate, and full-year margins to be broadly similar to 2011. Professional and Commercial Information: The revenue performance at PCI continues to be impacted by a number of factors, including deliberate management action to exit lower quality revenue streams, but also a tough market backdrop. Renewal cycles for some products, notably in the Pharmaceutical sector, remain longer than they have been historically and new sales difficult to secure. Nine-month organic revenue growth across PCI was -4.7%. As previously indicated, about two-thirds of this decline reflects pro-active pruning of lower quality revenue streams such as advertising products, one-off reports and consulting. This action has taken a little longer than expected to implement but is now largely complete, leaving a much higher quality, robust portfolio as we head into the 2013 financial year. Against this backdrop, management continues to manage costs tightly, ensuring any bottom line impact is limited. Consequently, we continue to expect healthy profit growth across PCI in 2012. Q4 trends should also be helped by the early impact of new product launches, notably within Informa Healthcare. We are particularly excited by the development of our Chinese medical product, which will offer exclusive access to valuable local medical records data.

Peter Rigby, Chief Executive said: "We continue to actively manage our portfolio to improve the underlying quality of group earnings, with recent bolt-on acquisitions such as Zephyr bolstering our digital subscription base further and MMPI in Canada expanding our portfolio of large-scale B2B exhibitions. Equally, we have a history of disposing of assets or exiting lower quality revenue streams where the structural growth profile is weak and this remains a key focus, with management continually re-assessing the potential future returns from our asset base. The quality of our content and brands puts us in a strong position even in what remains a lacklustre macro environment, whilst our bias to subscription revenues affords Informa great visibility and cashflow strength. In combination with an experienced management team, resolutely focused on cost efficiency, this is enabling us to deliver healthy profit growth despite the tough backdrop and we remain confident of meeting our expectations for the full year."