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Market movers: AFC Energy, Aveva, easyJet, Huntsworth, Magnolia Petroleum, Oilex, Quiindell ...

Published: 18:18 14 Jul 2014 AEST

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Footsie has opened higher, boosted by a bit of good old fashioned mergers & acquisitions activity.

US drugs firm AbbVie’s pursuit of Irish peer Shire (LON:SHP) is entering the final stages after Shire’s board indicated it would accept the latest revised offer, which has an indicative value of 5,320p per Shire share.

The recommendation is still subject to satisfactory resolution of the other terms of the offer, and the two boards are now engaged in talks to thrash out the details of a merger that would see Shire shareholders own a quarter of the enlarged company.

Shire surges to the top of the Footsie leader board but are still below the indicative offer price, at 4,990p, up 2.5%.

Rolls-Royce (LON:RR.) runs Shire a close second in the Footsie stakes, rising 2.0% after it was revealed Airbus has selected the company’s new Trent 7000 as the exclusive engine for the new Airbus A330neo.

In other news from the Farnborough air show, easyJet (LON:EZJ) has selected CFM International as its engine supplier to provide 270 engines to power its firm order of 35 Airbus current generation A320 aircraft. The no-frills airline’s shares are up 0.3%, slightly less than the FTSE 100’s 0.4% rise; the top-share index is up 29 at 6,720.

Among the mid-caps, AVEVA (LON:AVV) is cold-shouldered after its interim management statement. The provider of engineering data and design information technology systems said the second half bias in rental renewals is likely to be even more pronounced this year, which is management’s way of warning that the first half performance will be mundane. The company’s results continue to be affected by exchange rate movements.

In the small caps space, public relations group Huntsworth (LON:HNT) loses almost a fifth of its value after a profit warning.

Sector peer Mission Marketing (LONTMMG) is also under the cosh, shedding 6.1%, even though management said first half trading had been in line with expectations.

Also down 6.1% is Tangiers Petroleum (LON:TPET) and, as with Mission, the reason for this is not immediately apparent from its anodyne operational update, which revealed that no major operational issues have occurred to date on the drilling of the TAO-1 exploration well located off the coast of Morocco.

Message board favourite Quindell (LON:QPP) rises 13% after a trading update and the appointment of another non-xecutive director.

Fuel cell developer AFC Energy (LON:AFC) is wanted after it signed a memorandum of understanding with South Korea’s firm Chang Shin Chemical. South Korea is one of the world’s biggest markets for alternative fuel systems and one that AFC has been targeting; the deal with Chang Shin represents the first significant breakthrough into the South Korean market to produce clean energy for grid supply.

AFC shares power up 10.6% on the news.

Two oil & gas companies are wanted after operational updates. Magnolia Petroleum (LON:MAGP) climbs 4.8% after an upbeat second quarter report, while Oilex (LON:OEX) jumps 8.7% after it said its 77-H test well, in the Cambay field, India, exhibited strong unaided flow back and clean-up characteristics after plug milling operations were completed.

Australian Strategic Materials signs US$600 million LoI

Rowena Smith, CEO and managing director of Australian Strategic Materials Ltd (ASX:ASM, OTC:ASMMF), joins Jonathan Jackson in the Proactive studio to discuss the company’ s Dubbo Project, in Central West New South Wales. This project aims to extract and process critical minerals and rare earth...

8 hours, 37 minutes ago