logo-loader

Most followed: Energy companies, Costain, Assura, Quindell, Office2office

Published: 21:19 21 Aug 2014 AEST

power_cable_350_53f5d89f9edd9

The utility companies are getting in the neck again from the Labour party, which is threatening to throw the book at the industry’s habitual rule-breakers.

The party unveiled plans to give an energy industry regulator power to remove operating licences from suppliers should they be found repeatedly guilty of breaking rules in a way that hurt consumers’ interests.

Labour said the misdemeanours in its sights include opaque tariff arrangements that tempt customers into signing up for deals that are more expensive than their existing tariff plan, plus transgressions such as billing inaccuracies.

The broadside follows Labour’s plan to crack down on energy companies’ profits, which went down well with the electorate.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the energy coin, claims by a leading oil industry figure that the Scottish government has been way too optimistic about North Sea oil recovery levels are adding fuel to the Scottish independence debate.

Sir Ian Wood, who recently headed a major oil industry review, reckons there are about 15bn to 16.5bn barrels of recoverable oil in the North Sea, in contrast to an estimate of 24bn in a White Paper issued by the Scottish government.

Away from the resource sector, the agreed takeover of Office2office (LON:OFF) by Evo Business Supplies has catapulted Office2office to the top of the charts.

The shares are up almost 75% to 48.25p, a few pence below the 51p cash offer from Evo, a newly incorporated company that is backed by private company Endless LLP.

An acquisition by primary care property investor Assura Group (LON:AGR) has also attracted a lot of interest, but not had anything like the same sort of dramatic effect on the share price.

The shares are down a tad after the company announced the acquisition of the freehold of Leyland Medical Centre in Bradford for £2.6mln.

The property benefits from a passing rent of £162,000 and is let to the GP partners and Lloyds Pharmacy Limited, each on new 25 year lease terms.

In addition Assura has contracted to forward fund a new 1,200 sq. metre medical centre to be built in Danbury, Essex for £3.2 million including costs. The property benefits from an agreement for lease with the GPs for 20 years, and was approved by the NHS prior to the changes to the primary care regime in April 2013.

There are no FTSE 100 companies releasing results today, and while the likes of FTSE 250 constituents Phoenix Group, Premier Oil, Kazakhmys and WH Smith have reported, it is small cap Costain (LON:COST) that is trending on the news section of a well-known search engine.

The Pink ‘Un (the FT) leads with the group’s record order book, which is up to £3.2bn while others focus on the half-year rise in profits.

The message boards do not normally need news flow to generate comment and speculation about Quindell (LON:QPP), the insurance claims outsourcing specialist, so the release of interims today has resulted in a frenzy of activity on the forums.

Brokers are also pitching in with comment, with Cenkos, for instance, opining that the half-year results confirmed the progress across both the outsourcing and solutions businesses.

“Importantly, management highlight the high level of cash collection during the period and have reaffirmed their H2 cash in-flow guidance of £30-40m.“

Canaccord also said cash was the key metric.

“For the market to seriously consider these numbers, we believe Quindell will need to deliver on its quarterly cash forecasts for FY14E.

On the trading screens, state-controlled lender Lloyds Banking is the most actively traded stock, followed by drugs leviathan AstraZeneca and mining giant BHP Billiton.

In terms of the aggregate value of shares changing hands, power systems developer Rolls-Royce is king of the castle, followed by Astra and BHP.

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...

11 hours, 27 minutes ago