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Last updated: 20:14 19 Jan 2015 AEDT, First published: 21:14 19 Jan 2015 AEDT

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Christmas was all sweetness and light for cakes group Finsbury Food and chocolatier Thorntons.

Investors were tucking into Finsbury Food’s (LON:FIF) shares as the group revealed sales in the half-year to 27 December rose 24% to £107.6mln from the corresponding period of last year.

Quite a lot of that sales improvement was down to the Fletchers acquisition, completed at the end of October, which chipped in with £16mln of revenue.

On a like-for-like basis, group sales rose 5.6% year-on-year.

The turnaround story at luxury chocolates maker Thorntons (LON:THT) has shown signs of faltering recently, as the company gets caught in the crossfire of the supermarket wars, but its own High Street outlets had a good Christmas.

The Retail division experienced strong like-for-like sales growth of 5.0% for the 14 weeks to 10 January as shopper demand for Thorntons' inlaid boxes, seasonal specialities and advent calendars all contributed to an encouraging festive season, culminating in a 7.8% increase in like-for-like sales in the 24 days before Christmas Day.

Another company getting a lift after a bad run is contractor Balfour Beatty (LON:BBY), which been appointed as the sole contractor to a new UK-wide civil engineering and infrastructure framework for public works.

The framework is valued at up to £1.5 billion, runs until February 2019 and individual projects are expected to be valued at up to £40 million.

Meanwhile, another infrastructure specialist, John Laing Group, has announced its intention to float on the UK stock exchange.

Gross proceeds from the primary offering of around £130 million will be used to fund new investment commitments and for general corporate purposes.

The flotation on the premium segment of the Official List will offer Henderson Infrastructure to reduce its current holding in the company.

TV viewers of a certain vintage might remember Portmeirion as the location for the Patrick McGoohan’s ground breaking if often baffling “The Prisoner” series, but it is also, of course, the name of an AIM-listed crockery maker.

Portmeirion (LON:PMP) enjoyed strong trading in the final quarter of 2014 and expects full-year profits will be in line with expectations. Smashing …

Demand for the products it makes in its UK factory has been strong enough for the board to sanction the investment of some £1.5 million in a new kiln and other equipment to increase capacity of the UK factory by over 50%.

A couple of tiddlers have caught the eye this morning with announcements that have provoked dramatic share price movements.

Shares in Tangiers Petroleum (LON:TPET) surged almost 60% after an independent resource report underlined the huge unconventional oil potential of its Project Icewine acreage on Alaska’s North Slope.

The shares are a little off the top now, but are still in the top three of biggest rises on the day.

Amphion Innovations (LON:AMP) is up 14% after associate company Motif BioSciences agreed the acquisition of a new clinical treatment for MRSA and other drug-resistant bacteria as it gears up to list on AIM.

Antibody specialist Motif is 32% owned by intellectual property group Amphion Innovations.

Once it completes its initial public offering (IPO), Motif will merge with the private company that owns the intellectual property and world-wide rights to the clinical stage antibiotic.

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