De La Rue (LON:DLAR) may, literally, have a licence to print money, but it is feeling the heat of competition.
The shares tumbled this morning after the preliminary results revealed a dive in underlying profit before tax to £57.7mln from £77.3mln the year before, and a drastic cut to the full-year dividend to 25p from 42.3p.
New chief executive Martin Sutherland said the results were in line with the company's revised expectations and revealed he has completed a review of the business and formulated a strategic plan.
The Irish government has given its blessing to British Airways owner IAG's (LON:IAG) plans to take over Irish flag carrier Aer Lingus (LON:AER) so IAG has formally launched a bid.
The Irish airline's board is recommending acceptance of IAG's offer, which is €2.50 per share in cash, plus Aer Lingus shareholders get to keep the recently announced five cent dividend.
The terms value Aer Lingus at €1.4bn or thereabouts, and the major doubt over the success of the bid is whether major shareholder Ryanair (LON:RYA) - by no means a friendly rival to IAG - will accept those terms.
In the mid-cap space, trading updates from tool hire firm HSS (LON:HSS) and Scottish stockbroker Brewin Dolphin (LON:BRW) have disappointed.
HSS Hire Group said adjusted underlying earnings (EBITDA) in the first quarter of the year was up 9.2% to £15.4mln from £14.1mln in the first quarter of 2014, but adjusted EBITDA in the core business was off 6.4%.
Brewin Dolphin said discretionary funds under management at the end of March stood at £26.2bn, up from £24bn at the end of 2014.
Adjusted profit before tax in the first half of the firm's financial year rose to £33mln from £30.4mln the year before, but investors were perturbed by a 17% fall in commission income because of lower trading volumes.
Moving on to the small-caps, Edenville Energy (LON:EDL) has cheered shareholders with its update on the Rukwa coal project in southern Tanzania.
The splendidly-named Shandong Electric Power Construction No.2 Company has confirmed it will be carrying out a site visit to the coal project in July to further evaluate partnership opportunities with Edenville.