Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust PLC (LON:SMT) has slumped today as most of the US’s big tech stocks took a battering on Wall Street.
Amazon Inc (NASDAQ:AMZN), Netflix Inc (NASDAQ:NFLX) and Illumina Inc (NASDAQ:ILMN) are three of Scottish Mortgage’s biggest holdings and were particularly badly hit during Tuesday’s global equities sell-off.
It also has sizeable stakes in Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB), Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (NYSE:BABA) and Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOGL).
That has helped it to ride the tech wave over the past year or so, but investors have been dumping them recently. The investment trust’s shares dropped 6.1% to 453.8p on Tuesday afternoon.
Urals Energy warns it could go bust
Russian oil company Urals Energy (LON:UEN) is to conduct a short-term capital review after an unauthorised US$1.5mln loan made with its funds left it short of working capital, sending its shares plummeting.
The oil explorer and producer is bringing in an independent firm of accountants to conduct a working capital review and a review of any transactions by its subsidiary, JSC Petrosakh, that are outside of the ordinary course of business.
In a recent update to an October 10 statement, AIM-quoted Urals said Sergey Kononov, president of JSC Petrosakh, made the loan to an employee of JSC Petrosakh. The board said repayment of the loan, among other actions, will restore its “significantly constrained” current working capital position.
Urals warned that if the review failed to find a solution to its funding needs, one outcome could be all or part of the group entering into insolvency. Shares in the company were 43.9% lower at 30.0p in late-afternoon trade.
Investors bet big on Plus 500 as trading group lifts full-year guidance
Plus 500 Ltd (LON:PLUS) shares are up 6% to 1,323p after the trading group said it expected full-year results to be better than expected.
After a relatively quiet spring and summer, volatility has returned to the markets of late which means Plus 500 picks up more commission from the increased number of trades.
As a result: “The board now expects trading to be ahead of 2018 market expectations.”
On top of this, Plus 500 also announced a US$10mln share buyback, although this looks like a drop in the ocean given that the cash balance stood at US$371mln at the end of September.
Whitbread warns new hotel chain could dent profits
You may remember from yesterday that Whitbread plc (LON:WTB) is launching a no-frills (even more so) version of its Premier Inn chain as it looks to target budget-conscious travellers.
Well, it has said today that that investment, coupled with Brexit uncertainty and weaker consumer confidence could dent profitability over the next few years.
“The combination of our commitment to the investment programme and the current UK consumer environment naturally means our near-term profit growth may be lower than in previous years,” read a company statement.
Excluding Costa, which is in the process of being sold off to Coca-Cola, first-half revenue rose 2.6% to £1.08bn and underlying pre-tax profit increased by 2.5% to £270mln.
Total UK accommodation sales increased 4.8% on a reported basis but weak consumer demand led to broadly flat like-for-like sales growth of 0.2% and a 0.9% dip in revenue per available room.
Whitbread shares are down 3.2% to 4,323p early on Tuesday.
WideCells investor converts £10,000 of bonds into shares
WideCells Group PLC’s (LON:WDC) share price fell by a quarter to 0.31p after an investor converted a tranche of bonds into shares at that price.
Following a financing agreement entered into by the stem cells services group and the European High Growth Opportunities Securitization Fund last month, WideCells has now received a second notice from the investor in respect of the exercise of its conversion rights for the principal amount of £10,000 at an exercise price 0.03p resulting in the issue of 3.33mln new ordinary shares.
Coral Products packs a punch with brief but bullish update
Food packaging maker Coral Products PLC (LON:CRU) delivered the kind of to-the-point trading update every investor wants to wake up and see this morning.
It consisted of a 76-word speech to be given by chairman Joe Grimmond at today’s annual general meeting, plus a very brief introduction.
In it, Grimmond said that first-half sales, margins and profits are already “materially ahead” of last year’s, even with a week or so of the period still to go.
As a result, he expects a “much-improved” first-half performance, while he is “confident of further progress” in the coming year. Shares are up 6.7% to 10.4p in early Tuesday deals.
Communisis agrees to £154mln takeover
Business services group Communisis PLC (LON:CMS) shares are also higher after it agreed to a £153.8mln cash takeover offer from New York-based payment solutions firm OSG Group Holdings Inc.
Investors in Communisis are being offered 71p per share in cash, representing a premium of approximately 39.8% to Monday’s closing price of 50.8p.
OSG said shareholders representing almost half of the shares had indicated their intention to agree to the offer and sell up.
Commenting on the takeover bid, Communisis chairman David Gilbertson said: "Whilst the Communisis board believes that the business would have a promising future as an independent listed company, a combination with OSG will provide Communisis with the scale, global presence and digital technology capabilities to ensure it remains at the forefront of its industry and maximises its future potential.”
Guidance uplift from Camellia
Agriculture group Camellia PLC (LON:CAM) expects its annual profit to beat market forecasts after bumper harvests of its core crops, sending its shares up.
The company said good weather conditions and previous investment had led to the volume of its key crops – tea, macadamia and avocado – reaching “at or near record levels”.
In Bangladesh, the tea price has risen to record highs, while in Kenya and Malawi average tea prices are above earlier expectations given the volumes in the market.
The harvests for avocados and macadamias are now substantially complete and while the significant fall in the prices of avocados globally had largely negated the increase in volumes, average macadamia prices in the year to date had also been higher, the company said.
Shares opened 5% higher at 9,800p on Tuesday, valuing Camellia at £275mln.
Proactive news headlines:
88 Energy Limited (LON:88E) has told investors that its 3D seismic inversion work is now substantially complete across both the shallow and deep horizons for its conventional exploration assets at Project Icewine, on Alaska’s North Slope.
Recovery play Corero Network Security PLC (LON:CNS) was on the rise again on Tuesday after announcing two orders worth US$1.0mln. The company received a U$600,000 order for its 100 gigabytes per second (Gbps) SmartWall Threat Defense System technology from a global cloud security company and a U$400,000 follow-up order for Corero’s 10Gbps SmartWall technology from an existing customer.
An Italian workwear maker is paying €500,000 to use Directa Plus Plc’s (LON:DCTA) graphene technology in thousands of its garments over the next two years.
Publishing group Bloomsbury Publishing PLC (LON:BMY) is trading in line this financial year, with half-year adjusted profits before tax ahead of last year.
Collagen Solutions PLC (LON:COS) expects to report a surge in revenues when it publishes its first-half results at the beginning of December.
StatPro Group PLC (LON:SOG) has secured a five-year contract with a large South African financial institution for its Infovest service, worth roughly £1.0mln.
Belvoir Lettings PLC (LON:BELV) is to advertise all of its properties on digital property platform OnTheMarket PLC (LON:OTMP). With 61,000 properties, franchise group Belvoir is the UK’s second largest letting agency and will actively promote the portal with digital and branch-based marketing activity.
Arc Minerals LTD (LON:ARCM) is shortly to commence a comprehensive high resolution airborne geophysical survey over its Zamsort copper-cobalt project in Zambia. The survey will cover around 1,000 square kilometres.
Kibo Energy PLC (LON:KIBO) has released a questions-and-answers (Q&A) statement addressing a number of investor queries made to the gas-to-power company in recent weeks.
NQ Minerals PLC (LON:NQMI) (OTCQB: NQMLF), the mineral processing, exploration and mining company announced today that it has issued 541,666 new ordinary shares at a price equivalent to 15p per share to raise approximately £81,250 for working capital purposes.
WideCells Group PLC (LON:WDC) said that, following the financing agreement entered into by the stem cells services group and the European High Growth Opportunities Securitization Fund announced on 27 September 2018, it has now received a second notice from the investor in respect of the exercise of its conversion rights for the principal amount of £10,000.00 at a price per ordinary share of 0.03p resulting in the issue of 3,333,333 new ordinary shares.
MySQUAR Limited (LON:MYSR), the Myanmar-language social media, entertainment and payments platform whose principal activity is to design, develop and commercialise Myanmar-focused internet-based mobile applications, said it was today informed by MyPay Limited that as of 22 October 2018 MyPay no longer holds a notifiable interest in the shares of the company.
Custodian REIT (LON:CREI), the UK commercial real estate investment company, said its unaudited net asset value as at 30 September 2018 was 108.6p, up from 107.8p as at 30 June 2018.
Oracle Power PLC (LON:ORCP), the AIM-listed UK energy developer of a combined lignite mineral resource and mine mouth power plant located in the Thar desert in the south-east of Sindh Province, Pakistan, announced today that it has appointed Strand Hanson Limited as its nominated adviser with immediate effect.