Strategic Finance
FTSE awaits direction |
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| Strategic Finance | |
| Written by Roberta Murray | |
| Thursday, 23 April 2009 | |
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London's FTSE 100 has been hovering around the break even mark as investors sift through company news.
The FTSE 100 (.FTSE) was 0.21% up to 4.039.29 at 10:40am on Thursday the 23rd April. Schroders (LON:SDR) is among the main fallers after the fund manager said it is cutting costs and expects the high level of volatility in financial markets in the first quarter to persist and continue to affect investor demand. Asset Management income for Schroders for the quarter ended 31 March fell to £131.9m compared with £197.1m in 2008, costs before exceptional items were down £26.6m to £104.3m and profit before tax and exceptional items was £27.6m from £66.2m last year. Exceptional items of £6.7m comprise £4.5m of redundancy costs and £2.2m of other rationalisation costs. The Schroders share price was down 2.88% to 739.50. ITV executive chairman Michael Grade could relinquish his executive responsibilities by the end of the year as the media group said it has began a formal search for a CEO. The group also said today that it has adequate liquidity and is not currently considering a rights issue. Data search technology giant Autonomy's adjusted profit before tax in the first quarter of 2009 rose to $58.2m from $31.1m the year before, on revenues that rose from $105.1m to a record $129.8m. Its cash balance ended the quarter “considerably higher than expected” at $132.3m. Miner Lonmin maintained its sales guidance for the 2009 financial year of around 700,000 Platinum ounces. Metal sales during the quarter were 185,651 ounces of Platinum and 355,069 ounces of PGMs, increases of 30% and 26% respectively. Persimmon said sales volumes for the first sixteen weeks of the year have continued to be ahead of expectations, while pricing and margins have remained under pressure. Newsagent WH Smith said interim pre-tax profit weakened 5% but underlining its confidence in future business, the group increased its dividend 17%. Gulfsands Petroleum reported that drilling operations have been completed at its Khurbet East No. 8 well, and drilling has started on the No. 9 well. The oil and gas firm said an oil column was identified in the KHE-8 well in what was originally anticipated to be a field delineation well.
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