Beyond the Footsie: Thursday close

13 April 2012

SHARES in UK smaller companies ended the day strongly, in contrast with their blue chip counterparts, led higher by biopharma manufacturing group

Cobra

Cobra was the top performer, up by more than 43%, after it announced it expects its year-to-September loss to come in 'at the bottom end of market forecasts'.

Second-half sales were 30% higher than in the first half, and the order book for the current half is more than double last year's. The shares were up 10 1/2p at 34 1/2p.

Highams Systems rose 0.37p at 6.37p after the IT recruitment group moved to reassure the market by saying trading is showing firm signs of an upturn in the IT market, with a marked increase in sales activity in the last three months.

In response, Charles Stanley reiterated its 'accumulate' stance.

Positive media and broker comments also lifted a number of minnows - with Yoomedia leading the way with gains of nearly 22% or 4 1/2p at 25p.

Deltex Medical rose 1p at 28 1/4p and Tecteon was up 0.37p at 3.62p.

News that Merrill Lynch initiated coverage of bio-tech group Alizyme with a 'buy' rating sent the shares 14p higher at 128p.

Wembley was 10 1/2p higher at 676p after the casino and dog-track owner said it is mulling the sale of its UK greyhound racing business GRA for between £40m and £50m. Altium Securities stuck to its 'add' stance in response.

News of a change of adviser, lifted Milestone 4 1/2p at 43 1/2p as it announced it has appointed Arden Partners with immediate effect.

Shares in Whitehead Mann slumped by more than 35% as analysts cut their earnings estimates for the recruitment specialist following today's shock profits warning.

The group said it expected revenue and profits from its US operations to be about £3m lower than expected for the full year to March 2005 and added that it would have to take a goodwill impairment charge on the US business.

House broker Baird cut its current year adjusted pretax estimate to £6m, which would give earnings of 14.5p a share, and revised its investment recommendation from 'outperform' to 'neutral'.

SVB was down 3/4p at 21 3/4p after it became the latest Lloyd's of London insurer to update investors on the impact of the hurricane season.

The group said the aggregate adverse net impact on its second half pretax profit from the recent catastrophes, is expected to be not more than £10m.

Publisher Future Network was down 1/2p at 56 1/2p as news its core trading is satisfactory, was outweighed by a 1% drop in like-for-like sales in the first eight months of its financial year.

Investec and Evolution both repeated their 'buy' recommendations.

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