Smartphone components maker Laird (LRD) is to launch a £185m rights issue in the first quarter of next year to get its debt under control. It has also revealed that it will axe its final dividend for this year as it grapples with falling demand for its various electronic kit, particularly radio frequency shielding components. The news hangs heavily on the share price, down more than 12% at 132p. Laird was flagged as a likely takeover target in this week's issue of Shares.
There is further improving news from the UK house building sector as pre-tax profits rise by more than a third in the first six months of the year at Berkeley (BKG). The group has also unveiled plans for more share buybacks in a bid to prop up its share price, weakened since the Brexit vote in June. The stock rallies 4% to £26.50 today, although that is far below the near £33.00 levels before voters elected to leave the EU.
London shares are marginally under pressure in early trade on a fairly quiet Friday for corporate news, the FTSE 100 index slipping around 50 points lower, or roughly 0.75%, to 6,702, with only the UK small caps making any sort of gains, albeit, modest ones.
In commodities, oil prices have reached their highest level in a year amid hopes in financial markets that the Opec cartel will make a deal to curb crude production stick.
Gold prices recover from its lowest since early February as the dollar drifts lower ahead of US jobs data, but is still on track for a fourth consecutive weekly decline.
A stark warning on the rising cost of raw materials strikes fear into investors of building materials supplier James Halstead (JHD), despite reassuring on cash flow and dividends. The shares slump 12% to 425p, pulling the market cap below £1bn.
Back in corporate news, defence technology group QinetiQ (QQ.) says it has won a £1bn amendment to a contract with the UK's Ministry of Defence for test and evaluation services. Under the agreement, QinetiQ will modernise and operate air ranges at two MoD sites, and will test aircrew training at the Empire Test Pilots' School at MoD Boscombe Down. The shares stay flat at 243.5p.
Intellectual property group Allied Minds (ALM) has raised around £64m in a placing of 17.4m shares, equal to around 8.1% of its issued share capital prior to the placing. The early-stage life sciences and technology investor says it placed the shares at 367p per share, a modest 2.2% discount to its closing price on Thursday, although the news drags the stock modestly lower to 369p.
Ian Russell, the chairman of Johnston Press (JPR), which publishes the i newspaper, is to step down at the end of the year due to an 'acute illness in his family.' Russell will be replaced on 1 January on an interim basis by Camilla Rhodes, currently senior independent director of the publishing group.
Smartphone security minnow Defenx (DFX:AIM) has launched its parental controls tool kit into Ukranian and other eastern European markets after striking a distribution agreement. It has already secured 75,000 pre-orders, sendig the share price soaring 24.5% to 91.5p, although that still values the business at sub-£8m.
Full year results go down well with investors in energy microcap Altona Energy (ANR:AIM), sparking a 22% share price rally to 0.55p.
