Exane BNP Paribas retained its “Outperform” rating on ARM Holdings, down 0.8%, with a target price of 1300.0p.
Kier Group, down 1.2%, announced that it has been selected by Highways England as the preferred supplier for design services in the Highways England Area 7 covering the East Midlands. The new contract is worth up to £50.0m over a five-year period. JP Morgan Cazenove reiterated its “Overweight” rating on the stock with a target price of 1503.0p.
LPA Group, up 22.7%, in its AGM statement, announced that it remains on track to deliver better than expected performance for the full year, with a strong contribution from its LED lighting and engineered component distribution businesses. The company also stated that it has been awarded a £1.3m contract by Kinki Sharyo of Japan to supply LED lighting for rolling stock on the Doha Metro in Qatar to be supplied over the next three years.
Quixant, up 16.4%, in its annual results, announced that its revenues jumped to $41.8m from $31.9m in the last year. Profit before tax also rose to $7.8m from $7.1m in the last year. The Board proposed a final dividend of 1.5p per share payable on 19 May 2016. The company expects a strong growth for the year 2016 and in line with its expectations. FinnCap reissued its “Corporate” rating on the stock with a target price of 220.0p.
Sareum Holdings, up 11.5%, announced that it has raised nearly £1.1m, before expenses, through placement of 157.8m new ordinary shares of the company at 0.7p per share. The company will utilise the net proceeds of the placing for the progress of its drug development programmes as well as for working capital purposes.
Gaming Realms, up 7.9%, announced that it has entered into its first venture into the US real money online gaming market through a licence agreement with Pala Interactive LLC. Separately, it announced that the Board has decided to adopt the Financial Reporting Standard 101 accounting framework which applies only for the parent entity financial statements and does not require shareholders’ approval.
Frontier Developments, up 4.9%, announced that it has released the first Alpha build for Planet Coaster, its second self-published game franchise, and will be fully released in calendar Q4 2016.
Berenberg Bank reissued its “Buy” rating on AVEVA Group, down 0.8%, with a target price of 1800.0p. Brady, down 9.7%, in is preliminary results for the year ended 31 December 2015, announced that its revenues fell to £27.4m from £31.0m in the previous year. The company incurred a loss before tax of £1.4m compared to a profit before tax of £1.9m in the last year. Loss per share was seen at 2.09p against a profit of 0.56p per share. The Board did not declare any dividend for the period.
UK markets closed mostly higher last week. On the macro front, the nation’s inflation rose less than expected in February while the retail sales declined in February. The FTSE 100 index fell 1.3% to 6,106.5, while the FTSE AIM 100 Index rose 0.5% to finish at 3,325.3. Also, the FTSE techMARK 100 Index gained 0.4% to 3,807.9.
US markets ended lower in the previous week, led by a decline in oil and material companies. Investor sentiment was dented following a decline in durable goods orders for February amid a stronger greenback. Meanwhile, new home sales rose slightly more than expected in February. The DJIA index declined 0.5% to 17,515.7, while the NASDAQ Index eased 0.5% to 4,773.5.
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