Results in brief: Marston's, PartyGaming, Uniq, Britvic, Bloomsbury
A relaunch of the iconic Hovis brand helped Premier Foods close the gap on market leader Warburtons.
Hovis sales rose 22% in the 13 weeks to September 26 following an advertising campaign that celebrated the 122-year heritage of the old family favourite last year.
This pushed its market share to 26.2% - more than 3% above the same period last year. However, Premier's own-brand bread volumes fell as it pulled out of unprofitable contracts, so group sales rose just 1%.
The Oxo-to-Branston foods group (down 1.3p at 41.5p) said it is on track to meet fullyear expectations of pretax profits between £162m and £186m.
Online gambling firm PartyGaming (down 3.5p at 279p) posted an 11% rise in revenue to £69m in the third quarter despite summer normally being a weak period in the industry.
But poker revenue fell 8% in the three months to September 30 after the company faced increasing competition from unregulated US operators.
Brewer and pubs chain Marston's (down 1.75p at 90.5p) hailed its cheap food deals for helping it beat the recession and poor summer weather.
Underlying sales across nearly 500 managed pubs rose 2.7% in the nine weeks to October 3, improving on an overall fall of 0.6% for the year.
The group's year-end trading statement said total turnover was down 1.4% on last year. It expects to declare a final dividend of 3.7p, making 8.5p for the year.
Dairy and food group Uniq (unchanged at 42.75p) hailed the impact of new deals to provide sandwiches to Marks & Spencer for helping its UK arm move back into the black.
UK sales slipped 0.7% in the third quarter, compared with a drop of 1.7% in the first half. Sales at its sandwiches and wraps business jumped 4.7% as £15m of new M&S business took effect.
Britvic's Irish woes continued with sales there down 16.3% in the fourth quarter, putting a drag on the company's performance. Overall, underlying revenues grew by 4.2% in the the 12 weeks to September 27, a slowdown from the 5.9% advance posted three months earlier. Shares in the Robinson's Barley Water firm fell 11.5p to 374.5p.
Numis analyst Nicolas Ceron maintained his full-year profit forecast of £85.6m, up from £70.1m last year.
Harry Potter publisher Bloomsbury welcomed the global availability of Amazon's Kindle ebook reader - previously available only in the US - ahead of an expected surge in sales of the gadget for Christmas.
Bloomsbury (down 2p at 131p) said it was investing carefully in its future publishing programme and reiterated trading is in line with its estimates.
High-speed cross-channel rail operator Eurostar reported a 6.8% hike in third-quarter ticket sales, and said there were encouraging signs of an upturn in the business travel market.
Ticket sales in the first nine months totalled £504.9m, as 6.9m passengers used the service, down 0.9% on 2008.
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