FTSE in-depth: Shaftesbury to open war chest

 

Property outfit Shaftesbury is on the acquisition trail in London's West End and now has a war chest of £160m.

Geoff Foster

Foster: The Footsie climbed back above 6,000.

It boosted its coffers yesterday by placing up to 22.7m new shares or 9.99% of the group's equity at 450p a pop with various institutional investors.

Brokers JP Morgan Cazenove and Esporito Santo, formerly known as Execution Noble, happily did the business which left the shares 4.2p lower at 470.05p.

Shaftesbury already owns more than 500 shops, restaurants and bars in the West End and is now expected to take advantage of further acquisition opportunities within its core 'villages', especially in and around its growing village of Berwick Street, Soho.

It has already invested £40m in the area since last September after raising £149m in a rights issue in May 2009.

There is a possibility that Shaftesbury could be interested in parts of the £650m Paul Raymond family Soho estate which could be put on the market before the end of the year. Heiress Fawn James, who inherited the 60-acre West End property empire from her grandfather when he died in 2008, is now believed to be a willing seller.

Broker Oriel is bullish, saying Shaftesbury has a high quality and unique portfolio, disciplined strategy and a well regarded management team. It forecasts a two-year total return of 13%, one of the highest in the property sector.

AssetCo, the beleaguered company which owns all of London's fire engines, has raised £16m at 10p a share for an entirely different but much more important reason.

Cash raised by broker Arden Partners, up a penny at 55p, will help the company address shortterm liquidity and funding issues and to assist the restructuring of group debts.

News that chief executive and 29.7% shareholder John Shannon is stepping down and will not be participating in the placing but has provided a personal guarantee in support of the company's overdraft facility, left the shares 2.5p down at a 52-week low of 11.87p.

The company recently admitted that continuing funding problems had forced it to walk away from talks with a potential bidder.

London black taxi cab maker Manganese Bronze, in which Toscafund Asset Management owns 27pc, accelerated 21p or 57pc to 63p. Buyers climbed aboard on hearing that it has won a substantial order from the Republic of Azerbaijan.

The agreement is for 1,000 taxi cabs in 2011, to be supplied by Shanghai LTI, the group's joint venture with Chinese car manufacturer Geely Automobile Holdings. The first shipment of 100 cabs is scheduled for the end of April.

As the oil price dipped on hopes of a peace deal in Libya and Wall Street soared in early trading on better-than-expected US jobless claims, the Footsie climbed back above 6,000. It closed 90.2 points better at 6,0005.09.

The Street of Dreams jumped 159 points after jobless claims dropped to their lowest level in more than two-and-a-half years, declining to 368,000 against forecasts of a fall of 398,000. The data raised hopes that today's crucial non-farm payroll numbers will please and give stockmarkets a further boost.

Part nationalised Lloyds Banking Group edged up 0.15p to 62.89p on hearing that new boss António Horta-Osório has bought 100,000 shares at 62.28p.

Tullow Oil gushed 55p to 1465.5p after announcing that the Enyenra-2A appraisal well, in the Deepwater Tano licence offshore Ghana, has successfully encountered oil in excellent quality sandstone reservoirs.

Tullow described it as a 'major light oil field'. Construction company Costain advanced 7.5p to 200p as punters took the view that it could be the company which is currently in talks with Renaissance Construction, one of Turkey's biggest building groups.

Renaissance recently said it was in early-stage talks to take a controlling stake in an unnamed, 140-year old UK company. Costain recently failed in a bid to buy struggling support services firm Mouchel, which has struck an alternative deal with Interserve.

Jam tomorrow technology firm Pursuit Dynamics fell 31p or 9.5% to 292.25p after employees exercised options.

Churchill Mining crashed 62.75p or 70% to 27.25p after losing a legal case in Indonesia whereby regional authorities wish to cancel the licenses that host the world class East Kutai coal project. Churchill is considering an appeal to the State Administrative Tribunal in Jakarta.

AIM-listed Oxus Gold slumped 1.75p to 1.605p. The company is moving directly to international arbitration over its claim for compensation and damages relating to the effective loss of its share of the AGF joint venture in Uzbekistan. Fairfax analyst John Meyer says that Oxus is now a litigation company.

Investors may gain compensation for the losses incurred in time and the business may then have value as a shell company.