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News & Tips: Rio Tinto, EnQuest, Victoria & more

Equities have started the week positively
June 26, 2017

Shares in London leapt out of the blocks in early trading on Monday as a strong overnight session in Asia buoyed sentiment. Click here for The Trader Nicole Elliott's latest thoughts.

KEY STORIES:

Rio Tinto (RIO) is sticking with Yancoal as the preferred buyer of its thermal coal assets in Australia, after receiving an improved offer of $2.69bn from the Chinese outfit. The coal division was subject to a revised $2.68bn proposal from London peer Glencore (GLEN), but Rio Tinto said the Yancoal bid had a higher “level of completion certainty”.

The Kraken awakes. On Friday, North Sea driller EnQuest (ENQ) pumped first oil from its Kraken development, kick-starting production which could eventually reach 50,000 barrels a day. The shares, down this month on a lower oil price, are up 9 per cent this morning on the news.

Flooring designer Victoria (VCP) is moving its manufacturing operations from Kidderminster to its two other carpet production facilities, and will transfer its distribution centre to the Kidderminster site. The reorganisation aims to improve efficiency and expand its capacity. It also will open a distribution centre in North West London by late 2018 and another distribution site in northern England thereafter. Shares were up 2 per cent in early trading.

Shares in Warpaint (W7L) fell 11 per cent in early trading after the cosmetics maker stated at its annual general meeting that sales growth in Europe had been flat, though had increased in all its other markets and saw double digit sales growth in the US. The AIM-listed company launched its vegan range of cosmetics and called early sales “encouraging” but modest in context of the larger group.