London’s FTSE 100 opened modestly higher on Friday morning, the blue chip benchmark bid up 0.4% to 7,220.1 points following energy sector share price falls earlier in the week, as investors shrugged off a Delta variant linked sell-off in Asia.
The more domestically-focused FTSE 250 firmed 0.1% to 23,770.5 early on, while gold made further gains to $1,760 following yesterday’s strong producer price inflation print in the US.
COMPANY NEWS
Defence and protection firm Avon Protection (AVON) plunged 29% to £20.90 after warning on performance for its current and next financial year following a delay in orders under existing contracts owing to COVID-19 related and supply chain disruptions.
‘Whilst this COVID-19 related disruption is expected to be temporary in nature, the impact has resulted in a reduction in our revenue guidance for full year 2021 to between $245 million to $260 million,’ said the company.
The cut to guidance came on the back of good progress in the second half of full year 2021, with order intake in the ten months to 31 July 2021 rising 13% to $221 million year-on-year, lifting the order book value to $146 million, up 21% year-on-year.
‘We have made considerable commercial progress over the last 18 months in building a broad portfolio of significant, multi-year contracts across the business, with the underlying demand momentum continuing, so the short-term disruption that we are seeing is unwelcome,’ said CEO Paul McDonald.
‘These issues will be resolved over the coming months, but as they are affecting both our customers and suppliers simultaneously the situation has significantly limited our operating agility in the short term.’
Babcock International (BAB) rose 6.4% to 326p after the aerospace, defence and security group agreed to sell its Frazer-Nash Consultancy subsidiary to KBR for £293 million.
‘The sale forms part of Babcock’s targeted disposal programme, which aims to generate at least £400 million of proceeds in the next twelve months,’ said the company, adding that ‘proceeds from this transaction will be used to reduce net debt’.
Specialist retailer Pets at Home (PETS) perked up 1.7% to 480p on a positive read-across from the premium-priced takeover offer for online pet products rival Zooplus.
OTHER RISERS AND FALLERS
Elsewhere, online weekly competitions organiser Best of the Best (BOTB:AIM) slumped 42.4% to 878p after warning on profits, blaming a softening of pandemic-related demand since the end of the lockdown on 12 April as well as the rising cost of acquiring new customers.
Whilst still substantially higher than the pre-COVID comparative and the results delivered in full year 2020, profitability and earnings for the year to April 2022 are now expected to be 57% lower than that reported for full year 2021, said the company.
The warning accompanied news that average weekly sales for the first 15 weeks of the new financial year were down 15% year-on-year.
Morses Club (MCL:AIM) was marked up 0.5% to 83p as the non-standard financial services play reported a continued strong performance in its Home Collected Credit division and an uptick in customer numbers in its digital division for short-term and long-term lending products in the five months to July.
Westminster (WSG:AIM) weakened 6.4% to 5.1p as the managed services and tech-based security solutions group reported a year-on-year drop in first half sales and a lurch into loss as the pandemic resulted in further ‘right-shifting’ of certain expected contracts and revenues.
And consumer self-care products play Venture Life (VLG:AIM) slumped 23% to 76.5p as the company warned sales for the first half to July 2021 will be below the levels reported last year due to much lower sales of hand sanitising gel and disappointing sales to its Chinese partner for Dentyl.
