Serviced office provider IWG (IWG) has received an indicative takeover proposal from Brookfield Asset Management and Onex Corporation. The approach follows recent share price weakness caused by a profit warning in October which wiped a third off IWG’s market value.
Oil producer Royal Dutch Shell (RDSB) said it should benefit from US tax changes primarily due to the reduction in the US corporate income tax rate from 35% to 21%. The changes are effective from 1 January 2018 and will impact the company's fourth quarter results.
FTSE 100 miner Rio Tinto (RIO) said it has completed its $1.5bn share buyback programme announced in two stages during 2017. It will today start to buy back a further $1.925bn worth of shares, to be completed by the end of 2018.
The $1.925bn figure represents the remaining portion of the $2.5bn share buyback programme announced on 21 September 2017, returning money from the sale of a coal business to shareholders.
A 0.2% rise in the gold price helped to lift the gold mining sector. Acacia Mining (ACA) rose 5% to 199.5p, Hochschild Mining (HOC) advanced 2.3% to 259p and Fresnillo (FRES) traded 2% higher at £13.78.
DFS Furniture (DFS) has paid £1.2m for eight store leases, assets and intellectual property of Multiyork Furniture, which is in administration.
The group said it intended that six stores would be converted to trade as Sofa Workshop, and the other two as DFS. It has also acquired all intellectual property rights of Multiyork, including the Multiyork trademark, product designs, domain names and marketing databases.
HaloSource (HALO:AIM) slumped 27% to 1p after warning that revenues would probably be at the low end of forecasts. An unexpected delay in receipt of glass pitchers from a supplier has temporarily prevented it from shipping product to one of its customers, JiuBan, prior to the end of December.
HaloSource said this would have a material negative impact on its revenues for 2017 and it now anticipated that its total sales would be in the range of $2.6m to $3.0m and net loss for the year would be in the range of $5.0m to $5.5m.
Shares in UK Oil & Gas Investments (UKOG:AIM) crashed by 22% to 3.08p after a disappointing update. It said the Basal KL3 test has been re-run following mechanical problems and that low reservoir productivity indicated the zone may not be economically viable.
One Media IP (OMIP:AIM) continued its stellar share price run, rising a further 15% to 11.50p as investors reacted to news before Christmas that former BBC chairman Michael Grade would become a non-executive director and help scale up the business. Shares in the music rights business have now risen by 170% since the announcement was made.
