London afternoon: Slide accelerates after US open

2nd Jul 2009 15:00

Investors are bailing out of equities in the US ahead of the long holiday week-end in the States, prompting the decline in UK equities to pick up pace.Rio Tinto is the day's worst performer despite a strong response to its $15.2bn rights issue. Shareholders have taken up 96.97% of the shares offered to them, with major shareholder Chinalco has taken up its entitlement in full.London Stock Exchange is another big faller after it announced a new pricing scheme yesterday. The stock market operator says the new tariff would have resulted in £3m worth of trading fee reductions between January and March.Diageo, which announced yesterday it is cutting 900 jobs in Scotland as part of a major restructuring, tops the risers.Carphone Warehouse and Vodafone have ended their three year row over monthly contract sales. Vodafone stopped using the retailer for deals involving monthly contracts in October 2006, after it tied itself to an excusive deal with Phones4U, Carphone's main high street rival.Argos owner Home Retail suffered a major revolt over a new director remuneration package at its AGM today, with 35.6% of shareholders voting against the deal.Nick Prettejohn is quitting his job as chief executive of Prudential's UK and Europe business after three and a half years in the role, having missed out on the top job earlier this year.Pub groups are one of the strong sectors. Brewing and pub group Greene King reported profits ahead of forecasts made at the time of its rights issue in April that raised over £200m for the group. Enterprise Inns, Marston's and Punch are all up in sympathy.Specialist computer and video games retailer Game Group reported a 15.4% drop in like for like sales in the 21 weeks to 27 June, but said it remains confident in the outlook for the full year. The shares have taken a bashing, even so.Oilfield support services firm Petrofac has landed a gas compression project worth over $350m. Petroleum Development Oman (PDO) has awarded Petrofac a contract for the Kauther gas-field depletion-compression project. Intermediate Capital Group (ICG), a leading investor in and manager of buyout debt, today announced a fully underwritten 7 for 2 rights issue to raise £351m.Flexible pipeline supplier Wellstream Holdings has secured 90% of 2009's anticipated revenues at the halfway point.Serge Crasnianski is to take over as interim boss at photo booth operator Photo-Me International until the company finds a permanent replacement for Thierry Barel. Crasnianski is the company's major shareholder and was made deputy chairman yesterday.Speciality pharmaceutical company ProStrakan has avoided a legal battle with Aventis Pharma by settling a tax issue out of court.Tikit said trading in the second quarter proved to be disappointing and warned that it expects its market in the second half of the year to remain difficult. Sierra Leone-focused miner African Minerals has raised £63.8m ($105m) from a cash placing with institutional investors in North America and the UK.The share price of turnaround investment company Volvere continued its good run as the chairman said all of the company's businesses have performed extremely well in 2009.