RAMSEY CROOKALL & CO

EVENING REPORT 18 February 2011

The FTSE 100 closed flat, moving off earlier lows with the help of a mildly positive trade on Wall Street, although investors refrained from adding exposure ahead of next weeks G20 meeting. Gold miner African Barrick defies the trend, as it features on Citigroup’s list of likely takeover candidates, but sector peers BHP Billiton, Rio Tinto, Xstrata and Vedanta take a battering, as does Anglo American, even though it doubled profits in 2010 and is merging its UK cement, aggregates and ready-mixed concrete business with French giant Lafarge.

Elsewhere, support services group Rentokil was left nursing heavy losses after it missed forecasts in 2010 as the cold weather in December added to the woes of its parcels delivery business City Link. Pre-tax profits tumbled from £60m to £15.3m after huge write-offs of £150.5m. The firm swung from profits of £26.8m to a loss of £55.7m in the last three months of the year if all of the one-off charges of £110m are included.

Similarly, industrial engineer Charter finished lower lower. The company improved during 2010, but weakness in Europe, where the company makes most of its money, held the business back. Profit before tax jumped 55% to £144.1m last year and by 18% to £148.2m before exceptional items. Revenue was up 3.6% at £1.72bn.

Finally, Go-Ahead raced ahead today. More people are leaving their cars at home and taking the bus, according to Keith Ludeman, the chief executive of the public transport group “Whilst rail remains difficult to predict, we now expect our full year operating profit across our rail and bus businesses to be higher than we previously anticipated and around the same as achieved last year (FY'10: £101.0m)." Ludeman said.

THE FTSE 100 CLOSED DOWN 4 @ 6082

THE DOW JONES AT 4.45 IS UP 39 @ 12,357

THE NASDAQ COMP AT 4.45 IS UP 5 @ 2836

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