RAMSEY CROOKALL & CO

EVENING REPORT

22 SEPTEMBER 2010

Leading shares made steady progress over the lunch time session recovering some of the ground lost during earlier dealings.

Mining stocks are primarily responsible for the Footsie’s recovery, with industrial metal miners such as Antofagasta, Kazakhmys and Rio Tinto now doing better, even, than gold miners such as African Barrick, Fresnillo, and Randgold, which raced ahead in the morning session as the price of gold hit a new high.

Anglo-Swiss mining giant Xstrata is also on the up after announcing it has successfully negotiated a $4bn multi-currency revolving credit facility to replace its existing $5.5bn facility, which matures in October 2011.

BHP Billiton shareholders will demand success from chief executive Marius Kloppers this year after it emerged that the company, currently facing the prospect of a bid battle for Potash Corp, paid him $11.3m (£7.2m) in 2009. Kloppers, who’s coming up to three years in the job now, received a base salary and bonus of $4.4m, with chunky pension, dividend and share-based payments making up the rest.

Elsewhere, shares in Imperial Tobacco are proving a draw as the Lambert & Butler cigarettes maker assured the market it is still on track to meet forecasts for the year, though growth in tobacco revenues has slowed slightly over the last six months. IMPs expects net revenues to be up around 3% in the year to 30 September compared with a 4% gain to £3.4bn for the six months to 31 March.

Stockbroker Killik & Co was singing IMPs’ praises as “one of the most attractively rated defensive companies in the market” with a little bit of added spice of murmurings of bid interest, though given the level of debt IMPs has and the regulatory hurdles any bidder would have to clear, the broker considers the prospect of a bid to be low.

In contrast Broker comment has been less helpful to pumps maker Weir, just a couple of days after it made it into the FTSE 100. RBS has changed its stance on the company’s shares from “buy” to “hold”, even though it has raised its target price from 1412p to 1567p.



THE FTSE 100 CLOSED DOWN 19 @ 5556

THE DOW JONES AT 4.30 IS DOWN 46 @ 10,713

THE NASDAQ COMP AT 4.30 IS DOWN 13 @ 2336



Exchange Rates

GBP – USD 1.5635 GBP – EUR 1.168