MARKET REPORT: Video search company Blinkx blooms on AOL tie-up
Whether or not Blinkx founder and chief executive Suranga Chandratillake had forgotten to inform the London Stock Exchange’s Regulatory News Service that his video search company had tied up a price sensitive deal with America’s AOL, punters didn’t give a jot.
Reading news of the exciting deal on foreign newswires, they chased the shares up to 79.25p before they closed 9.5p, or 13.77 per cent, higher at 78.5p.
The Cambridge-based video search company is to power AOL’s video search. AOL is one of the largest video destinations on the web, with about 450m video views per month. Blinkx will also incorporate AOL’s premium videos in its own search engine.
Blinkx attracts 55m US video searchers
a month and AOL’s video properties are watched by unique viewers, so
experts say the deal could significantly expand Blinkx’s reach.
Up
until recently Truveo was powering all of AOL’s video search but it has
been kicked into touch and replaced by Blinkx. Last year Blinkx
acquired Burst Media for 19m and followed that with the purchase of
PVMG, an advertising network and digital marketing agency, for 23m.
A
7m placing at 134p announced by Blinkx in November to help fund PVMG
did not please all investors and its shares have since taken a
pasting.The 52-week peak was 161.25p.
Dealers
gave out a big yawn following overnight news that credit rating agency
Moody’s may cut the triple-A rating of the UK, France and Austria. It
has downgraded the ratings of Italy, Portugal, Spain, Slovakia, Slovenia
and Malta.
The Footsie
opened 28 points lower but rallied almost immediately to trade 15
points higher before closing only 5.83 points off at 5,899.87. Wall
Street lost 30 points in the early stages not helped by
weaker-than-expected US retail sales.
The Bank of America/Merrill Lynch Fund
Manager Survey for February shows that allocations towards equities
have made the largest month-on-month leap since the beginning of 2011. A
net 26 per cent of fund managers are now overweight in equities,
compared with 12 per cent in January.
Many market absentees due to half term week kept the overall volume of business down. Support services group Bunzl
jumped 32.5p to 910.5p after JP Morgan Cazenove upgraded to overweight
from neutral and lifted its target price to 985p from 835p.
Capita
advanced 13.5p to 648p after beating rivals Serco and Logica to win the
Army Recruitment contract. It entails management of all aspects of
recruitment for the British Army involving marketing, processing,
training and psychometric testing for 9,000 soldiers. The contract could
be worth 50m a year.
Paper and packaging group Mondi rustled up a gain of 30p at 566p following buying ahead of next week’s annual results. Bulls semen group Genus added 53p to 1117p ahead of next Wednesday’s interims.
Cove Energy rose
1.75p more to 147.75p on whispers that Anadarko Petroleum could be
prepared to pay north of 2 a share to get the Mozambique-focused
explorer under its umbrella.
Dog of the day was Hampson Industries.
Investors parachuted out of the aerospace company after hearing it has
put itself up for sale. Shares of the company which supplies components
to Boeing and Airbus nosedived 3.72p, or 48 per cent, to 4.03p.
Issues
have apparently been identified during the testing and customer
approval process for its largest tooling order, which means that some
deliveries are now expected to move from fiscal year 2012 to 2013. DC
Advisory Partners and Sagent Advisors Inc have been handed the task to conduct the sales process.
Hargreaves Services,
the solid fuels and haulage firm, reversed 28p to 1192p after admitting
it has been hit by disappointing coal production at its Maltby coal
mine in South Yorkshire. Underlying operating profits for the six months
to end-November dropped 9.8 per cent to 18.9m. Pre-tax profits fell 16
per cent to 13.6m.
After revealing drilling at one of its sites in Poland has encountered ‘continuous gas shows’, San Leon Energy firmed a penny to 13.25p. ATH Resources,
one of the UK’s largest coal producers, rose 2.5p to 35p after
successfully renegotiating the terms of a second legacy contract. It
renegotiated the first last year. Seymour Pierce has a target price of
50p.
Nova Resources
improved 0.12p to 8.25p after acquiring the remaining 30pc of its
logistics business in Mongolia for 1.8m. Talk of a pending newsletter
tip lifted GGG Resources 1.62p to 17.5p.
Dating agency group Cupid
touched 221p before closing down 0.25p at 217.25p after acquiring the
license for three new dating websites. Full-year results are due on
March 6.
Chairman Stephen Yapp has now got Journey Group firing on all cylinders.
The
company which provides catering and travel supplies to the
international airline industry enjoyed a strong final quarter and full
year 2011 results are expected to be ahead of market expectations.
Broker
Singer Capital Markets lifted its pre-tax profit forecast to 0.36m
from 0.12m and says the business is now well positioned both financial
and operationally.
Related posts:
- MARKET REPORT: Aegis hopes for Unilever boost
- MARKET REPORT: Gulf Keystone Petroleum gushes to 52-week peak on Exxon bid talk
- MARKET REPORT: Footsie gets off to a flying start
- MARKET REPORT: GlobeOp soars on takeover talk
- MARKET REPORT: Tesco tipped for Easter profits warning