Ladbrokes draw a blank whilst miners power on

Bookmakers Ladbrokes announced a deeply discounted rights issue yesterday after announcing a 15% drop in revenue during the third quarter.

Chris Bradshaw
shareprices.com - Thursday, October 08, 2009

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Ladbrokes

Blaming the high number of draws in Premiership games, the company said that it was hoping to raise £275m by issuing 301 million new shares at 95p, a massive 48% discount to Wednesday evening's closing price. The share price dropped 7% in early Thursday trading after the company said that it would not pay a final dividend for 2009.

Recruitment company Hays PLC reported a 37% year on year drop in fees for its first quarter after saying that public sector hiring seems to have run out of steam. They did, however, say that the general recruitment market was showing signs of stabilising in the UK and Asia/Pacific but fell short of predicting a recovery. Hays has cut around 1,900 people during the last year and now employs 6,300 staff. Fees from permanent placements dropped 52% and income from the private sector fell 47%. Whilst the stock has gained 56% since the start of 2009, the share price fell by 1.8p to 104.4p on the news.

The weak US dollar has pushed up the price of metals and, with encouraging results from aluminium producer Alcoa earlier in the week, miners stocks gained in response. Leading the market was Vedanta Resources which released upbeat production numbers showing a 16% uplift in zinc production and 27% for iron ore in the second quarter. Shares rose 4% to 2191p. Broker Morgan Stanley reiterated its 'overweight' recommendation and set a price target of 2623p.

 

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