Jackpot joy for Sportech’s fans By Philip Waller
SPORTECH investors hit the jackpot yesterday after a Canadian rival made a play for the football pools firm.
Shares in Sportech jumped 7p to 69.62p as it revealed that Toronto-listed gaming and software supplier Contagious Gaming had proposed a cash-and-share deal.
It said any potential recommended offer would be higher than the company’s share price on August 13 of 62.63p.
Sportech bought Vernons for £51m in 2007 from Ladbrokes and added it to its Littlewoods and Zetters pools operations to form a new business known as The Football Pools.
I n May, i t turned down a takeover approach for The Football Pools from an unidentified bidder, saying that the price offered was inadequate.
The company also has a racing and digital division that supplies pool and tote betting software and services to licensed racing and betting operators, and a US betting venue business in Connecticut.
It has tried to reverse a decline in the football pools business, which was hit by the launch of the National Lottery, with new technology and international expansion.
Sportech said Contagious had yet to make a recommended offer and advised shareholders to sit tight.
The FTSE 100 closed 17.59 points adrift at 6550.74 as traders struggled to guess how China’s devaluation of its currency would affect US interest rates. European economic news failed to lift the mood, with UK construction figures and eurozone GDP data coming in weaker than expected.
Oil giants slipped as the price of a barrel of Brent crude fell to just over $49.
BP leaked 3.9p to 379.25p, a day after rumours emerged that unidentified US activist investors had it in their sights for a possi- ble break-up and sell- off. Chief executive Bob Dudley sought to play down such talk last month, saying he believed BP’s Gulf of Mexico $18.7bn oil spill legal settlement made a bid for the group less likely.
Premier Farnell lit up 1.4p to 135.9p after the electronic parts distributor said it was parting company with chief executive Laurence Bain ‘with immediate effect’.
The group warned on profits last month after a summer slowdown, particularly in its North American and UK markets.
There has been talk that activist investor GO Investment Partners was pushing for a shake-up, including a possible merger with rival Electrocomponents. The latter’s shares advanced 0.4p to 188.5p.
Shares in Glencore subsided 3.95p to 172.85p ahead of half-year results next week in which the miner and commodity trader is tipped to give more detail of plans to adapt to falling commodity prices.
Investec has a ‘sell’ recommendation on Glencore, which yesterday said it had sold a copper project and its stakes in two nickel schemes. The broker said: ‘We anticipate further substantial changes at the company’s interim results on August 19.’
Lamprell fell 2.75p to 130.5p as the oil services group launched a search for a successor to chief executive James Moffatt, who announced he was retiring at the end of June next year.
Investors in Churchill Mining were left none the wiser after the company reported the completion of a tribunal hearing linked to its legal action against the Indonesian government over the revocation of mining licences at its East Kutai coal project in East Kalimantan. Churchill said the tribunal, which has to rule on Indonesia’s application to have the case dismissed, was unlikely to make a decision for some months. Shares retreated 3.5p to 34.5p.
Investors jumped on board Atlantic Coal as the Pennsylvania-based miner opened a new rail loading depot at its Stockton pit. Atlan- tic said it would allow the company to shift more coal and cut costs by removing the need to use road transport and rail loading points elsewhere. Shares rose 0.01p or 11.11pc to 0.1p.
News of a fire in a building at the Bozshakol copper project in Kazakhstan knocked shares in Kaz Minerals by 4.4p to 149.6p. Kaz said the fire had been put out and there were no reported injuries.
Technology and intellectual property services group Tekcapital inflated 3p to 46p after it bought the exclusive worldwide licensing rights to nine patents for equipment to improve the efficiency of air conditioning systems.
IP Group , another intellectual property company, lost 1.4p to 223.6p as one of its portfolio companies, First Light Fusion, raised up to £22.7m.
Shares in Vast Resources declined 0.02p to 1.42p as the metal miner started production at its Manaila open cast pit in Romania.