Tesco (LON:TSCO) shares rose 3.3% to 221.10p in early morning trading
Ken Murphy, Tesco’s new CEO, said the group had seen a strong rise in first-half sales due to an influx of purchases from customers working from home during the pandemic.
Pre-tax profit for the 26 week period to 29 August 2020 was up 28.7% from 2019 at £551m.
As reported this morning by the Financial Times, Murphy has signalled that he will continue his predecessor’s dividend policy after declaring a 2% increase in the half-year payout.
Like-for-likes sales in the UK and Ireland, its core market, rose 7.2% while the retailer upgraded its outlook on retail profitability for the year. As recorded by Bloomberg during early morning trading, this positive outlook prompted shares to surge as much as 5.1%.
Separately, Tesco said that Imran Nawaz, Finance Director at food supplier Tate & Lyle, will replace Mr Alan Stewart who will step down as Chief Financial Officer next year.
Shares in Tesco have dropped 13% this year.
Invinity Energy Systems (AIM:IES) shares rose 16.09% higher to 133.5p
The manufacturer of vanadium flow batteries today announced its participation in four separate energy storage projects funded by the California Energy Commission ("CEC").
In January 2020, the CEC, California's primary energy policy and planning agency, released a grant funding opportunity to promote innovative non-lithium ion energy energy storage.
Invinity collaborated with four partners to submit independent proposals. Of the 23 submissions received, eight awards were proposed, including all four Invinity submissions.
The Company is working to conclude final contracts with its project partners towards a 2021 delivery of the combined 7.8 megawatt per hour of Invinity's vanadium flow batteries.
“Our success in this solicitation is an enormous vote of confidence in Invinity's vanadium flow batteries and their ability to help ensure a robust, clean, and inexpensive energy supply in the future,” said Larry Zulch, Chief Executive Officer at Invinity.
Helios Underwriting (AIM:HUW) shares rose 17.19% higher to 112.5p
The investment vehicle confirmed to investors that it is planning a £20m fundraise in an attempt to ‘take advantage of the attractive opportunities in the hardening market.
The Company said it currently has indications of interest for the substantial part of the Fundraising, including sizeable orders from insurance specialist institutional investors.
The discussions with potential investors have crystallised around an issue price of 120p per share, being a discount of around 42% to adjusted net asset value, but a premium of around 25% to the closing mid-market price on 6 October 2020.
Shares in Helios were 21% higher in London on Wednesday at midday at 116p each.
As part of the fundraising, Helios intends to enter into conditional agreements with CEO Nigel Hanbury and CFO Arthur Manners to acquire an LLV from each of them for a combined consideration of £5.5m being a 21% discount to their Humphrey valuation of around £7m.
"We are most encouraged by the progress we have made on the potential fundraising thus far, and by the significant interest we have seen from well-known and respected insurance specialist institutions,” said Hanbury.
Omega Diagnostics (AIM:ODX) shares ticked up 3.30% higher to 109.5p
Shares in the medical diagnostics company received a boost during the day with news that the UK government had placed an initial order for one million of its COVID-19 rapid tests.
The group said this first order is part of the UK Government's plans to roll-out COVID-19 surveillance studies to help build a picture of how the virus has spread across the country.
Omega’s AbC-19™ Rapid test uses a small drop of blood from a finger-prick, and shows results in 20 minutes, without the need for a patient sample to be sent to a laboratory.
The test is CE-Marked for professional use and can be administered by healthcare professionals, such as doctors, pharmacists and healthcare workers, at the point-of-care.
‘Omega expects to manufacture around 175,000 of these first 1 million tests but over the term of this supply agreement, Omega will manufacture not less than 25% of the demand from total orders placed, either from the UK Government or, where allowed, third party customers.’
Omega expects to give a trading update for the six months to 30 September 2020 later this month.
Cineworld (LON:CINE) shares fell a further 3.99% this afternoon to 26.6p
Shares in the group which announced the temporary closure of all 128 cinemas in the UK and Ireland on Monday are trading over 87% lower than the start of 2020, IG Bank reports.
This means that Cineworld’s stock sits at its lowest level since markets crashed in March.
The cinema group now has net debt of almost $8.2 billion as recorded at the end of June.
The decision to suspend operations in the UK and US from Thursday is ‘the most brutal blow yet to an industry already reeling from the pandemic,’ the Financial Times wrote.
Analyst Nigel Parson of Canaccord Genuity, said the move “ratchets up the pressure on the studios to commit to their slates” of releases and that he expects other chains to follow suit.
IG Bank said a possible future takeover would rely on the buyer having belief in the long-term future of the cinema industry, ‘which is now in question as streaming sites gain traction.’