Photo-Me International has had a fairly torrid time since the start of the month and last night it became clear exactly who has been exerting the selling pressure. It’s the market’s old friend SimonCawkwell, aka Evil Knievil.
This week it was rumoured that Schroder Investment Management, the largest institutional investor in Photo-Me with more than 16% of the firm, was looking to sell 20m shares or 5.5% of the company.
According to some sources in the market SIM has been hoovering up shares in the business as it has slumped from more than 120p at the start of the month to 94p on Wednesday night.
In fact the pressure on the shares has been coming from Mr Cawkwell who is short 125,000 shares and – as he put it on UK- Analyst.com – expects “to clean up”.
He is unconvinced that take-up of the photo booth operator’s new photo-processing technology will be as rapid as the company’s supporters ex pect. The company is heavily indebted – though those borrowings are being reduced – and its net assets are far outweighed by its market capitalisation at its present level.
His arguments may hold water but traders yesterday sent Photo-Me shares back up 2.25p to 97p on relief that their recent weakness owes more to the actions of one gambler and those that follow him than the possible departure of the firm’s biggest shareholder.
In the main market the FTSE 100 index ended the session down 19.4 points at 4308 as the bombings in Turkey raised concerns about global security and the possibility of an attack in Britain. One of the few bright spots in the market was mmO 2 , up 2.25p at 67.25p as Cazenove made some positive comments after meeting the mobile operator’s management.
Worries about the heightened terrorist threat across the western world sent insurance and banking stocks into a tailspin with HSBC down 11p at 860p. Royal & SunAlliance closed down 1.5p at 85p with Aviva down 10p at 472p.
The impact of the bombings in Istanbul was also felt in the hotels and leisure sector; the country is a popular package holiday destination. Intercontinental Hotels dropped 15.75p to 523.5p with First Choice down 5p at 128.25p.
The biggest loser among the holiday stocks was Lastminute.com , down 51.5p at 248.5p. Traders said that while the departure of Martha Lane Fox – something of a pin-up for the net generation – was a shame, the real reason for the fall was the fear that travellers will hold off making last minute trips for a few weeks because of the terrorist threat.
Lastminute.com was the biggest loser in a FTSE 250 index which closed down 48.1 points at 5,634.7.
Headed in the opposite direction were shares in Balfour Beatty – one of the leaders in public private partnership schemes – as fellow PPP player Carillion announced it was selling its interest in a government hospital contract for an pounds 11m profit. The deal shows that despite all the bad press PPP has received over recent months the contracts can be very lucrative indeed. Carillion gained 6p to 142.25p. Balfour was up 15.5p at 215.75p.
Capita gained 6.25p to 242p as the company said it had won a contract to provide life and pension administration services to the Dublin life assurance businesses of both St James’s Place International and Prudential. The contract is projected to generate revenues of pounds 110m over 10 years, with pounds 18m of that coming in the first year.
Since the recent rise in in terest rates, designed to cool personal borrowing, the retailing sector has taken something of a hit. JJB Sports continued to slide yesterday, down 16.5p at 256.5p; it was above 300p earlier in the month. French Connection also suffered, down 115p at 1683p, becoming the second biggest loser in the FTSE 250 after Lastminute.
Elsewhere in the market the mystery seller in Manchester United was last night unmasked as hedge fund Lansdowne Partners.
The hedge fund has been a fairly active trader in Manchester United for some months. It initially built up a stake of almost 6% only to sell down to below 4%. At last count it had about 4% of the company and news that it is looking to offload all its shares suggests that it thinks the roller-coaster ride is over – for the moment. The shares closed unchanged at 232p.
Among the minnows The Telecommunications Group gained 0.5p to 7.25p as it signed a deal with Vodafone in the Netherlands. The deal, which will see TTG’s Dutch unit become a reseller of Vodafone’s mobile solutions, could be worth pounds 1m in annual revenues to the company.
Shares in Cardpoint , owner of the much sought-after EPIC code CASH, gained 5.5p to 85p as the provider of electronic payment transactions announced its annual figures. The company managed a profit before financial charges of pounds 1.3m as turnover shot up fourfold to pounds 12.2m.
Madisons Coffee perked up 0.25p to 5.37p as shareholders at the annual meeting heard chairman Nigel Whittaker say that since the close of its financial year the performance of its coffee shops and restaurants has continued to improve.
