Hiring pace slows further in June

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Permanent staff placements by recruiters have continued to slow in June, according to a survey published on Wednesday. This continues the trend set in May, where the number of job vacancies made available also fell to their slowest in 2015. The report cited a lack of skilled candidates as the reason for the slow growth. “Recruiters are struggling to fill vacancies for everything from software engineers to sales,” Bernard Brown, a partner at KPMG, said. Job data will be watched closely by the Bank of England, who are predicted to raise interest rates from its record low of 0.5% in the near future. The market predicts the first rise in the UK Bank Rate around May or June 2016, with the conensus of economist views pointing to March.

Anthony Jenkins sacked as Barclays CEO

Barclay’s CEO Anthony Jenkins has been sacked over the lack of cost cuts and changes to the investment bank. Chairman John McFarlane will step in as caretaker CEO until a suitable replacement is found. “Whilst it is unfortunate that I have had little time to work with Antony, I respect and endorse the position of the board in deciding that a change in leadership is required at this time,” said Mr. McFarlane Jenkins’ exit follows a number of changes at the top of major investment banks whose boards and investors felt the man at the top wasn’t the most appropriate person to navigate changes in regulations and deliver cost synergies. “The board recognizes the contribution made by Antony Jenkins as chief executive over the past three years in incredibly difficult circumstances for the group, and is extremely grateful to him in bringing the company to a much stronger position,” Barclays said in statement. Shares in Barclays traded up 3.3% in early London trade.

Apprentice star Lauren Riley crowdfunding for ‘The Link’ app

Apprentice star Lauren Riley is crowdfunding for The Link, her new app designed to revolutionise methods of communicating between professional firms and their clients. Initially, the app has been created for those working across private client legal sectors. Riley, who is a family law solicitor, saw the need for a way to save time and money and increase productivity by replacing multiple daily calls, emails and letters into one easy to use channel. In an increasingly competitive market, an app that claims to potentially increase firms’ profit by £84,000 per year, per solicitor is an invaluable addition to the workplace. The Link App are crowdfunding on Crowd2Fund, with a funding target of £150,000 for 15% equity. The funding will enable them to release their product on the general market. Riley says: “Crowd2Fund offers a simple and quick platform for investors to gain insight into the business with much of the usual due diligence work done for them. My investors also become my clients, product testers and invest in future rounds so crowdfunding was clearly the best way to raise funds.” I have always loved being in business. As an entrepreneur I was convinced there must be a better way for lawyers to communicate with their clients. After all, this is the twenty first century. After listening to the continued grumblings of my colleagues who work in law, I had my eureka moment and The Link App was born. We’ve seen phenomenal interest in the app so far, using the crowd is a modern way to raise funds for a modern company.” The basic version of the app has launched and 80 law firms have already expressed their interest in using the product. Although initially focused on law firms and their clients in the UK, many professional sectors have the same needs and in the future the app could be developed to target these sectors and globally. For further information on investing in The Link, visit www.crowd2fund.com/thelinkapp. As an added incentive, investors will also receive £1,000 of usage credit on the app if they contribute £5,000 or more of the £150,000 target.  

Fevertree Drinks up 8%

Fevertree Drinks are up 8% this morning after issuing a pre-close trading statement. The company stated: “The Board is pleased to announce that Fever-Tree has continued to perform strongly in the first six months of 2015. It is anticipated that sales in the first half of 2015 will be approximately GBP24 million, 61 per cent. ahead of the prior year period. June was a particularly strong sales month, although it was accentuated by certain customers and importers building inventory in advance of the summer season. Given the strong sales in the first half of the year and in particular in June, the Board anticipates that the results for the full year will be materially ahead of board expectations.” UK-based Fevertree is a leading supply of premium carbonated mixers for alcoholic spirits.

Red Rock Resources down 23%

Red Rock Resources (AIM:RRR) is one of the biggest movers on the AIM market this morning, falling 23.08% after announcing investment in Elephant Oil. The company have issued a total of 689,473,706 ordinary shares of 0.01p each, representing proceeds of £327,500. 421,052,632 of the new Shares represent a £200,000 subscription by Elephant Oil Limited. Elephant Oil is a privately held independent oil and gas exploration company focused on West Africa. Elephant holds an 100% interest in the production-sharing contract on Block B, onshore Benin, on the prolific West Africa Transform Margin. The block covers 4,500 km2 and is one of only two onshore blocks to have been made available by the government of Benin. Andrew Bell, Chairman, states: “Following continuing discussions with Elephant, Red Rock has determined to press forward with its investment in Elephant’s oil exploration activities in West Africa, and consequently to undertake the current funding exercise. We consider that the Elephant team is making rapid progress in working to expand its footprint and add further oil opportunities in West Africa and our own exploration activities in Ivory Coast have given us a strong conviction of the economic prospects and investment merits of the region, as well as of its geological prospectivity.”  

Thursday set for Greece deadline

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The Eurozone has given Greece until Thursday to come to an agreement with their creditors. European Council President Donald Tusk confirmed that “the final deadline is this week,” after emergency talks in Brussels. He stated that it was the “most critical moment in the history of the eurozone”. Whilst there were expectations that Greece would present new proposals on Tuesday, however none were forthcoming. On Sunday, a meeting of all 28 members of the EU will be held and Greece’s future will be decided. In comments to French TV on Wednesday morning, the EU’s Economy Commissioner, Pierre Moscovici, said agreement with Greece was “indispensible” and a Greek exit from the Eurozone must be avoided.  

Omega Diagnostics down 19% after publication of final results

Omega Diagnostics (AIM:ODX) is one of the biggest movers on the AIM market today, down 19.67% after publishing their final results for the year ending March 2015. Their turnover is up 4% at £12.1 million and gross profit is up 4% at £7.7 million. However, in a company statement a problem with their product Visitant(R) CD4 was cited, which could be the reason behind the drop in share price despite otherwise promising results. Chairman David Evans commented: “Since our last update on Visitect(R) CD4 confirming completion of the internal investigation phase, we moved into the process of verification and validation. This includes testing the longer-term stability of in-house manufactured finished devices, and as such, could not commence until the manufacturing process had been selected. We have determined within the last few days that there is a stability issue with finished product that manifests after a period of five weeks of storage at room temperature. This requires further investigation as to root cause, which is being undertaken now.” Omega is one of the UK’s leading companies in the fast growing area of food intolerance, and also operates in markets supplying tests for allergies and autoimmune diseases and specific infectious diseases.

Hotcha launches mini bond on Crowdcube

Bristol-based Chinese takeaway restaurant Hotcha has become the latest company to advertise an investment opportunity on Crowdcube. Their mini bond offers a choice of financial return – investors can choose either an 8% interest rate, payable in cash, or a 12% interest rate redeemable in store credit. The initial investment starts at a minimum of £250, and the company are looking to raise a total of £1 million. The opportunity has 44 days left and has already raised nearly a quarter of the total needed. The team behind the project come from a variety of relevant industries, bringing a wealth of expertise to the table. Co-Founders James Laing and Andy Chan both have experience managing and directing sales-based companies and believe that, in order for the business to be successful, the simple things should be done right; in other words, the food should be fast, friendly and fresh. Mini-bonds provide a regular return on your savings by lending money to more established brands over a set period. For more information on Hotcha’s investment opportunity, visit Crowcube.com.  

What to expect from the Budget

This will be the first purely Conservative Budget in nearly 20 years and the first of the new government. Even though we already had a Budget earlier this year, this Summer Budget is a sort of ‘emergency budget’, similar to the one George Osborne called following their victory in 2010. The emergency budget will be held 8th July at 12:30 BST. This is what the UK Investor Magazine is expecting from the Budget
  • The 40% tax rate raised to £50,000
  • Increase of personal allowance to £12,500 by 2020
  • Possible abolition of 45% tax rate
  • Announcement to allow round-the-clock Sunday trading
  • Removal of inheritance tax on couple’s estates worth under £1 million
  • Cuts in council rent subsidies for those with reasonable incomes
  • The controversial announcement of £12 billion in welfare cuts
  • Cuts to tax credits
  • Further reforms to pension making them simpler to understand
  • Removal of buy-to-let tax breaks

Cineworld posts 11.3% rise in profit

Cineworld (LON:CINE) posted an 11.2% increase in revenue for their first half as they benefitted from a good film release schedule and cinema openings. “During the first half of the year we traded well with a good film release schedule and in addition continued our expansion plans, by opening three new Cineworld cinemas in the U.K. (Swindon, Broughton and Silverburn, with 31 screens in total) and one Picturehouse (in East Dulwich with 3 screens)…we are on track to open a further 6 cinemas in the U.K.–with a total 47 screens, of which 5 will be Picturehouse screens, the company said. The outlook for the second half of the year is also encouraging, Cineworld is highly impacted by external factors such as film releases and film trends and are looking forward to what H2 has in store. The strong results have led to N+1 Singer reiterating their buy stance on Cineworld, analysts are targeting a price of 550p citing admissions growth as reason to be optimistic. “There is a promising film release programme during the second half of the year which includes titles such as “Star Wars: Episode VII”, the final Hunger Games title “Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2” and the next James Bond film “Spectre”, the company said in there results. Shares in Cineworld are up 48% over the last two years.