Centamin shares soared today, amid hopes that the Egyptian miner’s legal headache could be coming to an end.
The FTSE 250 company has been dogged by a long-running court case in Egypt, calling into question the validity of its licence to excavate at its Sukari site, its only producing mine. Shares were suspended when the case was first brought in October 2012.
The Jersey-registered firm said today that a new investment law, that came into effect in Egypt yesterday, will “restrict the capacity for third parties to challenge any contractual agreement between the Egyptian government and an investor”.
While this doesn’t automatically nullify the Sukari claim, the law is retrospective and Centamin thinks the case “may be dismissed under the provisions of this new law”. The gold miner, which is planning a dividend, scrambled up 5p to 60.97p.
The blue-chip index was boosted by strong numbers from Facebook and Apple overnight. Microchip designer Imagination Technologies, one of the few public Apple suppliers, climbed 15p to 199.05p, but fellow chip designer ARM Holdings could only manage a 0.5p rise to 956.75p, after disappointing results yesterday.
The FTSE 100 added 36.03 points to 6710.77, but Michael Hewson, chief market analyst at CMC Markets, cautioned: “We could find that it will take more than a couple of good tech reports to hang on to those gains.”
Building supplies chain Travis Perkins trumpeted strong first quarter trading today, with a 12.7% growth in sales. But weak figures to compare against meant investors weren’t bowled over by the numbers and Travis Perkins inched up a meek 4p to 1834.5p.
Set-top box maker Pace climbed 8.7p to 406.95p after saying it is on track to hit $2.7 billion (£1.6 billion) in revenue this year, as expected.
AIM-listed Conviviality Retail, owner of the Bargain Booze chain, confirmed it is in talks to buy a “small number” of Rhythm & Booze off-licences from Costcutter-owner Bibby Retail. Conviviality crept up 0.5p to 166.5p.
Tertiary Minerals was unhappy about an “exaggerated and unjustified” fall in its share price. A recent announcement that estimated reserves of fluorspar at its Nevada site were twice what it had expected sent shares tumbling from 10.5p to around 7p, leaving management scratching their heads. Tertiary put on 0.12p to 7.12p.
