PRESS DIGEST - British business press - April 30

The Times

CUSTOMERS OF HOMEBASE AND ARGOS TOLD TO BRACE FOR PRICE RISES OF UP TO TEN PER CENT

Home Retail Group (HOME.L) has warned that its prices may rise by as much as 10 percent because of the week pound. The retailer said that even after cheaper raw material and shipping prices were taken into account, costs of imported goods could rise by a tenth. During the year to 28 February, like-for-like sales fell 4.8 percent at Argos and 10.2 percent at Homebase. Pre-tax profit was down 24 percent on last year, at 327.7 million pounds.

TIDDLER TO WATCH

Shares in Optus, the UK maker of eye scan equipment, have risen to 44 pence from 34 pence since Gartmore took a 5 percent stake last week. Three weeks ago, the company had a positive trading statement and is now forecast to return to profitability by the end of this year.

RUMOUR OF THE DAY

FeONIC, a company which is developing technology that converts ordinary surfaces such as walls, floors and tables in to high-fidelity loudspeakers, is set to release first-half figures on Thursday showing that losses are reducing substantially as it moves from research and development into commercial sales. The company's shares on the Plus market remained unchanged at 2.375 pence.

TEMPUS:

Punch Taverns (PUB.L) (only for the brave)

Wolfson Microelectronics (hold)

Fenner (buy on weakness)

The Daily Telegraph

80 MILLION POUND AVIVA REBRANDING ATTACKED

Investors have accused the board of Aviva (AV.L) of 'squandering shareholders' money' on a high-profile rebranding campaign which features a number of stars including Bruce Willis, Elle Mcpherson and Ringo Starr. The campaign is part of a rebranding which will see all of the group's businesses, including Norwich Union, renamed Aviva. The chairman of Aviva, Lord Sharman, defended the move, arguing that the insurer's brand awareness had grown from 35 percent to 80 percent as a result of the campaign.

SHOP DIRECT PICKS WOOLWORTHS' BOSS

Matthew Hardcastle has been appointed as head of Shop Direct Group's Woolworths brand. Mr Hardcastle has spent five years at eBay and was most recently managing director of Shopping.com UK. Woolworths was bought by Shop Direct in February and the online and mail-order retailer plans to relaunch it as an online brand. Mr Hardcastle is to run the new Woolworths.co.uk website and he described Woolworths as 'a much cherished British brand'. Woolworths went into administration in November.

WOLFSON PROSPECTS OFFSET DECLINE

Total sales at Wolfson Microelectronics almost halved in the first three months of the year, but improved sales of electronic chips for high-end mobile phones and televisions boosted confidence in the semi-conductor developer's prospects. Revenues fell 46 percent in the first quarter and the company swung to a pre-tax loss of 4.7 million pounds from a profit of 3.1 million pounds in the same quarter a year ago. Despite the decline in sales, Wolfson increased its cash position to 97.8 million dollars. Shares closed at 125 pence, up 12 percent.

QUESTOR:

Croda (CRDA.L) (buy)

Cineworld (buy)

The Independent

ABBEY BANKS 25 PERCENT RISE IN PROFITS IN FIRST QUARTER

Abbey has revealed a 25 percent rise in pre-tax profit for the first three months of 2009. The bank posted a surplus of 372 million pounds and said that last year's acquisition of Alliance & Leicester and the savings arm of Bradford & Bingley made a positive contribution to profits. The first set of results for the combined business showed that the pair added nearly 50 billion pounds to Abbey's deposit base as of the end of March. Santander, Abbey's parent, also announced profits of 2.1 billion euros.

HMV HITS THE RIGHT NOTE BUT WATERSTONE'S TOILS

HMV (HMV.L) has said that its profits will be at the upper end of market expectations for the year to April 25. City analysts expect HMV to deliver full-year pre-tax profits, before exceptionals, in the range of 50.3 million pounds to 53.7 million pounds. Over the 16 weeks to 25 April, HMV UK and Ireland saw total sales rise 11.7 percent, but underlying sales at Waterstone's fell 4.3 percent. This autumn, HMV is to trial its first hmvcurzon cinema above its store in Wimbledon.

ALLIED DIRECTOR LEAVES AS HILCO RESHAPES RETAILER

Jean Wattel, Allied Carpets' chief operating officer, has resigned only weeks after Hilco bought the UK's second largest retailer of floor coverings. Mr Wattel's departure comes as the restructuring specialist finalises a business plan to take the retailer forward with fewer stores. Hilco is the lead investor behind the offshore fund Sigma Capital Investment, which bought Allied Carpets at the end of March. It is unclear whether Mr Wattel has another job to go to and both Hilco and Allied Carpets have declined to comment.

INVESTMENT COLUMN:

Punch Taverns (PUB.L) (sell)

ARM Holdings (ARM.L) (buy)

Croda International (CRDA.L) (hold)

The Guardian

SORRELL'S WPP SALARY FALLS TO 3.1 MILLION POUNDS

WPP's (WPP.L) company report and accounts reveal that its boss, Sir Martin Sorrell, was paid over three million pounds last year and owns shares worth around 75 million pounds. The report and accounts also reveal that WPP has agreed to contribute to the expenses of maintaining Sorrell's New York apartment as he is required to spend a considerable amount of time there 'due to the size of the company's business in the U.S.', however, WPP did not make such a payment in 2008. Sorrell conceded this week that WPP would miss revenue targets and forecast a fall in the 'mid-single digits'.

SHELL WILL STICK WITH TAR SANDS DESPITE LOSSES

Shell (RDSa.L) is to continue with its tar sands projects but is considering far-reaching cost cuts to keep the operations going after they lost 42 million dollars over the last three months. The losses in the tar sands business, opposed by environmentalists because of its large carbon footprint, helped drag down first-quarter profits by 62 percent to $3.49 billion. Shell also saw a 3.5 percent decline in production and blamed attacks on its Nigerian oil installations and quota restrictions imposed by Opec. Shell plans $31 billion of investment in 2009.

SALE OF NUCLEAR POWER PLANT SITES RAISES ALMOST 400 MILLION POUNDS

The online bidding process for three sites on which to build nuclear power plants finished on Wednesday with the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority raising almost 400 million pounds. A consortium of E.ON (EONGn.DE) and RWEnpower (RWEG.DE) has won the bidding for a site of 438 acres of land at Wylfa in Anglesey and another site of 119 acres at Oldbury. EDF (EDF.PA) has obtained 493 acres at Bradwell next to land it already owns, and the company reiterated its determination to build four new European Pressurised Reactors in the UK with the first operational by the end of 2017.

Prepared for Reuters by Durrants