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Friday's most followed: Quadrise Fuels International, Low & Bonar, Digital Barriers, Laird, IMI, Rentokil Initial

Last updated: 06:49 02 Mar 2012 EST, First published: 07:49 02 Mar 2012 EST

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One of this week’s top performers in London markets Quadrise Fuels International (LON:QFI) was the top search on Google Finance and one of the most actively discussed stocks on bulletin boards today.

Investors looked for more information about the company and searched for rumours that could explain why shares in the producer of emulsion fuels has gone up from seven pence to the current price of 12 pence in less than three days.

Quadrise supplies MSAR emulsion fuels, a low cost alternative to heavy fuel oil in the shipping, refining and power generation markets.

The company is currently involved in a joint development project with Maersk, one of the world’s largest purchasers of bunker fuel oil, to develop and commercialise MSAR.

Quadrise has said the report on Marine MSARfuel evaluation is expected to be completed in the second quarter of 2012.

On message boards, some investors suggested that the shares are up because investors suddenly realised that the potential market for MSAR is huge and if the evaluation is successful, could give a huge boost to its shares.

Other speculated that Quadrise and Maersk are preparing to release an update, noting that Quadrise has yet to respond to the share price rise.

In the meantime, the most read RNS statements of the day included acquisition announcement from performance materials group Low & Bonar (LON:LWB), security company Digital Barriers (LON:DGB) and electronics and technology group Laird (LON:LRD).

Low & Bonar has bought Xeroflor International GmbH, a designer and supplier of pre-vegetated mats used in green roof construction in both new and refurbished buildings, for €5.95 million from Wolfgang Behrens.

According to Low & Bonar, the German-based business has a strong position in the fast growing green roofing market.

The group’s Colbond business sells a range of components to the green roofing market which are complementary to Xeroflor's designs.

“The acquisition is a great fit with our existing business and we are excited about its prospects as regulators, architects and consumers increasingly demand sustainable solutions in all aspects of construction,” said chief executive of Low & Bonar Steve Good.

High profile examples of Xeroflor roofs are at the Vancouver Convention Centre in Canada, the Ford Motor Company's truck assembly plant in Michigan, the Aldi logistics centre in St. Augustin, Germany and the Kastrup power plant in Denmark.

Meanwhile, Laird expects both of the acquisitions it announced today to be earnings enhancing in the current year.

The group has bought Microwave Materials Group and Summit Data Communications for €22.5 million and US$22 million in respectively.

In addition, Laird could pay a further US$8 million for Summit, which provides wireless connectivity for blue chip customers in niche industrial and medical markets, if it meets certain performance targets by 2014.

The other business being acquired by Laird, Microwave Materials, is the holding company of Emerson & Cuming Microwave Products, which specialises in microwave absorber technology for a variety of markets including wireless and satellite communications and military and aerospace.

The acquisitions, said Laird, will strengthen its electromagnetic interference (EMI) shielding and machine to machine (M2M) businesses, in-line with its strategic focus.

Moving to Digital Barriers, has bought Edinburgh based company Codestuff, which provides video management system (VMS) software and network video recorder (NVR) servers, for an initial £750,000.

According to Digital Barriers, Codestuff’s client base includes a variety of leading players in the CCTV and security industries, as well as a number of OEMs.

Codestuff currently supplies VMS technology to Digital Barriers.

“Codestuff not only brings to Digital Barriers a suite of significant and extremely well regarded IP, but also the capability to integrate that IP into a wide range of coherent, integrated systems,” said managing director of Digital Barriers Colin Evans.

In the financial year to January 31, Codestuff posted a £60,000 loss on revenues of £0.6 million.

Other popular statements of the day included full year results from blue chip engineering firm IMI (LON:IMI) and pest control specialist Rentokil Initial (LON:RTO).

The two reports were in contrast to each other as while IMI rallied after reporting double digit growth in full year profits, the results from Rentokil disappointed, making the company the heaviest fallers in the FTSE 250 index.

In 2011, IMI saw its revenues rise 12 percent to £2.13 billion, leading to a 19 percent jump in adjusted pre-tax profits to £363.4 million.

The engineering group decided to increase its dividend by 15 percent to 30 pence on the back of the strong full year performance, while offering an upbeat outlook for the current year.

“Whilst the global macro-economic outlook remains uncertain, we are committed to our well defined plans to drive strategic convergence, accelerate future growth, deliver further margin improvement and make greater use of our strong balance sheet in delivering value enhancing acquisitions,” said chairman of IMI Roberto Quarta.

“Based on current market conditions we remain optIMIstic that the group will make further progress in 2012.”

Shares in IMI rose two percent to 990.5 pence in morning trade, while Rentokil dipped five percent to 76.4 pence as it revealed a four percent drop in full year profits to £184 million due to continuing problems at its troubled City Link parcel business.

Rentokil does not seem to expect a turnaround at City Link any time soon, saying trading at the business will continue to be poor in the second half of the current year after it delivered a massive £31.3 million loss last year.

The group underperformed in the final quarter of the year despite an eight percent growth in volumes, which led to a 0.5 percent increase in revenues.

However, losses were £3.1 million ahead of the same period of 2010 due to low productivity, which Rentokil said was driven by “conservative resource planning for the Christmas period.”

 

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