MOVERS OF THURSDAY 7 JANUARY 2021
(FGP ) shares rose 10.57% to 77.9p with $3.7bn bid
Shares in the transport operator rose in Thursday afternoon trading after it was unveiled that an infrastructure fund run by one of Scandinavia’s most powerful private equity firms has joined the race for the group’s £2.5bn US operations, Sky News reported today.
Sky News said it understands that EQT Infrastructure had tabled an offer thought to have been worth roughly $3.7bn for First Student and First Transit just days before Christmas.
FirstGroup operates more than 40,000 US yellow school buses, while its Greyhound network comprises more than 1,400 coaches which typically carry 14 million passengers annually.
Last month, the group’s chief executive, Matthew Gregory, told investors that it was "in discussions with a number of credible potential buyers who have a long-term perspective".
Despite the news sending the stock up, shares have slumped by 42% in the last 12 months.
(CLP ) shares soar 57.41% to 0.425p
The investment company which holds a portfolio of companies primarily encompassing the leisure and real estate sectors mainly in Italy, has seen shares rise by over 20% this year.
The firm resumed trading on the AIM market back in October 2020 after it finally published its results for the 2019 financial year after a two and a half week delay from the deadline.
Chairman Francesco Gardin said, “We remain committed to returning value to shareholders as our ultimate goal and remain positive on two fronts; that our technology investments are considered sound, and secondly, that our ongoing legal claims have strong merit for success."
The following month, shares rose as the company entered into a binding agreement with Eufingest SA to convert all the investor's outstanding loans plus accrued interest to date.
(OBC ) shares jumped 44.70% to 95.5p
Shares continue to rise again for the blockchain and cryptocurrency firm which stated that it saw no material impact as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. In fact, for the year gone by, shares in Online Blockchain shares have more than tripled, reaching recent highs of 71p.
Last week the company said it associated the recent share price movement with its recent £0.4m raise via a placing of 1.8m new shares through Monecor, which trades as ETX Capital.
OBC will use the proceeds to fund the launch of crypto and blockchain-based products, including a new development project in decentralised finance of a DeFi protocol, Umbria, which the company hopes to commence beta-testing in the first quarter of 2021.
Umbria's objective is to enable user-friendly swapping between pairs of crypto-assets by interfacing with existing third-party DeFi protocols such as Uniswap, Sushiswap and Yearn.
(WEB ) shares jump 33.33% to 2.2p
Shares in the holding company which holds subsidiaries operating in the gaming and technology sectors have increased by almost 60% since the beginning of April 2020.
The AIM-listed company owns the WatchandWager.com racetrack totalisator, which also operates harness race meetings at the Cal Expo racetrack which is located in California.
In recent weeks, the group has seen shares rise after its WatchandWager.com business’s licence was renewed by the California Horse Racing Board.
The licence renewal is for the years 2021-2022, and it allows WatchandWager to continue to accept online pari-mutuel wagers from residents of California on its range of global content.
Webis sees the renewal as ‘strategically important’ for US access and for a potential offering of sports betting to California residents when the state legislature passes this into law.
The licence also sits alongside Webis’ long-term lease of the Cal Expo racetrack, ‘adding an important physical, as well as on-line, presence in the state,’ it told investors in November.
(IPO ) shares fell 8.14% to 101.9p after Invesco sells 61.9m shares
Shares in the London group fell after Invesco sold 61.9m shares in the company in a placing.
The shares were sold at 100.5p each, according to traders, which was the lower end of the initial guidance of between 100.5p and 103p and came at a discount of around 9.5%.
Meanwhile, the intellectual property group announced yesterday that its autonomous vehicle software portfolio company Oxbotica had raised £36m of new capital in a series B round.
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