| The Markets Shares across Europe closed lower, perhaps the effect of Olympic blues. During what was a fairly quiet trading session the main talking point in the UK was a sharp drop in re-mortgaging numbers seen in June. The Council of Mortgage Lenders unveiled a 20% plunge in re-mortgaging loans to 23,400 for the month compared to a year earlier, which it believes may be due to predictions of lower future interest rates. The organisation did however confirm that first-time buyer activity had held up well during the period. In Greece, official figures conveyed an economy stuck in a deep recession as output was reported to have contracted by 6.2% in the second quarter of 2012. Although a slight improvement on the 6.5% GDP decline for the first quarter, the figure is still way off the Bank of Greece's forecast of 5%. At the London close the Dow Jones was down by 74.74 points at 13,133.21 and the Nasdaq was down by 8.84 points at 2,714.12. In London the FTSE 100 fell by 15.23 points to 5,831.88; the FTSE 250 finished 33.94 points behind at 11,436.81; the FTSE All-Share lost 7.82 points to 3,025.76; and the FTSE AIM Index fell by 4.53 points to 682.69. 
Broker Notes Panmure Gordon reiterated its "buy" recommendation for Balfour Beatty (BBY) with a 310p target price. The infrastructure services business will release half year results on 15th August, and the broker expects to see an order book of around 15 billion pounds. While the firm's rail business is likely to have struggled in Europe, Panmure believes this will have been offset by strong performances from its joint venture operations. On the broker's forecasts, the shares trade on a prospective earnings multiple of 7.7 times for the 2012 financial year and offer a dividend yield of 5.1%. The shares slipped by 2.8p to 290.1p.  Canaccord Genuity maintained its "buy" rating for Rio Tinto (RIO) with a slightly reduced target price of 4,050p, from 4,080p, a 27.5% discount to the NAV valuation of 5,587p. The broker believes that the mining group's iron ore expansion plans will help to improve margins, forecasting EBITDA to rise by 40% by 2015. Canaccord added that the Oyu Tolgoi mine is scheduled to commence copper production in the medium term, which should also help drive volumes. The shares edged down by 6.5p to 3,203.5p. Investec Securities retained its "buy" stance on Bellway (BWY) with a 925p target price. Following an upbeat trading statement, the broker increased its full year pre-tax profit forecast by 11% to 100 million pounds. Investec added that the group's year end net debt guidance of 41 million pounds was also better than previously expected. However, the broker noted that the housebuilder's chief executive and financial director are relatively new in their roles and that the firm will need to increase its land buying in the short-term. Bellway shares declined by 12.5p to 854.5p. Blue-Chips Petrofac (PFC) reported pre-tax profit growth of 38.7% for the six months ended 30th June to 414 million dollars (264.2 million pounds) on revenue growth of 19.6% to 3.24 billion dollars (2.07 billion pounds). The oil and gas support services provider said that it was on track to meet its 15% profit growth target for the full financial year. Despite the strong performance, investors were more concerned to hear of contract delays, which will result in some awards materialising in 2013 instead of 2012. Petrofac shares tumbled by 81p to 1,486p. 
In order to focus on its core assets, oil and gas giant BP (BP.) said that it will sell its Carson Refinery in California and Acro Retail Network for 2.5 billion dollars (1.6 billion pounds) in cash. Separately, BP announced that it will sell its Sunray and Hemphill gas processing plants in Texas for a cash consideration of 227.5 million dollars (145.2 million pounds). The assets process a combined 220 million cubic feet of gas per day and have a 2,500 mile pipeline network. The group noted that the deal does not include any of its production assets in the region and that it will now operate solely from its three northern US refineries. The shares leaked 1.75p to 446.85p. Mid-Caps Michael Page International (MPI) reported a 37.9% fall in pre-tax profits for the half year ended 30th June to 28.2 million pounds, on broadly flat revenues of 502.6 million pounds. The recruitment agency was heavily impacted by difficult conditions in the UK banking sector, were gross profits fell 50% year-on-year, as well as weak financial services sectors in Tokyo, Hong Kong and Singapore. Meanwhile, the group continued its global expansion, with new offices in Casablanca, Cape Town and Taipei. Michael Page shares fell by 7.8p to 371.2p. 
In order to increase its product offering, Colt Group (COLT) has bought cloud computing group Fidelity Telecom for an undisclosed sum. The target had gross assets of 0.6 million pounds as at 31st December 2011 and trades under the name ThinkGrid, providing hosted virtual desktops and a billing platform. The group added that the acquisition will give it access to "a reseller-oriented management platform and portal which will reduce our time to market across our European markets". The shares advanced by 4.9p to 119.8p. MITIE Group (MTO) said that it enjoyed a strong start to the year, with 87% of budgeted revenues for the year secured by 30th June 2012. During the period, the outsourcing and energy services company began its five year, 775 million pound contract for Lloyds Banking Group (LLOY) to deliver facilities management services. The firm added that it had a record order book and a good pipeline across its key markets. MITIE shares slumped 11.8p to 274p. Small Caps, AIM and PLUS Clean energy systems developer Camco International (CAO) has secured its first biogas project for Camco Southeast Asia, a 2MW project based at a palm oil mill in Palong, Malaysia. The system will use anaerobic digestion to recover biogas containing methane from palm oil mill effluent and will be among the largest of its type to date to generate electricity for supply to the Malaysian national grid. The mill owner will receive a portion of the power and carbon sales under a revenue share agreement. Despite strong early morning gains, the shares closed unchanged at 4.125p. Wasabi Energy (WAS) appears to be the latest victim of the capital markets drought, the clean tech group announcing the closure of its open offer share placing, reporting that just 26% of the shares available had been subscribed to. Fortunately, the underwriters of the placing were required to purchase an additional 56% of the shares, leaving the company with proceeds of 3.7 million dollars - one million dollars lower than it had targeted. The company will now have to make careful decisions about how to invest the cash, having previously announced it would use the proceeds to further develop its asset portfolio, repay a director a loan and fund working capital. Wasabi shares slipped 0.05p lower to 1.125p. Altona Energy (ANR) has been given the go ahead for the drilling programme at its flagship Arckarunga project in south Australia following the issue of a Water Affecting Activity (WAA) permit from the South Australia Department of Manufacturing, Innovation, Trade, Resources and Energy. The firm also received work area clearance from the native title claimant group Antakarinji Matu-Yankunytjatjara Aboriginal Corporation, and as a result, all locations are now clear for drilling. Altona Energy surged 0.625p to 3.5p. 
Anti-microbial hygiene company Byotrol (BYOT) has entered into a full licencing agreement with Fortune 150 partner Kimberly-Clark Corporation, the exact details of which have not been disclosed. The deal between the two parties follows the successful completion of the initial joint development agreement announced in January, with the new seven year contract having a global scope and providing Kimberly-Clark with exclusive intellectual property rights. Byotrol shares climbed 1p to 6.875p. Shares in Environmental Recycling Technologies (ENRT) jumped by 0.275p to 2p on news it has granted a licence to Brownwater Plastics LLC for the use of its patented powder impression moulding process. The licence allows US based Brownwater to manufacture and sell barges, barge covers and various components using the system, and will see ERT collect annual royalties bases on the sales of these products. The customer has already begun trialling prototype barge covers on working barges, for which is has reported encouraging results, and will commence commercial production and sale of barge covers immediately. Asset finance group 1PM (OPM) reported that following record trading results for the year to May, the new financial year has started positively, with new business written in the first two months contributing to a 7% increase in the firm's lease portfolio to 11.8 million pounds. The group added that its continued profitability is enabling it to re-invest surplus cash generated from day to day trading back into the business to further expand its lease portfolio. 1pm also announced it had secured an additional 500,000 pound lending facility from a private investor, which will be used exclusively for the expansion of its lease portfolio. 1PM shares inched 0.0125p higher to 0.1p. | 
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