With the latest decision on economic stimulus due from the US Federal Reserve later today, the FTSE 100 (FTSEINDICES: ^FTSE) has made a tentative start to the day with a rise of 11 points to 6,581 by late morning. With the high demand for Lloyds Banking Group shares in this week’s sell-off, both Lloyds and Royal Bank of Scotland are up a little today.
But what else is rising? Here are three from the various FTSE indices off to a good start:
Smiths Group
Full-year results from Smiths Group gave the engineering firm’s shares a boost of 48p (3.5%) to 1,424p. Total revenue for the year was up 2% to £3.1bn, with a 14% rise in emerging markets revenue playing a significant part — emerging markets now account for 16% of the total for the group.
Pre-tax profit and earnings per share (EPS) were flat. But the annual dividend was lifted 4% to 39.5p for a yield of 2.8%, and there will be a special dividend of 30p per share “reflecting the balance sheet strength“. The special payment will return around £118m to shareholders.
Redrow
Housebuilder Redrow (LSE: RDW) also released final results today, and saw its shares gain 9.2p (4%) to 240p as a result.
It was big positive numbers across the board — revenue up 26% to £604.8m, pre-tax profit up 63% to £70m, adjusted EPS up 45% to 15.7p, and there’s a 1p-per-share dividend this year where last year there was none.
Legal completions over the year were up 15% to 2,827, with the average selling price up 12% to £212,300.
BTG
Speciality pharmaceuticals and biotechnology firm BTG (LSE: BTG) got a modest boost, of 3.7p (1%) to 381p, on news that the European Commission has approved Genzyme’s Lemtrada (alemtuzumab) treatment for multiple sclerosis, on which BTG receives royalties. The approval follows on from the firm’s Aubagio (teriflunomide) drug for the same disease having got the nod last month.
Genzyme chief executive David Meeker told us “This is particularly exciting as the EU approval is the first for Lemtrada globally. We look forward to making these unique therapies available to MS patients very soon”.