Africa focused miner Petra Diamonds has today reported full year results slightly below those forecast by Allison Turner, at Panmure Gordon. The company´s earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) have come in at 90.3m dollars, compared with her forecast for 99.2m dollars. In a similar vein, the company´s loss per share was 48 cents, considerably worse than the -25 cents penciled in by the analyst.

Nevertheless, the company has made progress on its debt requirements (we estimate that Petra requires a further US$150-200m in long term funding), Panmure says. However, the broker adds that: "but there is no binding commitment from banks yet, with the process expected to complete by the end of this year (...) In the absence of a binding commitment from the banks, we continue to see funding as a significant risk for Petra which is one of the key reasons for our negative stance on the stock."

The premier British telecommunications provider Vodafone has this afternoon secured 4G radio-spectrum in the 800MHz band as well as renewal of 2G spectrum, in Romania, for 228.5m euros. The licences are valid until 2029.

That amount is 80% higher than Nomura´s estimate for spectrum cost in "other Europe" of £100m for fiscal year 2013. This has prompted analysts at Nomura to issue a research report this afternoon in which they tell clients"to consider the downside risk for Vodafone's medium-term dividend commitment."

In their own words: "as we highlighted in our recent downgrade from Buy to Neutral, ongoing spectrum cost is underappreciated by the market, in our view, and needs to be factored into assessments of underlying cash flow.

"(...) we think investors need to consider the downside risk for Vodafone's medium-term dividend commitment. We believe Vodafone's dividend needs to be rebased unless it is funded directly from Verizon Wireless cash flows - in which case the special dividend will be discontinued. We forecast a total dividend of 10p for fiscal year 2014, down from 14.2p for fiscal year 2013 and 13.5p for fiscal year 2012."

In a research note published this morning analysts at Peel Hunt have opted to raise their price target on shares of Aberdeen Asset Management significantly, to 350p from 300p previously, while maintaining their buy recommendation.

More specifically, they have indicated that: "we do not expect material change to our September 2012 numbers- we are forecasting 2012 profit before tax/adjusted earnings per share of £334.5m/20.9p, which is broadly in line with consensus. With the underlying momentum remaining strong there is scope for 2013 estimates to start moving up given equity markets continue to rise. This also has the potential to see dividend payments increase faster than the 10p we currently expect in 2012.

"The shares have run up strongly in recent weeks, but we think there is more to go for, assuming that 2013 forecasts are likely to move higher given positive market movements. We are rolling forward our valuation (...)."

AB

Related share prices
Vodafone Group (VOD) share price
Aberdeen Asset Management (ADN) share price
Petra Diamonds Ltd.(DI) (PDL) share price