Friday newspaper share tips: Cash could be returned to LSEG shareholders

The possibility of cash being returned to shareholders prompted The Times’ Tempus to rate London Stock Exchange Group at ‘buy long term’ on Friday.

In a trading statement on Thursday, the FTSE 100 group said equity capital raisings were down 2% to £40bn in “more challenging market conditions,” while new issues were down to 161 from 193 last year.

It said secondary markets saw average daily UK equity value traded up 9%; Italian average daily volumes up 7%; derivatives contracts traded on IDEM in Italy rose 14%; MTS money markets (repo) value traded increased 21% and fixed income cash markets value traded declined 4%.

Tempus said investors will being hanging in there until March to see what the company will do with the large amount of cash piling up.

The sale of the investment management division of Frank Russell is due to be completed in the first half of 2016, which will also bring in $1.15bn (£770m).

Tempus said while there are a number of new ventures coming forward, if “deal-hungry” chief executive Xavier Rolet doesn’t find something to buy, there’ a chance that cash could be returned to investors.

While shares are trading near their peak, it said the multiple isn’t unreasonable and the long term prospects are good.

Meanwhile, the fall in the oil price prompted The Telegraph’s Questor to advise traders to ‘sell’ shares in BP.

Oil prices have been hovering between $34 and $40 this week, with Brent down 0.54% to $36.86 - the lowest level since December 2008, and WTI Crude below $35 a barrel again, down 1.32% to $34.49.

Questor said that current analyst estimates are now extremely optimistic, and can’t see how BP will hit pre-tax profits of $8.8bn next year based on second and third quarter results.

On top of that, it noted the oil company’s share price has fallen more than 10% in the last three weeks, and Questor said it is looking like it will need to make some tough calls to prepare for a sustainable future.

That could include cutting the dividend in half and seeing the rating on the shares fall.

With a tough future ahead but BP doing all it can to protect profits, Questor said to ‘sell’ the shares.