Friday newspaper share tips: Henderson Group, Relx

Should I stay or should I go? In the case of investors in Henderson Group mulling whether to bail-out ahead of the proposed merger with Janus Capital, The Times´s Tempus recommended the former option.

True, there was little prospect of a rival bid making an appearance and just what exactly the promise of a progressive dividend entailed was less than crystal clear, the investment column mused.

Nonetheless, funds under management stood at £100.9bn as of 30 August, which was up by £900m.

Furthermore, consolidation between fund managers is "fairly easy", with lots of low-hanging fruit within reach in terms of cost savings from cutting back-office and IT costs and the market can only grow.

"On balance [..] investors should await results of merger", so 'hold', Tempus concluded.

A reliable growth outlook at Relx means the shares continue to be a buy, notwithstanding their solid performance over the past five years and their current rating, The Times´s Tempus wrote.

Underlying sales growth at the former Reed Elsevier accelerated over the first nine months of the year to 4%, versus the 3% average over the past five years.

Its legal division was the main driver of the expansion seen in the firm´s top line, despite the general slowdown in legal action Stateside.

That came alongside stronger growth on the risk and analytics side of the business.

Critically, the company is heavily geared operationally, so improvements in top line growth immediately fall through to the bottom line, the tipster explained.

The rest of its business units did well enough and management is intent on expanding its geographic footprint to the UK, Brazil, India and China.

"So far, so grindingly reliable, which explains the seemingly unstoppable rise in the share price in the past five years," Tempus said.

"Buy", Tempus advised.