Sunday share tips: Ashtead, BG Group, Tate & Lyle

Buy shares in Ashtead, said the Sunday Times' Inside the City column. The building and construction hire group's headquarters are in London and its business was built in the UK but now nine tenths of its sales come from the US. The last couple of years its Sunbelt unit in the States has opened more than a new outlet per week, helping group revenue grow by 24% and underlying profits jump 35% in the year to April. Despite this, the stock has remained range-bound.

Potential investors have held back due to US rivals' poor results and a rash of profit warnings from UK peers HSS and Speedy, plus worries that the slump in commodities will hit Ashtead's own numbers, despite the fact oil and gas only contribute a tiny proportion of sales. Although Ashtead's stock is valued at just over 12 times forward EPS, ahead of the sector, it looks to offer more potential than the average UK hire company due to its considerable exposure to the fast-growing US.

Shares in BG Group are for adventurous investors, stated Questor in the Sunday Telegraph. Despite Shell's agreed takeover of BG, the market is pricing the target companies at a discount, not fully believing competitions regulators around the world will all sign off on the deals. Likewise at SABMiller, despite its agreement with AB Inbev.

Although Shell's deal remains potentially just months away the shares are offering a 7% gain if the deal completes but danger of the shares more than halving if it falls through. Hedge fund often look to profit from betting on such discounts in agreed mergers but it can still be a high risk game and with even the hedgies liable to get it very wrong, this strategy is not for widows and orphans.

Tate & Lyle is a 'buy', wrote Midas in the Mail on Sunday. As well as yielding 4.5% the shares are likely to offer capital growth as the company delivers its strategy to move away from a reliance on sugar but instead more on its speciality food ingredients arm. This arm has access to fast-growing areas of the market like lower-calorie sweeteners, texture-based products that go into anything from yoghurt to cookies, to wellness products including dietary fibre, nutrients and cholesterol-lowering additives.

Tate has irons in fires around the globe but wants to up the level of revenue from Asia and South America. Profits are predicted to be flat in the current year but forecast to spring back into growth mode in the following 12 months, with a healthy dividend adding flavour to the stock.

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