Market Report: Oilman David Lenigas pulls out of AIM firms

Colourful Australian entrepreneur David Lenigas, famed for claiming he had found 100 billion barrels of oil under Gatwick, has quit the boards of his five remaining AIM companies.

Worst affected were his African logistics firm AfriAg, which slumped 0.07p, or 28%, to 0.18p, and Mexican lithium explorer Rare Earth Minerals, 0.05p off at 0.62p.

Lenigas took to Twitter: “I am now off every board I was on on AIM. Don’t intend to ever go back on another one. Now I can buy shares any day I like.”

His other resignations Bacanora Minerals dropped 1.5p to 75.5p, while Inspirit Energy and Evocutis were unchanged at 0.475p and 0.89p.

He remains executive chairman of Leni Gas Cuba, an ISDX-listed venture which has crashed to just 1.375p after floating at 5p last month.

Shoppers might be stocking up on Primark clobber in time for Christmas, but investors did the opposite after a broker downgrade for its parent company Associated British Foods.

RBC Capital decided the shares were too pricey, downgrading the stock to underperform, and warned that without an online business its longer-term profit pool “may be constrained”.

Analyst Richard Chamberlain cut his earnings forecasts for this year and next, expecting a weaker performance from Primark, which generates around 60% of ABF’s profits.

The words of warning sent the shares down 39p, or 1.2%, to 3288p.

On the wider market, it was too early to crack open the sherry as the FTSE 100 put on 39.69 points to 6092.11, hardly the Santa Rally investors were hoping for this week, but a start.

The stock-market bulls were crossing their fingers that the path was clear for stocks to surge after the Fed’s rate rise, but more pressure on the oil price dampened spirits.

Glencore was spurred on 4.2p to 85.06p by Citi, which lifted its target price for the trading-cum-mining giant to 160p.