Roof comes down at Ultraframe

THE roof caved in on

The latest tale of woe follows a warning in March and at the time of its interim results in May. The only comfort for shareholders is that the company still plans to maintain dividend payments.

Ultraframe says it has had a disappointing start to its key summer season. Worsening conditions in the UK and North America have meant that fullyear pretax profits are likely to be 33% below expectations. It has been forced to cut prices in the UK to protect market share while margins in America have been hit by production costs.

It expects annual pretax profits of about £12m against consensus forecasts of around £18m. UK sales during July were 8% lower than internal forecasts. Its biggest customers, fiftysomething empty-nesters, are concerned about the uncertain economic climate and higher interest rates, so they refrained from buying Ultraframe's sophisticated conservatories. The company has been forced to make budget conservatories that have lower margins.

Vanda Murray, the former chief executive credited with turning round Blick, the security systems company, was recently appointed managing director of Ultraframe. She has a huge job on her hands reviving its fortunes. As one fund manager put it: 'Radical action is needed to improve performance and help restore some confidence in the stock.'

The Footsie traded on firmer foundations, closing 48.7 points higher at 4350.2. It ended with a flourish after Wall Street initially jumped 124 points as hopes of political stability in Venezuela prompted a dip in the oil price.

Lower fuel charge hopes helped British Airways shrug off news that its workers plan to stage a damaging 24-hour strike during the August Bank Holiday weekend. The close was 8 1/2p better at 216 1/4p.

A Morgan Stanley upgrade before Friday's interim figures helped Sir Martin Sorrell's advertising giant WPP jump 18p to 489p. Analysts will be hoping to hear news about the possible purchase of US marketing services competitor Grey Global.

Discount clothes group Matalan rose 7p to 207 1/4p on revived gossip that US retailing giant Target is lining up an offer. Marks & Spencer firmed 1p to 349 3/4p on hearing that UBS has bought a further 22m shares and now holds 7%. Apart from planning a new clothing range, the retailing giant is planning a huge tender offer next month as part of its proposal to return £2.3bn to shareholders.

Nervous selling amid reports of a pending bearish circular left glass manufacturer Pilkington 4p down at 90p.

Coffee Republic, the coffee bar operator, frothed 0.10p higher to 0.85p after reporting reduced full-year losses of £1.75m, down from £9.82m, following the disposal of 17 bars as part of its restructuring programme.

Medical device maker Medisys rose 3/4p to 8 1/8p after Wal-Mart, its American retail partner, confirmed it will be making NewTek, the group's blood glucose monitoring system, available nationally through its network of 3,400 stores in the US within the next two weeks - four weeks early.

Heavily sold on Friday after US rival CyberSource announced that it would be suing it for patent infringement, Retail Decisions rallied 1 1/4p to 14 1/4p. The credit card fraud prevention company believes the claim is groundless. Broker Oriel Securities says the weakness makes RD look like spectacular value.

Greystar Resources rose 3p to 100p in response to upbeat drilling results from its Angostura gold-silver deposit in north-east Colombia.

Struggling support services group Jarvis fell 2 1/4p more to 35 1/2p on worries it will lose more contracts. Last week the company announced it was no longer the preferred bidder on the Expanding Horizons schools project in Fife.