The Morning news update with Lloyds, WH Smith, Premier Oil and AfriAg

FTSE 100

Lloyds Banking (LLOY) – announces the appointment of Alan Dickinson as an independent Non-executive Director of the Group with effect from 8 September 2014.  Mr Dickinson will serve as a member of the Group’s Audit and Risk Committees and it is intended that he will take over as Chairman of the Risk Committee later this year.

FTSE 250

WH Smith (SMWH) – expects the outcome for the year to 31 August 2014 to be in line with market expectations.

Interserve (IRV) – A joint venture between Interserve plc and Shanks Group plc has entered into an agreement with Derby City and Derbyshire County Councils to build and operate a new waste treatment facility in the city under a 27 year, £950 million Public Private Partnership (PPP) contract.

Premier Oil (PMO) – posts a pre-tax profit of $50.4 million for the six months to June, down from $214.6 million.

Small caps

AfriAg (AFRI) – AfriAg Marketing, its new wholly owned agri-produce marketing and sales and distribution division, has dispatched by airfreight its first orders of frozen fish produce to Asia with two orders totalling over 1.5 tonnes of Mozambique langoustines to Singapore and Hong Kong.

Leni Gas & Oil (LGO) – well GY-668, the fifth of its planned 30 new development wells at the Goudron Field in Trinidad, and the fourth well from this drill pad, has been successfully drilled to a depth 1,946 feet measured depth.  Based on independent petrophysical analysis of the electric logging the well intersected 191 feet of net oil pay in the Goudron Sandstones.

Immunodiagnostic Systems (IDH) – has received notice that the China Food and Drug Administration (“CFDA”) has approved the Company’s IDS-iSYS automated immunoassay instrument for sale in the Chinese market.

Cloudbuy (CBUY) – posts a loss of £1.62 million for the six months to June.

Tangent Communications (TNG) – poor trading at Tangent Snowball will see group profits in the first half below market expectations.