Market Report: APR Energy shares lose their glow

There will be a permanent outage if shares in the temporary power firm APR Energy carry on at their current rate.

The emerging markets-focused power generator supplier, down 34.75p to 112.25p, has lost 70 per cent of its value in the space of a few weeks, plagued by delayed deals and an exodus at the top.

The company, which was once worth £1bn, is now valued at £106m; and the longer it goes on without announcing new contracts, the less confident investors are becoming.

All eyes were once more on the FTSE 100, which fell to its lowest point since January, down 99.5 points or 1.5 per cent to 6,520.98.

June was the blue-chip index’s worst month in three years; it was down 6.6 per cent, thanks largely Greece’s increasingly likely exit from the eurozone. In May 2012, it slumped 7.3 per cent when the Greek crisis last weighed on global markets.

Rio Tinto dropped 77.5p to 2,614p. The mining giant is said to be in “serious” talks with Mick Davis’s X2 cash shell to offload some of its Australian coal assets.

Mr Davis, who quit as boss of Xstrata shortly after its multibillion-pound merger with Glencore, plans to embark on a spending spree to cash in on under-priced assets.

Shares in iPhone chipmaker Imagination Technologies buzzed 5.75p higher to 221.25p as its annual results reassured investors fearing the worst.

Investec said: “Full-year results are a small miss, but after the last two years of downgrades this almost feels like a relief.”

Northgate, the UK’s biggest van hire firm, was the FTSE 250’s biggest loser, down 43.5p to 575p, despite a rise in pre-tax profits from £51.2m to £83m. Analysts at Numis Securities cut their recommendation to hold and warned profits could be flat over the next few years.

Sirius Minerals’ Aim-listed shares were suspended ahead of a decision on its plans to build a fertiliser mine under the North York Moors. The stock tumbled late in the day on Monday, falling from 17p to close at 15p before being suspended on Tuesday morning, as traders bet against the company receiving the green light.