Thursday tips round-up: Tullow, Severfield-Rowen, Costain

Aidan Heavey, the founder and chief executive of Tullow Oil, said that he "didn't think it was a big deal" when he updated the market, while presenting Tullow's interim figures, on the company's progress in a complex tussle with the Ugandan tax authorities.

But all of this overshadowed a strong set of interim figures from Tullow, with pre-tax profits rising to $131 million in the first half, up from $52 million in the same period last year. The shares, after yesterday's fall, sell on about two thirds net asset value. On the assumption that Uganda sorts itself out, and it is a big assumption, that looks like a buying opportunity, says the Times.

It is a difficult time to be a structural steel supplier, and Severfield-Rowen's results gave ample proof of this yesterday. It has shown its quality by growing its market share recently but even that cannot detract from the fact that public-sector projects face cuts and private-sector activity is not expected to pick up in time to take the strain. With a price-to-earnings ratio of 18.2 times, according to estimates from WH Ireland Securities, the stock is already looking overpriced. Now is the time to sell, says the Independent.

Costain maintains about a third of this country's motorway network. Those who have spent any time in the slow lane wending their way through roadworks may find its ambition to build nuclear power stations alarming. But this is unfair; the contractor is one of those bidding for the next generation of stations, and it is exactly the sort of added-value design and engineering work that Andrew Wyllie, the chief executive, has been repositioning the business towards since he arrived from Taylor Woodrow four years ago. Progress will be slow, but one to tuck away to see if those ambitions can be realised, according to the Times.

SIG, the insulation and roofing group, issued its interim results yesterday and reported that trading conditions had improved gradually in recent months. The Independent likes the company and is confident about its prospects, but fear that the stock will struggle to perform until there is more clarity about the broader macro-economic outlook, particularly in the UK and Europe, where SIG operates. Hold for now.

While few punters may have heard of the mobile banking and payments provider Monitise, those who bank on the go may well have used its products. The company developed applications for customers of NatWest and Lloyds, which allows them to check their finances through their smartphones. Its recent £31m fund-raising was well backed and in the build-up to an expected profit in 2013, there should be value in the shares, so buy, says the Independent.

The Times says Monitise's £100 million market valuation looks very toppy for a business yet to make a profit, but the promise is there. Worth a punt on any significant weakness.

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