AGQ.L Share News (AGQ)

LONDON (Alliance News) - The following stocks are the leading risers and fallers within the main London indices on Tuesday.
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FTSE 100 - WINNERS
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Lloyds Banking Group, up 1.1%. The state-backed lender said it has agreed to acquire the MBNA UK credit card business from a unit of Bank of America for GBP1.90 billion in cash. Lloyds said the acquisition of MBNA will increase group revenue by GBP650.0 million per year and boost net interest margin by around 10 basis points. The MBNA business has around GBP7.00 billion in gross assets on its books. The deal is expected to completed by the end of the first half of 2017, subject to competition and regulatory approval. Broker Shore Capital said that the value creation expected from the transaction is "impressive".
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FTSE 100 - LOSERS
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Fresnillo, down 1.5%, Randgold Resources, down 1.3%. The gold miners were tracking spot gold prices lower, quoted at USD1,133.16 an ounce, compared to USD1,142.01 at the London equities close on Monday. Midcap peers Hochschild Mining and Acacia Mining were down 3.3% and 1.5% respectively. "It has been another tough morning for precious metals, which have been given no breathing space since the US Federal Reserve raised rates last week. It looks like the stronger USD narrative will continue to take precedence over the 'return of inflation' story, with the likelihood that gold and silver will continue to head lower into the end of the year," said IG analyst Chris Beauchamp.
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FTSE 250 - WINNERS
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Aldermore Group, up 2.9% at 235.00 pence. Falling deposit costs will provide further upside for Aldermore shares, said Deutsche Bank, which retained its Buy rating for the challenger bank. Deutsche also lifted its price target for Aldermore to 257.00 pence from 194.00p. Aldermore shares have risen 38% since the beginning of September amid improving sentiment on the UK economy and better-than-expected third quarter results from the lender, said Deutsche's David Lock. The analyst sees further upside for Aldermore shares through improving deposit costs over the next two years. In the first half, deposit costs remained high at 1.81%, the analyst said, which was effectively unchanged throughout the year.
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MAIN MARKET AND AIM - WINNERS
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Arian Silver, up 12%. The miner said preliminary exploration work at the Los Campos project in Mexico has identified several high-quality targets, and said there was evidence of the presence of two major vein systems. The Los Campos work programme, which was undertaken to advance targeted exploration at the site, completed in October. On Tuesday, Arian said recent geological mapping and sampling has discovered previously unknown veins running either parallel or nearly parallel to the Los Campos vein. "The board is confident [Los Campos's] exploration properties have the potential to host significant mineralisation," said Chief Executive Jim Williams.

Havelock Europa, up 5.9%. The interior fittings firm said it has re-appointed Ian Godden as a non-executive director and as chairman of the company. Godden will take over from the current chairman, David MacLellan, who will retire at the company's general meeting next month. As part of his appointment, Godden will purchase a GBP300,000 stake in Havelock through the subscription of 3 million shares at 10 pence each. On top of the 194,213 shares he already owns, this will take his total holding to 7.7% of the company's issued share capital.
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MAIN MARKET AND AIM - LOSERS
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1Spatial, down 27%. The spatial software company said it now expects to deliver a marginal adjusted earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation loss for its financial year, and announced the sale and closure of two of its units. The company in October had said it was expecting to deliver growth in adjusted EBITDA for the full year to end January 31 in line with market expectations. The group on Tuesday said its sales pipeline and order book both remained robust, but said timing of certain key contracts were expected now to fall into 2017 due to its transitioning the business to one of annualised revenue and the extension of industry sales cycles.

Ixico, down 20%. The brain medicine developer said its pretax loss widened in its financial year ended September 30 on the integration of a recent acquisition and on planned investment in the start-up of clinical trials. The group said revenue was flat year-on-year at GBP3.1 million, but said its pretax loss widened to GBP2.9 million from GBP1.4 million a year earlier due to increased operating expenses and a higher cost of sales. Part of these costs were related to the integration of its Optimal Medicine acquisition which IXICO bought in November 2015. IXICO said, during the year, it invested further in product development and, in particular, in its Assessa digital platform. The group started seven new clinical trials during the year, including five Alzheimer's disease studies.
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By Arvind Bhunjun; arvindbhunjun@alliancenews.com; @ArvindBhunjun

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