Ascential Share News (ASCL)

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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Sky, up 1.7%. The pay-television company was upgraded to Outperform from Underperform by RBC Capital.

Royal Mail, up 0.7%. The postal service company said trading in the first quarter of its financial year was in line with its expectations. In the three months to June 26, Royal Mail group revenue grew 1.0% year-on-year. Revenue in its UK parcels and letters business declined 1.0%, with parcel revenue rising 2.0% but letter revenue down 3.0%. Parcels volumes grew 2.0% in the quarter, helped by growth in import and account parcels business and improving trends in the consumer and SME segments. Letters volumes were down 2.0%, reflecting the timing of direct delivery volumes in the quarter the prior year and mailings associated with the UK's European Union referendum. Excluding these effects, letters volumes fell around 4.0% the quarter.
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FTSE 100 - LOSERS
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Rio Tinto, down 3.9%. The Anglo-Australian miner said Pilbara iron ore production for the second-quarter increased 8%, while shipments rose 6%. Rio said its Pilbara iron ore production for the second quarter increased 8% to 80.9 million tons. Pilbara iron ore shipments rose 6% to 82.2 million tonnes. Accendo Markets analyst Mike van Dulken said Rio's production report delivered iron-ore shipments below analyst expectations, with management's pledges of compelling and consistent returns "falling on deaf ears". "This is because investors are focusing on a strong USD hindering the commodity space recovery as the US Fed looks to hike rates and peers look to do quite the opposite" the analyst said. Mining peers Glencore were down 4.1%, Anglo American, down 3.9%, BHP Billiton, down 3.3%, Antofagasta, down 3.2%.
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FTSE 250 - WINNERS
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Ascential, up 3.2% at 253.60 pence. Goldman Sachs raised its price target on the business-to-business media company to 273p from 269p, and reiterated its Buy rating.

Polymetal International, up 1.9%. The Russian miner said production fell in the first half of the year as had been expected, but the company is still on track to deliver its full-year guidance through a significant improvement in production and cashflow in the second half of the year. The company gold equivalent production was 8.0% lower in the first half of 2016 at 522,000 ounces compared to the 568,000 ounces produced a year ago. That was the result of gold production falling 10% year-on-year whilst silver production was down 7.0%. Polymetal said first half production was in line with its plan for the year, adding the second half should be "materially stronger" due to seasonal de-stocking of concentrate, the start up of the Svetloye heap leach at Okhotsk, and stronger grades at Dukat and Okhotsk, all in Russia.

Dairy Crest Group, up 1.7%. The dairy products maker said trading in the first quarter of its financial year was in line with its expectations. The company said combined sales volumes of the four key brands of Cathedral City, Clover, Country Life and Frylight in the three months ended June 30 were in line with the first quarter of the prior year. Its outlook for the full year therefore remains unchanged. "The year has started off as we expected. Our branded business continues to perform well. In cheese, we have successfully re-launched Cathedral City, the nation's favourite cheese, with new packaging and branding. This has been supported with a wide-reaching media and promotional campaign," Chief Executive Mark Allen said.

SSP Group, up 1.6%. The food and beverage outlets operator said its third-quarter performance was in line with expectations, as revenue benefited from the recent weakness in sterling. SSP said total revenue in the three months ended June 30 grew by 9.0% year-on-year, boosted by the weakening of sterling against major European currencies. On a constant currency basis, total revenue rose by 4.8% while like-for-like sales rose by 3.0%. SSP said sales in the UK were robust, continuing to benefit from passenger growth in the air sector. Continental Europe remained mixed, with a good performance from Spain but weaker trading in France and Belgium resulting from the recent terrorist attacks in Paris and Brussels.
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FTSE 250 - LOSERS
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Evraz, down 4.7%. The miner said all of its units reported a drop in production during the first half of 2016 as the Russian company produced less steel, steel products and coking coal concentrate. Crude steel production in the first half of this year was down 7.6% to 6.7 million tonnes from 7.3 million a year earlier, whilst production of steel products, net of re-rolled volumes, fell 8.0% to 6.2 million tonnes from 6.7 million. Evraz said production was down due to a planned maintenance shutdown at one of the furnaces in Russia, hitting both steel and steel product production. Steel production was down 9.9% in the second quarter of the year compared to the first whilst production of steel products was over 13% lower in the second quarter compared to the first.

Essentra, down 3.6%. The plastic and fibre products company was cut to Hold from Buy by Deutsche Bank. Essentra issued a profit warning in June due to issues faced by its cigarette filters business. Deutsche said it continued to believe in the attractiveness of the health and personal care packaging business, but said, "visibility has proven to be less than expected even at the tender-driven filters and HPC businesses, and the speed of integration puts a question mark on how the market will take future sizeable deals. We move to a Hold recommendation as we await more certainty."
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MAIN MARKET AND AIM - WINNERS
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Milestone Group, up 20%. The digital media and technology company said it has signed a joint venture with Axis Stars Ltd to work with its Passion Project youth unemployment programme. Axis, headed by former footballer Louis Saha, has signed a 50-50 joint venture with Milestone whereby Axis will use its database of sports stars to raise awareness of the Passion Project. In addition, Axis will get access to the portfolio of technologies owned by Milestone's Nexstar joint venture. No financial details on the agreement were disclosed, though Milestone said revenue will be shared 50-50.

DP Poland, up 11%. The company reported growth in sales in the first half of 2016 as it continues to expand its portfolio, while recording its 15th consecutive quarter of double-digit like-for-like growth. DP Poland, which owns the exclusive rights to develop, operate and sub-franchise Domino's Pizza stores in Poland, said like-for-like system sales in the six months ended June 30 grew by 28% year-on-year, representing its 15th consecutive quarter of double-digit like-for-like growth since the final quarter of 2012. Total system sales grew by 57% year-on-year, as five new stores were opened and two new cities were added to its geographic portfolio in the period. System sales are total retail sales including sales from corporate and sub-franchised stores.
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MAIN MARKET AND AIM - LOSERS
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Entu (UK), down 27%. The energy efficiency products and services company issued a profit warning, saying that it has had to absorb higher costs from a now-shut division and that commercial work has proved slow to materialise. Entu said pretax profit in the financial half year to the end of April was down to GBP1.0 million from GBP4.2 million a year earlier, primarily as a result of extra administrative expenses related to the closure of the company's solar division the year before. Entu said, despite actions taken to cut costs, overheads formerly charged to its solar business have been carried into the current financial year, and Entu said this will result in its results for the year to the end of October missing market expectations.
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By Arvind Bhunjun; arvindbhunjun@alliancenews.com; @ArvindBhunjun

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