Avon Protection Share News (AVON)

LONDON (Alliance News) - The following stocks are the leading risers and fallers within the main London indices on Wednesday.
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FTSE 100 - WINNERS
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Next, up 3.8%. The clothing and homewares retailer said sales fell in the first quarter of its financial year as unseasonably cold weather led to a reduced demand for spring clothing, leading it to lower its full-price sales guidance for the full year. The group said total sales in the first quarter ended May 2 fell by 0.2% on the same period the year before, as full-price sales declined by 0.9%. The latter was at the lower end of its sales guidance of a 1% decline to 4% growth. By division, full-price sales at Next Retail fell by 4.7%, while full-price sales at Next Directory grew by 4.2%. However, Cantor Fitzgerald said the stock had been oversold ahead of the update. "Although these figures came in below market expectations, they were probably not as bad as feared," said Cantor's Freddie George.

Direct Line Insurance Group, up 1.1%. The insurer said its first-quarter gross written premium for ongoing operations were up 4.2% on a year earlier, to GBP777.8 million, with continued growth in motor partially offset by a reduction from home-insurance partnerships. The insurer said its motor and home own-brands in-force policies grew for a second successive quarter, with growth seen in Green Flag direct and Commercial direct. There were strong customer retention rates in motor and home, Direct Line said.

BAE Systems, up 1.0%. The defence contractor said trading so far in 2016 has been in line with its expectations. Ahead of its annual general meeting, BAE said its outlook for 2016 remains unchanged, with underlying earnings per share anticipated to rise by between 5% and 10% against the adjusted 36.6 pence posted for 2015. The underlying result for 2015 of 40.2p was adjusted for a 4.3p tax provision release and 0.7p currency benefit.
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FTSE 100 - LOSERS
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BHP Billiton, down 6.8%. Brazilian prosecutors have filed a USD43 billion civil lawsuit against iron miner Samarco Mineracao, and its owners BHP Billiton and Vale for social, environmental and economic compensation in relation to the failure of the Fundao tailings dam at the Samarco iron ore operation in Minas Gerais, Brazil in November 2015. The lawsuit follows the collapse of a dam they owned that caused a huge mudslide, polluted a river, and killed 19 people. BHP Billiton said it has not received formal notice of the claim.

Randgold Resources, down 6.1%. The gold miner said its profit increased during the first three months of the year after its flagship operation put in a good performance to cushion the negative impact of technical issues at some of its other gold mines. The gold miner said its pretax profit in the first quarter of 2016 amounted to USD85.0 million in the first quarter of 2016, which was up from USD70.5 million in the previous quarter and a lift from the USD61.0 million reported a year earlier. Randgold said its first quarter performance was down to its flagship Loulo-Gounkoto complex in Mali, which delivered a "robust performance" during a period whilst its other Kibali and Tongon mines were negatively impacted by commissioning and "other technical issues", it said.

Supermarkets - J Sainsbury, down 5.4%, Wm Morrison Supermarkets, down 4.0%, Tesco, down 3.1%. Sainsbury's said it swung to a pretax profit in its recently-ended financial year, as business picked up from the prior year when it booked a loss, but revenue still slipped in a tough UK market for grocery retailers and Sainsbury's also cut its dividend. Sainsbury's lowered its dividend for the year by 8.3% to 12.1 pence from 13.2p the year before. Moreover, the latest round of grocery data released by Kantar Worldpanel saw Tesco sales fall 1.3%, as its market share also slipped to 28.0% from 28.4%. Morrisons sales fell 2.6%, as its market share slipped to 10.6% from 10.9% and Sainsbury's sales fell by 0.4%, but its market share remained flat at 16.5%. Ahead of the survey release, Morrisons was cut to Underperform from Marketperform by Bernstein.
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FTSE 250 - WINNERS
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Electra Private Equity, up 5.6%. The private equity firm reported a net asset value total return of 15% in the first half of its financial year, beating the 4% return of the FTSE All-Share. Chairman Kate Barker said the "strong" results were driven by "excellent progress" in the FTSE 250 investment trust's portfolio of investments and supported by a high level of asset realisations. Electra declared an interim dividend of 44 pence per share for the six months ended March 31, up 16% from a year earlier, in line with its policy of returning to shareholders a targeted 3% of NAV per annum.

NCC Group, up 4.1%. The information assurance company was initiated at Buy by Jefferies, according to traders.

JD Wetherspoon, up 1.1%. The pub chain said like-for-like and total sales grew in the third quarter but said its operating margin was weaker year-on-year. The company said like-for-like sales grew 3.8% year-on-year in the 13 weeks to April 24, with total sales up 5.5%. But Wetherspoons said its operating margin declined to 6.4% in the third quarter, compared to 7.5% a year earlier, reflecting an increase in starting rates for hourly paid staff which came into force in August 2015.
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FTSE 250 - LOSERS
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International Personal Finance, down 8.5%. The lender said it added more customers and issued more credit in the first quarter of 2016, even though the lender's Mexican business detracted from the performance of its home credit operations in Southern Europe and digital. Customer numbers increased year-on-year by 3% in the three months ended March 31, IPF said, with home credit growth of 1% and digital growth of 53%. Proforma credit issued grew by 6%, with home credit growth of 3% and digital proforma growth of 31%. IPF said it opened three of the 10 new branches it intends to start in Mexico in 2016. The growth of credit issued in Mexico of 4% during the quarter was slower than expected, IPF said, citing "largely operational" factors. The company said it has "a clear plan" to address those issues and return to higher rates of growth.
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MAIN MARKET AND AIM - WINNERS
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Proxama, up 20%. The proximity marketing company said the first mobile proximity advertising campaigns have started on 500 London buses under its partnership with mobile transport app developer Mapway and out-of-home advertising group Exterion Media. Mapway has integrated Proxama's beacon Mobile SDK into its Bus Times London app to provide contextual in-app messaging and advertising. "This collaboration marks an important milestone for the proximity marketing industry. App owners are looking for ways to increase active user numbers and establish new sources of revenue, and beacons can deliver on both objectives," said John Worley, the chief executive of Proxama's marketing division.

MX Oil, up 17%. The oil and gas company said the operator of the Aje field offshore Nigeria has started to pump oil out of the field, prompting the potential for MX Oil to complete the sale of its interest in the field imminently. MX Oil has been investing indirectly into OML 113, the licence which holds the Aje field, through a subsidiary of Jacka Resources. The Aje field is operated by Yinka Folawiyo Petroleum Co and the other partner on the licence is Panoro Energy. Oil produced from the Aje field will be stored on the floating production, storage and offloading vessel, which has been commissioned and has the capacity to store up to 750,000 barrels of oil and the ability to accommodate production rates up to 40,000 barrels per day, MX said.

Forbidden Technologies, up 16%. The cloud-based video technology company said it has agreed a 12-month paid proof-of-concept with an unnamed UK broadcaster for its Forscene cloud video platform. Forbidden has secured the contract in collaboration with a US technology company, which it also did not name. No financial details were disclosed.

Avon Rubber, up 12%. The rubber products manufacturer hiked its interim dividend after underlying profit increased thanks to better revenue. Avon said pretax profit for the financial half year to the end of March was GBP6.1 million, down from GBP8.4 million a year earlier after it booked a GBP2.7 million one-off costs related to acquisitions. Stripping out the one-off cost, adjusted pretax profit for the half grew slightly to GBP8.8 million from GBP8.4 million. Avon said it will pay a 3.16 pence interim dividend, up 30% from 2.43p a year earlier. Revenue in the first half grew to GBP66.3 million from GBP62.3 million, helped by the integration of the Argus and InterPuls businesses that Avon acquired.
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MAIN MARKET AND AIM - LOSERS
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Arian Silver Corp, off 14% at 0.965p. The miner said it is progressing to the next stage with Tierra Nuevo Mining's Noche Buena gold and silver tailings project in northern Zacatecas State of Mexico. In a statement, Arian Silver said it secured the exclusive right to evaluate the tailings project for a further 120 days for USD25,000, which will enable further metallurgical test work to be undertaken to define the process required to produce a saleable gold and silver concentrate. The move comes after Arian last week unveiled a placing to raise GBP700,000 by placing 70 million units at 1.00p each with investors. Each unit consisted of one new share and half of a new share warrant entitling the holder to subscribe for one new share at 1.5p.
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By Arvind Bhunjun; arvindbhunjun@alliancenews.com; @ArvindBhunjun

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