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(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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Taylor Wimpey, up 3.8% and Persimmon, up 3.3%. Housebuilders were higher ahead of the UK budget at midday. "Expectations around today's budget has seen the share prices in UK house builders and construction companies have been subject to an early boost with Balfour Beatty shares up strongly, though some of that is also likely to be down to the release of their full year numbers," said Michael Hewson at CMC Markets.
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Prudential, up 2.8%. The insurer and financial services firm said it is planning a minority initial public offering for its US insurance unit Jackson as it also recorded a rise in operating profit and annual premium equivalents ahead of market consensus. Jackson National Life provides annuities in the US. Prudential had been under pressure to demerge the unit from activist fund Third Point LLC. Turning to its 2019 results, Prudential's pretax profit attributable to shareholders fell 44% to USD1.92 billion from USD3.45 billion in 2018. Profit from continuing operations was down 25% to USD4.16 billion from USD5.58 billion in 2018. Annual premium equivalents - a measure of the new policies sold - rose 4.5% to USD7.38 billion from USD7.06 billion, but new business profit slipped 6.4% year on year to USD4.41 billion.
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FTSE 100 - LOSERS
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Royal Dutch Shell, 'A' shares down 3.0% and 'B' shares down 3.2%. Oil slipped to USD36.34, having traded above the USD38 mark earlier in the morning and quoted at USD36.63 late Tuesday. This was after heavyweight producer Saudi Aramco said it will increase its maximum sustainable capacity to 13 million barrels of crude oil per day from 12 million barrels. The move from the Saudi Ministry of Energy follows the oil giant's decision to increase its oil output to 12.3 million barrels per day of crude oil in April on Tuesday. It said it expects the move to have "a positive, long-term financial effect". On Sunday, Saudi Arabia took the first shot in an oil war after cutting its price for April delivery by USD4 to USD6 a barrel to Asia and USD7 to the US, with Aramco selling its Arabian Light at an unprecedented USD10.25 a barrel less than Brent to Europe. BP was down 1.1%.
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FTSE 250 - WINNERS
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Balfour Beatty, up 12%. The construction firm hiked its dividend for 2019 as the group reported a positive 2019, with rises in profit and revenue. London-based Balfour Beatty said pretax profit was up 12% to GBP138 million from GBP123 million the year before, driven by improvements in the group's earnings-based businesses. On an underlying basis, which excludes an impairment of goodwill relating to the Gas & Water unit, pretax profit was up 10% to GBP200 million from GBP181 million. Revenue for 2019, meanwhile, grew by 7.7% to GBP8.41 billion from GBP7.81 billion the prior year, buoyed by a stronger performance from Construction Services following a rise in volume in the UK and US.
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FTSE 250 - LOSERS
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G4S, down 18%. The security firm said profit for 2019 dropped sharply on impairment charges, despite solid growth in revenue. G4S posted a pretax profit of GBP27 million, down more than 80% from GBP142 million in 2018, entirely due to a goodwill impairment charge amounting to a whopping GBP291 million. The 2019 impairment comprised of GBP205 million for the UK Cash Solutions business on the declining rate in cash volumes in the UK, GBP35 million for G4S's Brazil Secure Solutions, and GBP40 million from the Facilities Management business. On an underlying basis, pretax profit rose by 4.3% to GBP383 million in 2019 from GBP367 million the prior year.
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Euromoney Institutional Investor, down 2.9%. The media and investment company became the latest company to warn on earnings due to the coronavirus outbreak. Euromoney said it has cancelled 25 events, costing it GBP3 million in revenue for the year ending September. It has also postponed 55 events, moving nine to financial 2021, resulting in an extra GBP3 million revenue hit. "The overall impact on financial 2020 of these changes is therefore to reduce revenue by GBP6 million and to reduce operating profit by GBP5 million, before other mitigating cost savings," Euromoney explained.
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OTHER MAIN MARKET AND AIM - WINNERS
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Dart Group, up 7.9%. The Jet2holidays operator expects its full-year profit for the current financial year to be "significantly ahead" of market forecasts, but warned "momentum has weakened" due to the spread of the coronavirus. Helped by its Leisure Travel unit, Dart said pretax profit before foreign exchange is expected to beat market expectations for the financial year ending March 31. In financial 2019, pretax profit before foreign exchange movement came in at GBP180.1 million. Dart said that due to the uncertainty and "limited visibility" of the coronavirus impact, it is unable to give any pretax profit before forex guidance for financial 2021.
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OTHER MAIN MARKET AND AIM - LOSERS
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Lookers, down 21%. The car seller said it has postponed the publication of 2019 results after identifying potentially fraudulent transactions in one of its operating divisions. Lookers will appoint an external adviser to lead a full investigation into the matter, adding results will now be published in the second half of April. They were originally meant to be published on Wednesday. Lookers said the initial findings "are not material in the context of the group".
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Dignity, down 21%. The funeral services provider warned a regulatory investigation could "materially" impact both its industry and the company itself. A year ago, the UK Competition & Markets Authority announced an in-depth probe into the funerals sector amid concerns over competition. Other concerns included the rising cost of funerals, which rose on average 6% a year in the 15 years prior to 2019. Turning to results for the 52 weeks to December 27, Dignity's average income per funeral fell 1.4% to GBP2,930. Revenue fell 4% to GBP338.9 million, and the number of deaths during the period dipped 3% to 584,000. Dignity swung to a pretax profit of GBP44.1 million, after a GBP18.0 million loss the year before. The 2018 figure was restated from a GBP40.5 million pretax profit, due to accounting changes. Dignity said: "Whilst we were pleased with the progress we made and the financial performance we delivered in light of the competitive environment, we need to be cautious in the coming months until the CMA's conclusions are finalised."
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By Lucy Heming; lucyheming@alliancenews.com
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