Bluebird Mer Share News (BMV)

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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BT Group, up 5.0%. UK media and communications industry watchdog Ofcom tabled plans to reform the regulation of the telecommunications operator, including a proposal for BT's Openreach network infrastructure arm to become a separate legal entity. Ofcom said Openreach should become a "distinct company" from BT with its own board, though still owned by BT. Executives in the unit would become accountable to the new board rather than to BT's management, and Openreach would be obliged to consult formally with its customers, notably rival broadband providers such as Sky and TalkTalk Telecom Group, on large investment plans. Openreach would own its own physical network and would run a separate strategy to BT, with control over its budget allocation. It also would have its own brand, not affiliated with BT. In response, BT said it will establish an independent board for Openreach.

Mondi, up 3.4%. The Anglo-South African paper and packaging company said its underlying operating profit for the first half of 2016 will rise year-on-year. Mondi said it has booked no special items in the first half, compared to a EUR36.0 million charge recognised a year earlier. As a result, it anticipates underlying operating profit will be higher than the EUR490.0 million it posted for the first half of 2015.

GKN, up 2.7%. The engineer reported acquisition-driven growth in revenue but lower pretax profit for the first half of 2016 and said it will book a charge in the second half as it seeks to cut costs in the business. The group said pretax profit for the six months to the end of June fell to GBP182.0 million from GBP212.0 million a year prior, down 14% year-on-year primarily due to mark-to-market valuations of foreign exchange contracts. Revenue grew to GBP4.24 billion from GBP3.62 billion, helped by 2.0% organic sales growth and by the contribution from Fokker, the Dutch aerostructures business that GKN bought a year ago. GKN said it will pay an interim dividend of 2.95 pence per share, up from 2.90p a year before.

Provident Financial, up 2.5%. The sub-prime lender reported a surge in interim pretax profit amid strong growth in its Vanquis, Moneybarn and Consumer Credit units. Provident said pretax profit in the half to the end of June was GBP165.4 million, up 49% from the GBP111.1 million made a year prior. Adjusted pretax profit was GBP148.9 million, up 18% from GBP126.6 million. Thanks to the growth in profit, Provident declared an interim dividend of 43.20 pence, up 10% year-on-year from 39.20p.
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FTSE 100 - LOSERS
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BP, down 3.1%. The oil and gas major said its underlying profit in the first half of 2016 was down by more than two thirds amid a steep decline in revenue, as the oil and gas major said it should add around 500,000 barrels to daily production by the end of 2017. The FTSE 100 heavyweight said underlying replacement cost profit, which excludes certain exceptional items, plummeted 68% in the first half of the year to USD1.25 billion from USD3.89 billion a year earlier, as revenue fell 28% to USD84.95 billion from USD117.57 billion. BP kept its second quarter dividend flat at 10.0 cents per share, making a first half interim payment of 20.0 cents per share.

Tesco, down 2.6%, J Sainsbury, down 1.7%. Data released by Kantar Worldpanel in the 12 weeks ended July 17 showed Tesco having the slowest sales decline among the big four grocers for the third consecutive period, with sales falling by 0.7% year-on-year. Its market share dipped to 28.3% from 28.5%, however. Sainsbury's came in second place among the big four with a sales decline of 1.1%, while its market share slipped to 16.3% from 16.5%. Discounters Aldi and Lidl continued to gain.
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FTSE 250 - WINNERS
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Virgin Money Holdings, up 6.1%. The lender posted a sharp rise in pretax profit in the first half of 2016 as it continued to grow its mortgage operations. The company said its pretax profit for the half-year to the end of June was GBP93.7 million, a 70% jump against the GBP55.0 million reported a year earlier. Underlying pretax profit, stripping out one-offs, grew to GBP101.8 million, up 53% from GBP66.4 million a year prior. It will pay an interim dividend of 1.6 pence per share. Mortgage balances grew to GBP27.70 billion in the first half, up 9.0% from the end of 2015, while gross mortgage lending in the half grew 19% year-on-year.

SEGRO, up 3.5%. The warehouse property investor said its pretax profit for its first half fell despite a rise in net asset value. SEGRO said its pretax profit dipped to GBP200.7 million for the six months ended June 30, down from GBP330.0 million for the same period a year earlier, primarily on the back of a lower valuation surplus on its investment properties. The company's gross rental income rose to GBP110.7 million compared to the GBP101.2 million reported a year earlier, which pushed revenue up higher to GBP136.,7 million from GBP117.4 million. SEGRO said its net asset value in the half rose to 475 pence per share, up 2.6% from the same period a year earlier, which it said was driven by an increase in the value of its portfolio.

Carillion, up 1.5%. The construction company said a project to build and operate a series of educational institutions in Ireland has reached financial closure whilst a company it holds a controlling stake in has won a new contract in North America. Carillion is part of a 50:50 joint venture with Dutch Infrastructure Fund and the pair have achieved financial closure on the Irish Schools Bundle 5 Public Private Partnership project that has been procured by the Department of Education & Skills alongside Ireland's National Treasury Management Agency. Carillion and Dutch Infrastructure will invest GBP9.0 million of equity in the project, split equally, and Carillion said it will also carry out the construction and deliver support services over the 27-year concession period. Carillion said those construction activities alongside its equity interest will mean the project will generate around GBP190.0 million of revenue for the business.
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FTSE 250 - LOSERS
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Capital & Counties Properties, down 5.1%. The property developer said its net asset value fell in the first half due to a decline in the like-for-like value of its portfolio, as it said Chief Financial Officer Soumen Das was resigning to join SEGRO. The group said its net asset value per share fell to 344 pence per share, down 5.0% from the 361p reported at the end of December. The company's total property portfolio value fell 4.0% on a like-for-like basis in the half to GBP3.60 billion from GBP3.70 billion. Capital & Counties said the decline was due to the increased stamp duty land tax levels announced in the March 2016 budget as well as valuers' assessment of the weakened sentiment in the central London residential market following the UK referendum on European Union membership

Victrex, down 3.9%. The polymer products firm said trading in the third quarter was in line with its expectations and it is on track to meet its forecasts for the year to the end of September. The company said revenue in the quarter to the end of June was GBP60.6 million, down 6.0% year-on-year, as sales volumes declined 10%. Victrex said this was as anticipated as the weighting of volumes in its consumer electronics end markets is heavily skewed to the fourth quarter of the current financial year, having been stronger in the third the prior year. The group said the variability of end-user demand and supply chain dynamics means visibility in the consumer electronics market is limited. Volumes for 2017, based on Victrex's early planning assumptions, are set to fall year-on-year, but it remains encouraged by the medium and long-term outlook for the sector.

Man Group, down 2.7%. The hedge fund manager said acquisition-related charges sent its interim profit lower as funds under management declined, and the group trimmed its dividend. The company said pretax profit for the half-year to the end of June was USD55.0 million, a big fall on the USD163.0 million posted a year prior. Man Group was hit by acquisition-related costs and by a sharp fall in performance fees, down to USD42.0 million from USD231.0 million a year before. Net revenue declined to USD389.0 million from USD624.0 million year-on-year. Funds under management at the end of June also slipped to USD76.40 billion from USD78.80 billion a year earlier and from USD78.70 billion at the end of December.
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MAIN MARKET AND AIM - WINNERS
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Bluebird Merchant Ventures, up 34%. The natural resources company said its local partner in the Philippines has signed an agreement to take 20,000 tonnes of ore from a group of small scale producers and said it can deliver a large net profit from the deal based on current metal prices. Bluebird has been testing the metallurgy of ore samples from local producers to ensure the ore that it could potentially purchase is of a good enough quality. Bluebird said it has tested five samples and that four of them "returned positive economics".

Sunrise Resources, up 12%. The miner said it has identified a significant bedrock copper-gold mineralisation in trenching at the Garfield project in Nevada. Sunrise said two trenches excavated on the site showed copper grades of up to 2.18% and gold shows of up to 1.2 grams per tonne. "This is a very encouraging start to exploration at Garfield. We have a permit to undertake further trenching and this will be scheduled to fit in with other work programmes in Nevada this summer," said Sunrise Executive Chairman Patrick Cheetham.

Taptica International, up 8.4%. The data-focused marketing solutions company said it has entered into a partnership with Asian mobile marketing firm Adways Korea. Under the terms of the agreement, the pair will target the mobile gaming industry. No financial details on the partnership were disclosed. Taptica will run mobile marketing campaign in Asia through Adways Korea's network, the firm said.
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MAIN MARKET AND AIM - LOSERS
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Lamprell , down 5.3%. The oilfield service company said it was "disappointed" there has been a delay to the delivery of one of the jackup drilling rigs that was has been commissioned by one of its. Lamprell is constructing seven jackup drilling rigs on behalf of customers. However, one of those rigs has been hit by delays and was supposed to be originally delivered before the end of June. The rig is in the final stages of commissioning and has undergone tests before being sent to the client, but Lamprell said it encountered a technical issue late in the testing process with equipment that had been supplied by an original equipment manufacturer. Lamprell also said its trading environment remains "very challenging" and said revenue will continue to be hurt during this year, as expected, but also warned that will continue next year into 2017.
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By Arvind Bhunjun; arvindbhunjun@alliancenews.com; @ArvindBhunjun

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