BT Share News (BT.A)

LONDON (Alliance News) - The following stocks are the leading risers and fallers within the main London indices midday Wednesday.
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FTSE 100 - WINNERS
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Royal Dutch Shell, up 4.7%. The oil and gas giant said its earnings almost halved in the first quarter of the year, as it wrote down some of the value of its refineries in Europe and Asia due to declining refining margins and as its production fell. However, like its peer BP on Tuesday, Shell said it would pay a higher dividend for the quarter as it returns some of the funds from its asset sale programme to its shareholders. It said it would pay a first quarter dividend of USD0.47 a share and USD0.94 per American Depositary Share, up 4% compared with last year's payout.

Tullow Oil, up 2.4%. The company has pushed ahead with the sale of its UK gas assets in the southern North Sea, selling stakes in two assets to AIM-listed Faroe Petroleum for USD75.6 million plus a royalty on developments at one of the assets. Tullow, which also said its 2014 production guidance remains unchanged at between 79,000 and 85,000 barrels of oil equivalent a day, said that Faroe is buying 60% of its Ketch asset and 53.1% of the Schooner asset in which Tullow holds 93.1%. Tullow said it will pay USD58.8 million when the deal completes and the rest when cumulative production milestones are hit.

Rolls-Royce Holdings, up 2.2%. The company said late on Tuesday that it is in talks with Germany's Siemens AG about a possible sale of its energy gas turbine and compressor business. The unit being discussed supplies aero-derivative gas turbines, compressor systems and related services to customers in the oil and gas and power generation sectors. It said the talks are ongoing and it will make a further announcement in due course.
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FTSE 100 - LOSERS
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Admiral Group, down 3.7%, Tesco, down 3.7%, William Hill, down 3.2%, Weir Group, down 2.3%, Reed Elsevier, down 2.3%, ITV, down 1.9%, G4S, down 1.7%, Travis Perkins, down 1.5%. The companies are amongst the leading fallers in the blue-chip index after going ex-dividend, meaning new buyers no longer qualify for the latest dividend payout.

BT Group, down 2.1%. The company has announced that its BT Broadband customers will continue received its BT Sport service for free for a second football season, as it kept pressure on rival British Sky Broadcasting.

British American Tobacco, down 1.8%. The world's second-largest listed tobacco company by revenue after Philip Morris International Inc said that revenue grew slightly at constant exchange rates in the first quarter, but dropped significantly when taking into account currency movements in the quarter. It said that group revenue for the three months to end of March, at current exchange rates, declined by 12%, hit by the current strength of sterling against some of BAT's key revenue-generating currencies, notably the Brazilian real, South African rand, Japanese yen and Australian dollar. The group reiterated that while emerging market volumes are increasing, the trading environment in Western Europe remains challenging.

Standard Life, down 1.7%. The Edinburgh-based long-term savings and investments provider said its assets under administration increased 1.5% in the first quarter driven by net inflows, but said recent changes to annuity regulations in the UK resulted in a reduction in UK annuity sales of around 50%.
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FTSE 250 - WINNERS
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Heritage Oil, up 22%. The oil and gas exploration and production company said it had recommended a GBP924 million takeover offer from Al Mirqab Capital, an investment vehicle controlled by the royal family of Qatar. It said Al Mirqab had offered 320 pence per share in cash for the company, a deal that it is recommending and that is supported by the independent directors on its board. Heritage Oil's shares are currently quoted at 313.106 pence.

Playtech, up 2.6%. The online gaming software supplier expressed confidence in its continuing growth prospects for 2014, as it saw revenue rise in the quarter to end-March. It posted revenue of EUR102.7 million in the quarter, up from EUR87.5 million a year before, driven by strong performances in its Casino, Services and Sport divisions. The company said that average daily revenue for the first 29 days of its second quarter are up over 15% compared to the previous year.

Redrow, up 2.1%. Jefferies has upgraded the housebuilder to Buy from Hold, and increased its price target to 360.00 pence from 344.00p, following the company's strong trading update on Tuesday. "The main driver behind our upgrades is the strong performance of Redrow's London division," Jefferies said. Redrow said that it now expects the division to contribute GBP120 million of revenue in the current financial year, which is significantly higher than GBP80 million that Jefferies had been forecasting. Alongside this, Deutsche Bank has raised its price target on the company to 334.00 pence from 332.00p.
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FTSE 250 - LOSERS
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CSR, down 5.8%. The chip maker swung into a pretax loss in the first quarter to March 28, hit by the continued decline of its legacy products. It posted a pretax loss of USD4.0 million, versus a profit of USD1.1 million a year before, as revenue declined to USD180.8 million from USD237.9 million in the previous year. The decline in revenue was primarily caused by what the group calls its legacy products, which declined 57%, as the products reached the end of their life cycle. However, gross margin rose to 55.3% from 50.6%, as CSR shifted its product mix towards its core products and away from its legacy products.

Elementis, down 3.6%, Hunting, down 3.5%, SIG, down 3.5%, Spirax-Sarco Engineering, down 2.8%, African Barrick Gold, down 2.4%, and Ferrexpo, down 2.3%. The seven companies are all big mid-cap fallers after going ex-dividend.

Kazakhmys, down 2.9%. The Kazakhstan-focused copper producer said production levels were down for copper and most of its by-product metals in its first quarter. It said its own copper in concentrate production fell 8.5% to 72,900 tonnes for the three monthsto end-March from 79,700 tonnes the previous year, and its own copper cathode equivalent production fell 4.3% to 69,500 tonnes from 72,600 tonnes. The company said its copper production rates were down as it cut ore extraction, excluding stockpiled output from its Bozymchak mine, by 13% to 8.6 million tonnes from 9.9 million tonnes. Despite this, it said it remains on track to meet production targets over the full year.
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AIM ALL-SHARE - WINNERS
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Touchstone Gold, up 20%. The firm's shares jump after it said it has already been approached by a number of technology companies that might be suitable for a reverse takeover once conversion from a gold exploration company has been approved by its shareholders.

Botswana Diamonds, up 13%. The diamond miner said it has achieved positive results from initial analysis of exploration at its PL117 site in Orapa. The group, which is yet to produce any revenues, said the initial fieldwork was completed on time and on budget and showed scope for discovery of new kimberlite blocks, particularly in the north of the site. It said it has identified two drill targets and anticipates that further drill targets will be identified as the second batch of mineralogical samples is fully analysed over the coming months before a specific drilling programme targets areas with the highest potential.

Globo, up 12%. The mobile and telecom software and services company said it saw pretax profit rise in 2013, driven by strong revenue growth from its mobile software products GO!Enterprise. It posted a pretax profit of EUR27.4 million, up from EUR17.2 million in 2012, as revenues rose to EUR71.5 million from EUR46 million. Revenue growth was driven by a strong performance from its GO!Enterprise software suite, which saw revenues more than double to EUR29.9 million from EUR12 million. The company said its strong momentum in 2013 continued into the first quarter of 2014, when it traded in line with expectations. It said it will focus on further expansion in 2014 through both organic growth and selective acquisitions, particularly in North America where it has identified "promising opportunities."

GameAccount Network, up 12%. The developer and supplier of enterprise-level B2B gaming software and online gaming content swung to a pretax profit in 2013, in a year that saw revenues more than double. It reported a pretax profit for the year of GBP1.6 million, compared with a loss of GBP1.0 million in 2012. In 2013, net revenues more than doubled, rising to GBP12.3 million, compared with only GBP5.5 million a year earlier, which it said was driven by significant growth in higher margin revenue streams, including a major platform sale and increased third party game development deals.

Sylvania Platinum, up 8.8%. The platinum group metal processor and developer said its revenues jumped 24% in the third quarter compared to the previous quarter as production and sales prices increased. It said its revenues increased to USD12.2 million for the three months ended March 31 from USD9.8 million in the previous quarter. The company said its revenue jump was due to a 10% increase in its net basket price to USD887 per ounce from USD806 per ounce and an increase in production. It also said its dump operations achieved combined production of 13,185 ounces of platinum group metals during the quarter, a 4% increase on 12,673 ounces in the previous quarter due to consistent plant feed tonnes and improved plant stability.

Range Resources, up 8.7%. The hydrocarbon exploration firm said its Atzam #5 well in Guatemala has been successfully drilled and found oil and gas in three lower reservoir sections. It said the Atzam #5 well has been successfully drilled by Citation Resources, the operator at the site, to a total depth of 4,025 feet intersecting the lower reservoir sections on the structure. Citation said there were material oil and gas shows continually generated at the surface when the well was drilled through its final carbonate sections. The company added that the Atzam #2 well nearby has recorded initial rates in excess of 1,000 barrels of oil per day from the same three reservoir sections.
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AIM ALL-SHARE - LOSERS
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Proxama, off 16%. The mobile financial services company posted a widened loss for 2013 as revenue declined and it posted an exceptional charge relating to its listing on AIM August 2013 via the reverse takeover of Longships PLC. It posted a pretax loss of GBP5.4 million, widened from GBP1.8 million in the previous year, as revenue declined to GBP813,380 from GBP1.4 million. Although sales costs dropped, administrative expenses rose, and the company posted an exceptional cost of GBP2.1 million relating to its reverse takeover of Longships.

Pentagon Protection, down 14%. The company's shares have fallen sharply after it said the employment of Sales Director Stephen Harrhy had been terminated with immediate effect. It didn't give any other details in its statement.

Norcon, down 13%. The management and outsourcing company said it narrowed its losses in the recent full year, as finance costs were reduced while its European businesses delivered a number of projects. It posted a pretax loss of USD327,967 for 2013, narrowed from a loss of USD642,478 in 2012, as finance costs were reduced to USD685,721 compared with USD933,028 a year earlier. However, revenue dipped to USD46.1 million from USD49.6 million in 2012, as the company experienced a decline in revenue from a major customer in the Middle East. Norcon said a large part of this reduction has been recovered from other new customers in Asia, Europe and North America.

LED International Holdings, down 11%. The company said that the receipt of funds from its recent fundraising had been delayed, the latest setback in a months-long struggle to raise new money. The company said it now expects to get CNY30 million of the CNY100 million total funds in the coming days and the rest by mid-May. It had originally expected to get the funds by the end of April. It needs the money to provide capital to its new leasing finance company, Green Pearl Leasing Co Ltd, and for general working capital.
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By James Kemp; jameskemp@alliancenews.com; @jamespkemp

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