BT Share News (BT.A)

LONDON (Alliance News) - The following stocks are the leading risers and fallers within the main London indices Thursday.
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FTSE 100 - WINNERS
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Shire, up 1.8%. Berenberg has resumed coverage on the Irish drugmaker at Buy.
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FTSE 100 - LOSERS
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Sports Direct International, down 0.4%. The sporting goods retailer reported growth in profit in its recently ended financial year, boosted by a rise in revenue as it extends its portfolio across the UK and Europe. However, the company lowered its adjusted underlying earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation forecast for financial year 2016 to GBP420 million from GBP480 million.

BT Group, down 0.2%. UK media and communications regulator Ofcom said it has completed the first phase of its Strategic Review of Digital Communications and said it will seek views on a number of potential changes, including on the possible break-up of BT Group. Ofcom outlined a range of potential options to improve competition in the communications market and will seek views and evidence on a series of future regulatory approaches as regards BT Openreach. Meanwhile, shares of BT competitors are up. In the FTSE 100, Sky is up 0.7%, while in the FTSE 250, TalkTalk Telecom shares are up 1.0%.

Anglo American, down 0.1%. The multi-commodity miner said it had a "solid" production performance in the second quarter of 2015 that was in line with its expectations but said it will report a substantial impairment charge in the first half totalling between USD3.0 billion to USD4.0 billion.
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FTSE 250 - WINNERS
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Big Yellow Group, up 2.1%. The self-storage company said its revenue increased in the first quarter of its financial year, boosted by the acquisition of its regional portfolio joint venture, though like-for-like revenue also increased. It said its total revenue in the first quarter to the end of June was GBP24.1 million, up from GBP18.9 million a year earlier, thanks to the company acquiring the 67% of the Big Yellow Partnership Ltd, its regional joint venture, that it did not already own in December.
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FTSE 250 - LOSERS
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Mitchells & Butlers, down 2.7%. The pub owner has been downgraded by Deutsche Bank to Hold from Buy and by Numis to Hold from Add.
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AIM ALL-SHARE - WINNERS
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Strategic Minerals, up 11%. The company said the government of New Zealand has confirmed the ownership of the mining licence for the Tatu coal project has been transferred following the company's recent acquisition of King Country Mining.

ServicePower Technologies, up 10%. The mobile workforce management software company said its trading in the first half was in line with its expectations and showed an improvement year-on-year. The company said it expects revenue for the first half to be around GBP7 million, with 81.5% of this recurring, compared to GBP6.2 million a year earlier. It expects gross profit for the first half to be GBP3.4 million, up from GBP2.7 million.

Finsbury Food Group, up 6.3%. The maker of cake, bread and breakfasts said that it will outperform its current profit and earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation expectations, after the strong trading it experienced in the first half of its financial year continued into the second half. The company said that total sales in the year to June 27 grew 46% to GBP256.2 million year-on-year, as the second half of the year benefited from continued strong growth in revenue and earlier than planned delivery of synergy benefits from its acquisition of bakery Fletchers Group in October 2014. The acquisition contributed GBP69.3 million of additional revenue, Finsbury said.
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AIM ALL-SHARE - LOSERS
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Central Rand Gold, off 24%. The company threw more doubt over the potential sale of its Dutch subsidiary, as it said it was talking to the potential buyers about "structural alternatives" and warned it remains "cautious" about a deal being completed.
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By Neil Thakrar; neilthakrar@alliancenews.com; @NeilThakrar1

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