LONDON (Alliance News) - The following stocks are the leading risers and fallers within the main London indices midday Tuesday.
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FTSE 250 - LOSERS
Debenhams, down 11%. The retailer said that its first-half profit will be hit by heavy pricing promotions, and now expects its pretax profit for the first-half of the year to be around GBP85 million, significantly lower than last years GBP114.7 million. Debenhams said that in the 17 weeks to December 28, group like-for-like sales grew a mere 0.1%, against strong comparators from last year, and group gross transaction value rose only 0.7%. The department store chain said that it expects conditions to remain highly competitive in 2014, and given current trading, said that it has decided to cease its buyback.
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AIM - WINNERS
Castleton Technology, up 26%. The company's share price has jumped despite posting a net loss of GBP3.3 million for the six months ended September 30 compared to a pretax profit of GBP448,000 the previous year. Positively, Castleton said that, excluding an impairment from discontinued operations, its pretax loss narrowed to GBP398,000 during the period compared to GBP900,000 the previous year.
Sula Iron & Gold, up 9.1%. The group said it has appointed Andrew Dacey as non-executive Technical Director with immediate effect. Dacey will focus his activities on the development of the company's wholly owned 153 square kilometre Ferensola Project in Sierra Leone, which proposes to be highly prospective for both iron and gold. The company also announced that it has issued 2,807,134 new shares in the capital of the company in settlement of all remaining outstanding loans and fees totalling GBP56,142.68 owed by the company at a share price of 2 pence per new share.
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AIM - LOSERS
600 Group, off 16%. The company said that an asset sale to Qingdao D&D Investment Group Co Ltd, rather than a full takeover by D&D of 600 Group, is the best way to move forward for the approach from D&D that it announced on September 11. The Group said it has not been in discussions with any other party regarding a potential offer for the company, and therefore 600 Group is no longer in a regulatory offer period.
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By James Kemp; jameskemp@alliancenews.com; @jamespkemp
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