Earthport Share News (EPO)

LONDON (Alliance News) - The following stocks are the leading risers and fallers within the main London indices on Friday.----------FTSE 100 - LOSERS----------Centrica, down 2.4%. Citigroup has reduced its rating to Neutral from Buy.----------Smith & Nephew, down 2.2%. Exane has cut the medical devices maker to Neutral from Outperform.----------FTSE 250 - WINNERS----------Travis Perkins, up 1.5%. Royal Bank of Canada has increased its rating for the building products firm to Outperform from Sector Perform. ----------OTHER MAIN MARKET AND AIM - WINNERS----------Cluff Natural Resources up 52%. The company's has entered into a farm-out agreement with Shell UK over two of Cluff's North Sea licences. For licence P2252, Shell will acquire a 70% working interest and will be appointed as the licence operator, in return for paying all costs related to an agreed forward work programme up to the end of 2020. For licence P2437, Shell has the option to acquire a 50% working interest by the end of April for USD600,000 in total.----------Tower Resources, up 19%. The firm noted the discovery by Total of "significant gas condensate" at the Brulpadda exploration well in South Africa. The Brulpadda well is located adjacent to the Algoa-Gamtoos licence, operated by Tower Resources and its partner New Age Energy Algoa on a 50-50 basis.----------Modern Water, up 16%. The company has submitted an application to the government of Gibraltar to built the country's first wastewater treatment plant. Modern Water Services carried out the preparatory works necessary for the submission to the government's Department of Town Planning, collaborating with its joint venture partner NWG Commercial Services. The joint venture was selected as preferred bidder for the project in 2014. ----------Earthport, up 15%. Visa has increased its offer for cross-border payments firm Earthport following a rival bid from Mastercard. Visa initially made a bid of 30 pence per share in December, which was agreed with Earthport. However, in late January, Mastercard came in with its own offer at 33p. Visa has now upped its offer to 37 pence per share, which values Earthport at around GBP247 million fully diluted. The new figure is 12% above Mastercard's offer and 23% higher than the original Visa bid. ----------OTHER MAIN MARKET AND AIM - LOSERS----------Flybe, down 23%. The airline has warned if its takeover by Connect Airways does not proceed it will be forced to close the company. "If the scheme is not approved, the Flybe directors intend to take steps to wind-up the company and shareholders are likely to receive no value for their shares in Flybe," the airline said. "Accordingly, the Flybe directors believe the terms of the acquisition remain in the best interests of Flybe shareholders as a whole and unanimously recommend that Flybe shareholders vote in favour of the resolutions to be proposed at the court meeting and the general meeting." Flybe agreed the takeover by Connect Airways, a joint venture among Stobart Group, Virgin Atlantic, and DLP Holdings, earlier in January. ----------MySale, down 11%. The firm on Friday expects to swing to an adjusted loss for the first half of its financial year after experiencing "challenging trading". For the six months to the end of December, the online retailer, which operates 24 websites in eight countries, expects revenue down 17% to AUD126.0 million, about GBP69 million, from AUD152.0 million a year ago. Online revenue was down 13% to AUD120.0 million. The company blamed a planned reduction in offline activities during the half for the revenue downfall. MySale expects an adjusted loss before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation of AUD5.0 million compared to a AUD5.5 million profit a year ago, due "primarily" to market disruption caused by changes to Australian goods and services tax regulation, together with product mix and inventory issues. Gross profit is expected to decrease 35% to AUD29.5 million, while gross margins shrank to 23.4% from 30.2% in the comparative half-year period.----------GLI Finance, down 31%. The company has decided to close its loss-making supply chain finance to focus on the core asset backed lending offering. In addition, GLI expects to suffer further material write downs in its Fintech Ventures portfolio, as several of the platforms are finding it harder to raise further capital at the valuation levels previously expected. The investment company said its core unit, Sancus BMS, continued to grow, generating revenue of GBP13 million in the year to the end of December 2018, up 28% on the prior year. Meanwhile, Sancus Finance, which operates GLI's supply chain finance offering in the UK, remains loss making and behind management expectations with a forecast operating loss of GBP1 million.----------