Esure Group Share News (ESUR)

LONDON (Alliance News) - The following stocks are the leading risers and fallers within the main London indices on Friday.----------FTSE 100 - WINNERS----------ITV, up 3.8%. Societe Generale double upgraded the broadcaster to Buy from Sell. ----------FTSE 100 - LOSERS----------Direct Line Insurance Group, down 3.1%. Barclays cut the insurer to Equal Weight from Overweight. Rightmove, down 2.0%. UBS cut the property listings company to Sell from Neutral. Pearson, down 1.7%. SocGen downgraded the education publisher to Hold from Buy.----------FTSE 250 - WINNERS----------Stobart Group, up 3.3%. The support services firm said it remains on track to deliver medium-term objectives as it announced the departure of its Chief Financial Officer Richard Laycock. At its annual general meeting Stobart said Laycock will not be putting himself forward for election, but will continue "to support" the business. Stobart has started a search to identify a suitable interim replacement for the role, it said. Also, the company said it is doing well on growing London Southend airport in order to bring in 5 million passengers annually by 2022. Meanwhile, Stobart said its Infrastructure unit generated cash of GBP25.5 million in the year to-date from March. The result was achieved after the sale & leaseback of properties and land at its Widnes site north-west England.---------FTSE 250 - LOSERS----------Inmarsat, down 7.4% at .85 pence. The satellite communications company confirmed it has rejected a second takeover proposal from EchoStar Corp which it believed "significantly" undervalued the firm. Inmarsat also said the offer failed to recognise its standalone prospects, and the firm is "highly confident" in its strategy and future. US peer EchoStar made a first proposal in early June, which Inmarsat rejected. The new proposal, rejected on Wednesday, would have seen Inmarsat shareholders get 265 pence in cash and 0.777 new EchoStar shares per Inmarsat share. This would have amounted to a total value of 532p per share. Inmarsat shares closed at 526p on Thursday, giving it an approximate market capitalisation of GBP2.43 billion.Esure, down 4.4%. Barclays cut the insurer to Underweight from Equal Weight. ----------OTHER MAIN MARKET AND AIM - WINNERS----------Range Resources, up 15%. The oil and gas company said that its recently reopened POG-D well at Perlak field, Indonesia, is now producing oil. Since it began reopening at the end of May, POG-D has produced 145 barrels of high-quality light oil. The oil and gas company is now testing the well to see if production there can be made more stable. Another well at Perlak field, POG-E is in the process of reopening and work is being done to remove an obstruction. "The work programme is expected to add up to 200 barrels of all per day of gross production. The produced oil will be...exclusively sold to Pertamina, an Indonesian state-owned oil and natural gas corporation," Range said in a statement.----------OTHER MAIN MARKET AND AIM - LOSERS----------Wilmington, down 25%. The information, education and networking services provider's shares were down after it issued a profit warning for the current 2019 financial year. "Underlying costs will rise this year due to inflationary pressures, the full year impact of the new London HQ and IT infrastructure implemented last year and the one-off nature of certain of the cost reductions achieved last year," the company said. As a result, the company expects "there will be a reduction in profit" for the current financial year versus the prior year "which will be in the high single digit range".----------