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LONDON (Alliance News) - The following stocks are the leading risers and fallers on the main London indices midday Thursday.
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FTSE 100 - Winners
Randgold Resources is up 7.1% after its third-quarter sales and production increased. Pretax profit fell 3.8% to USD126.6 million for the three months ended September 30, from USD131.6 million in the third-quarter 2012, but it more than doubled its second-quarter figure of USD60.7 million. The company said its total revenue for the third quarter increased to USD332.3 million from last year's USD288.6 million, as higher production rates offset a 3% decrease in the gold price. Randgold said its sales increased 45% in comparison to its second quarter sales figure of USD228.9 million.
Tate & Lyle, up 1.8%, expects to deliver another year of profitable growth, increasing its interim dividend by 5.4% to 7.80 pence per share. The company reported sales growth of 7%, or 4% on a constant currency basis, to GBP1.74 billion, compared with GBP1.63 billion a year earlier. It said that it saw good sales growth in its speciality food ingredient business, up 10%, driven by strong volume growth in emerging markets. The division reported an operating profit of GBP112 million during the period, up 3%. The company did, however, report a drop in profits in the first-half of the year as sweetener volumes were held back by a soft US beverage sector.
Reed Elsevier climbs 0.7%. The publisher's reiteration of its full-year outlook for 2013 as it reported underlying revenue growth of 3% in the first nine months of the year is encouraging, says Numis analyst Gareth Davies. Numis has raised its price target to 994.00p from 937.00p. David Reynolds, an analyst at Jefferies, is also pleased by Reed management's reaffirmation of its 2013 full-year guidance and welcomed its share buyback. The company has completed GBP550 million of share buybacks this year, and Jefferies is confident that the company will achieve a full-year total of GBP600 million.
Rolls-Royce is up 0.5% after it won a USD50.7 million extension to the contract it has to service engines used on the US Navy's T-45 training aircraft. It has held the contract for 10 years, and the new deal means it will continue to service and support the engines until the end of March, 2014,
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FTSE 100 - Losers
Schroders is down 3%. The asset manager said that strong net inflows over the first nine months of the year have taken the assets it manages to GBP256.7 billion, a 27% increase year-on-year. However, net inflows in the third quarter alone declined to GBP1.0 billion against GBP2.6 billion for the corresponding quarter last year. Although Chief Executive Michael Dobson put the third quarter decline down to a particularly strong performance in the year-earlier quarter, David McCann, an analyst at Numis, believes that the stock price is high. Owen Jones at Shore Capital says that equity markets are at multiple year highs so it's unsurprising to see some profit-taking after the results.
WM Morrison is down 0.8% after the supermarket chain revealed sales are still down on a like-for-like basis, as low exposure to key growth areas like convenience stores and online continue to drag on sales. The supermarket chain is playing catch up with the other big grocer rivals - Tesco, Sainsbury and Asda - which have all been expanding their internet interests for years, and have been reaping the benefits of sales and profits growth through their local convenience stores.
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FTSE 250 - Winners
Halfords, up 14%, has reported higher sales and profits for the first half of its financial year, as the UK's growing passion for cycling and a revamp of its products drove growth. The company said the good summer weather had driven up sales of cycles, while its recent revamp meant it had the stock and better products to meet the demand. It has recruited recent stars of the highly-successful British track cycling team to design products, including Victoria Pendleton who designed a range of women's bikes and Chris Boardman who designed a range of top-end cycles. Halfords reported a pretax profit of GBP44.6 million in the six months to September 27, up from GBP42.4 million a year earlier, as revenues rose to GBP490.6 million, from GBP455.6 million. Like-for-like sales rose 6.2%, driven by a 7.7% increase in its retail stores thanks to strong sales of cycles. Numis has upgraded the company to Hold from Reduce.
Grainger is up 7.2% after it said it swung to a profit for the full-year, as it positions itself to take advantage of the UK housing recovery. The company posted pretax profit of GBP64.3 million for the period ended September 30, compared with a GBP1.7 million loss a year earlier. The profit rise came as a result of efforts to reduce its debt, it said, which declined to GBP959 million from GBP1.19 billion a year earlier.
Beazley climbs 3.8% after the value of its gross premiums written increased year-on-year over the first nine months of the year and it said it expects good underwriting profitability in the full-year, so long as the claims environment remains favourable. The specialist insurer also said it is on track to deliver its 2013 objectives, with continued investment into several of its new products.
Cable & Wireless Communications is up 3.4% after it maintained its guidance for the full-year, despite posting declines in revenue and pretax profit in the half-year ended September 30. The company said that it was now focusing its business on the Caribbean and Latin America as the region has gross domestic product growth rates that are much higher than developed markets, but low levels of penetration in their communications markets. It intends to grow in the region both organically and through investment in some key growth sectors including mobile data and fibre broadband.
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FTSE 250 - Losers
Inmarsat, down 4.5%, has posted declining revenues in the third quarter. The satellite operator said that several of its businesses were impacted by reduced military activity in Afghanistan, and that the launch of its Global Xpress satellite was delayed. The company posted total revenues of USD306.9 million, down from USD325.9 million in the previous year. Inmarsat also warned that in 2014, operating cost investments in the military radio spectrum band, L-Band, will coincide with a difficult outlook for its US government business. These factors will combine to apply pressure on operating profits during 2014.
3i Infrastructure is down 1.9%. The company reported an increase in the value of its portfolio over the six months to end-September, but returns fell heavily as weakness in India almost entirely offset a better performance from its European portfolio. The company reported a total return of GBP5.3 million, down from GBP30.5 million a year earlier, giving a total return on shareholders equity of 0.5% compared with 2.9%.
Sythomer slips 1.3% after it reiterated that operating profit in the second half of its financial year will be down on the first half, as it continues to experience weakness in Europe. The company, which in August reported an 11.4% decline in operating profit to GBP56 million, said it had seen no improvement in conditions in Europe since that time, with a slight rise in volumes offset by continued weak margins.
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AIM - Winners
TXO, jumping 33%, is the biggest riser on the AIM All-Share. The company said it has acquired a 15.1% interest in Oil Recovery Services Ltd for GBP300,000, which will be funded through the issuance of 100 million new shares. TXO has also been given two options to subscribe for a further 34.8% of the company, which would take its interest in Oil Recovery to 49.9%.
MediaZest is up 20%. The company reported a string of high-profile contract wins worth over GBP300,000, including designing Christmas store windows for key Boots and O2 outlets and projecting Topshop's recent catwalk show into the retailer's flagship Oxford Street store, meaning it expects total full-year revenue to be significantly up on last year. It also gave an update on a contract it won with a "large multinational brand" back in April. It said the project is now live and it has deployed in six countries, while it expects to exhibit the project in 60 countries over the next nine months. It has already been paid over GBP850,000 for the deal, secured some small additional revenues, and believes there is "potential for further significant additional work with this client".
Delcam climbs 20% after it reached an agreed deal to be acquired by Autodesk for GBP172.5 million in cash, and already has irrevocable undertakings to accept the deal from key shareholders including Renishaw. In a joint statement, the US 3D design software company and its British counterpart said Delcam shareholders will get GBP20.75 a share in cash, a 21% premium to the Delcam closing price Wednesday.
Amara Mining is up 9.6%. The company said it has entered into a legally binding share purchase agreement with Amlib Holdings. Amara will acquire USD10 million in cash, a drilling operation and three Liberian exploration licences in return for 51.8 million shares in Amara with an aggregate value of USD11.0 million.
Rose Petroleum, up 9.3%, said sales have increased 14% to USD2.4 million for the three months ended September 30 from USD2.1 million in the previous quarter. It said that the majority of its increased sales came from its joint venture with Met-Sin SA de CV, allowing Rose Petroleum to process gold and silver ore from concessions operated by Met-Sin.
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AIM - Losers
Craven House Capital, down 31%, is retracing gains made Wednesday. The company jumped on the news that it had bought a 49% stake in three South African agricultural businesses for CAD1.96 million in shares from EmVest Asset Management. The company still has a long way to fall before it reaches pre-announcement levels, having risen 123% Wednesday.
Alecto Minerals, down 14%, said it has raised GBP1 million through the issue of 100 million shares and has entered an equity swap agreement. The company said the proceeds of the placing will be used to conduct further exploration work through additional drilling with particular focus on increasing the resource at the company's flagship Kossanto Gold Project in Western Mali. The company also said it has entered into an equity swap agreement with YA Global Master SPV, otherwise known as Yorkville, over 50 million shares. Alecto said that in return for a payment by the company to Yorkville of GBP250,000, twelve monthly settlement payments will be made by Yorkville to Alecto unless there are significant changes to the prevailing market price of both company's ordinary shares.
Goldstone Resources is down 13%. The junior gold explorer has received negative assay results from joint-venture partner Randgold Resources' drilling programme at Goldstone's 49%-owned Thiabedji and Tiobi sites in Senegal. Goldstone said that, based on the results, Randgold concluded that the sites do not meet their criteria for further work, and they have been removed from the current exploration drilling programme.
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By James Kemp; jameskemp@alliancenews.com; @jamespkemp
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