IDEA.L Share News (IDEA)

LONDON (Alliance News) - The following stocks are among the biggest risers and fallers within the main London indices late-morning Thursday.
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FTSE 100 WINNERS
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Hargreaves Lansdown, up 1.2%. Numis has upgraded the investment management firm to Buy from Add, maintaining its price target at 1,235.00 pence. Numis says the company's underlying growth profile remains strong in a rapidly expanding industry. Hargreaves Lansdown shares currently trade at 940.00p.

Aberdeen Asset Management, 0.3%. Jefferies has raised the company to Hold from Underperform and increased its price target to 400.00p from 350.00p. The upgrade comes as the momentum of fund outflows has turned around faster than Jefferies previously expected. The company currently trades at 392.10p

TUI Travel, up 0.2%. The UK travel operator said its full-year underlying operating profit will come in at the top end of its growth guidance, boosted by strong trading in the UK and growing demand for its tailored holidays and all-inclusive package holidays to the Caribbean. The company said it is confident of achieving underlying operating profit growth of at least 9% on a constant currency basis for the financial year ended September 30. It had previously guided for profit growth of between 7% to 10%. Its underlying profit excludes separately disclosed items, acquisition related expenses, impairment of goodwill and interest and taxes.
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FTSE 100 LOSERS
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BG Group, down 2.2%. The price of Brent oil continued to slide, hitting USD91.53 a barrel, its lowest level since June 2012. Also Thursday, BG Group confirmed it has withdrawn from the block 3 drilling programme in Tanzania, for which it was operator. As a result, Ophir Energy will increase its interest from 20% to 80% and become the operator of the license, while Pavilion Energy will retain its original 20%. Before withdrawing, BG Group had a 60% interest and was the operator of the license.
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FTSE 250 WINNERS
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Ophir Energy, 2.2%. The company separately said it has discovered 1.03 trillion cubic feet of gas in the Kamba and Fulusi prospects from its Kamba-1 well in Tanzania. The gas discovery is comprised of 650 billion cubic feet of gas in Kamba prospect and 360 billion cubic feet in Fulusi prospect. The Kamba-1 well is in the block 4 license, which is operated by BG Group, with Ophir holding a 20% interest in the license. Block 4 is unaffected by BG's decision with regards to block 3.

Carillion, up 2%. The infrastructure company said trading remains in line with its own expectations and the guidance it gave when it put out its interim results in August. In a statement, the company said it is focused on mobilising the new contracts it won in the first half of the year, particularly the support services deals. It won about GBP3.2 billion of new orders and probable orders in the first half of the year. Carillion added that its balance sheet remains robust, cash flow strong, and its debt is falling in line with its expectations.

Domino's Pizza Group, up 1.6%. The pizza delivery chain said strong sales growth in the third quarter continued to be driven by its UK business, online sales, and its meal-deal promotions, but the chain warned of tougher trading comparatives in the final quarter. The company reported like-for-like UK sales growth of 12.9% in its 13 week third quarter ended September 28. System sales, which are total sales made by all the company's franchisee and corporate stores, rose 17.6% to GBP165.7 million. It also said its 'buy one get one free' and pizza combo deals drove sales growth in the UK, especially online, which is said accounted for almost 71% of all UK delivered sales in the period, up from 62.4% last year.

Ted Baker, up 1.5%. The British clothing and accessories retailer reported another set of stellar growth figures for the first half of its financial year, as profit growth continues to be driven by its successful online business and strong growth in the UK and expansion overseas. The company declared a near 19% increase in its interim dividend, after reporting pretax profit of GBP15.6 million for the six months ended August 9, up 34% on the GBP11.6 million profit it recorded in the first half of last year. This was driven by a 17% increase in revenue to GBP182.2 million, up from GBP155.2 million in the same period a year earlier.
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FTSE 250 LOSERS
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Electrocomponents, down 3.2%. The electronic and maintenance product distributor said underlying sales in the first half rose year-on-year, but said it expects its profits to be impacted by fewer trading days, the strength of sterling and restructuring costs. The company said group underlying sales in the first half to September 30 were up 3% overall. International sales have increased 5% in the period, but UK sales are down 2%. It also added that the year-on-year decline in its gross margin in the first half is expected to be in line with the 0.8 percentage point decline seen in the first quarter, primarily due to faster sales growth in its lower-margin North American business, the impact of the product mix, and increased discounting in its UK and Asia-Pacific arms.

Afren, down 2.4%. The company's shares are down despite saying it has started the process of returning to normal staffing levels at the Barda Rash field in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq following an improvement in the security situation in the region. Afren had said on August 8 it would temporarily suspend operations at Barda Rash due to the heightened tensions in the region, though it said it did not expect the move to have a significant impact on its cash flow. The company said field operations at the Ain Sifni site, operated by Hunt Oil, part of Hunt Conoslidated Inc, have already resumed to normal levels.
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AIM ALL-SHARE WINNERS
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Urals Energy Public Co, up 51%. The company published reserve reports for the Petrosakh and Arcticneft joint ventures, which showed a proved developed producing reserve at the two fields of 4,356 million barrels of oil, representing undiscounted future net revenue of USD95.4 billion. In addition, the report showed proved undeveloped reserves at the two fields of 25,637 millions barrels of oil, translating to undiscounted future net revenue of USD441 billion, or discounted revenue at 10% per year of USD176 billion.

ITM Power, up 23%. The company said Toyota Motor Corp has unveiled plans to launch the Toyota Fuel Cell Sedan, the first production hydrogen-powered saloon car. Toyota is among the car companies involved in the Hydrogen for Innovative Vehicles, or HyFive, project to grow the number of fuel cell vehicles on the market. ITM Power, which manufactures fuel cell products, is also involved in the project.

Premier African Minerals, up 7.9%. The Africa-focused minerals company said YA Global Master SPV Ltd has sold its entire holdings in the company after the completion of an equity swap agreement between the parties was accelerated. Premier African Minerals signed a GBP500,000 subscription deal and a separate GBP300,000 equity swap deal with YA Global in January. It also entered a GBP3 million standby equity distribution facility. Under the equity swap deal, YA Global agreed to make 15 monthly settlement payments of GBP20,000 each to Premier African, adjusted to reflect the price of the equity swap shares held by YA Global at the time of the payment. Both parties had the right at any time to accelerate the payments due under the equity swap.

Ideagen, up 5.2%. The information management software supplier said it has won its largest single NHS contract to date, a GBP1 million deal to supply its patient management software to the Doncaster and Bassetlaw Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, and overall revenue and operating profits are expected to be significantly up on the year in its first half. In a statement, the company said it expects to recognise about 65% of the NHS contract value in the current financial year, which ends on April 30, 2015.

First Derivatives, up 5.1%. The company said said that its market surveillance system has won a contract with IEX Group Inc, the dark pool operator that featured prominently in Michael Lewis's 'Flash Boys', and its overall trading remains in line with its hopes and its full-year results are expected to meet market expectations. In a statement, First Derivatives, said that IEX chose its Delta Surveillance software platform to provide trade surveillance and analytics. It said the system will audit billions of market data records daily, with real time and historical market abuse reporting capabilities.
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AIM ALL-SHARE LOSERS
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Sefton Resources, off 24%. The company said it had made a required USD120,000 forebearance payment to its lender, and has got agreement on a delayed payment on the interest and fees owed. In a statement, Sefton said it had been required to make the USD120,000 payment by September 30, and made the payment on that day, using funds provided by Hawker through a subordinated loan. It said a further USD26,000 to cover interest and fees will be made by Hawker within a week, and its bank has verbally agreed to this delay.
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By Neil Thakrar; neilthakrar@alliancenews.com

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