3i Group Share News (III)

LONDON (Alliance News) - The following stocks are amongst the biggest risers and fallers within the main London indices midday Thursday.
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FTSE 100 WINNERS
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Fresnillo, up 3.1%, Randgold Resources, up 2.6%. The gold miners are higher as gold prices rose and the US dollar came under pressure after the Federal Reserve trimmed its US growth forecast for the year to 1.8% to 2%, down from 2.3% to 2.7%. The central bank offered no explicit guidance on when it will raise US interest rates from zero. Gold is trading at USD1,196.06, a level it hasn't seen since early June.
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FTSE 100 LOSERS
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3i Group, down 3.8%, and Severn Trent, down 3.5%. The stocks are the worst performers in the blue-chip index after going ex-dividend, meaning new buyers no longer qualify for the latest dividend payout.

Pearson, down 1.4%. Shares in the publisher are down after being downgraded to Reduce from Hold by Investec.
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FTSE 250 LOSERS
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Premier Farnell, down 4.5%. The electronic distributor said sales per day grew 5.4% in the first quarter of its financial year, with most of the growth driven by further strong demand for the Raspberry Pi single board computers, but it warned that it is continuing to battle adverse exchange rate movements, particularly the weakness of the euro. Following the results, Shore Capital kept a Hold stance on the company saying it reported an "encouraging sales performance", but the broker said it remains concerned over the company's margins.

Poundland Group, down 3.3%. The discount retailer reported a rise in profit in its recently-ended financial year as sales broke through the GBP1 billion mark for the first time. However, its shares are down as its profit slightly missed analysts' expectations, it revealed slower growth in the first quarter of its current financial year compared with the prior year, and it said consensus figures for full-year profit will be lowered. Poundland reported pretax profit in the year to March 29 of GBP36.2 million, a rise of more than half the GBP21.5 million made the year before, but the underlying pretax profit of GBP43.7 million was lower than the analysts' consensus forecast of GBP44.0 million.

Betfair Group, down 2.7%, following a 3.9% drop on Wednesday. Shares in the bookmaker are down again after Jefferies downgraded the company to Hold from Buy. The downgrade comes a day after Panmure Gordon also cut its recommendation on Betfair to Hold from Buy, saying it thinks revenue growth will be slow moving forward, while competition will increase due to reduced industry profit margins caused by the UK point of consumption tax.

Playtech, down 2.7%. The company,which provides software and services for the gaming industry and which has recently moved into the foreign exchange trading sector, unveiled plans for a GBP250 million equity fundraising, with the sale of new shares to fund the proposed purchase of Plus500 and other acquisitions. It said it is placing up to 29.1 million new shares with investors through an accelerated bookbuild, with the pricing of the shares yet to be determined. The shares equate to 9.9% of the company's existing shares in issue.

Berkeley Group Holdings, down 1.9% at 3,413.63 pence. Several brokers changed recommendations for the housebuilder. Liberum downgraded the company to Hold from Buy, while Investec downgraded it to Reduce from Hold. Deutsche Bank cut Berkeley's price target to 3,346p from 3,474p, keeping a Hold stance. Meanwhile, HSBC raised the housebuilder's price target to 3,970p from 3,565p, keeping a Buy stance.
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AIM ALL-SHARE WINNERS
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MS International, up 16%. The engineering products and services firm said its performance was "much improved" in the second half of its financial year, though pretax profit still fell by about half in the year as a whole. Pretax profit fell to GBP1.5 million in the year ended May 2, compared with GBP2.9 million in the prior year, as revenue fell to GBP45.5 million from GBP47.1 million. MS International also said it has acquired Petrol Sign, a company based in the Netherlands, from Lambooij Holdings for EUR3.4 million on a cash and debt free basis, including "normalised" working capital.

Enables IT Group, up 12%. Shares in the cloud computing firm are higher after it said it had reached an agreed deal to be bought by peer 1Spatial. In a joint statement, the companies said the offer will be done through a scheme of arrangement whereby Enables IT shareholders will get 1.13 1Spatial shares for each scheme share. Based on 1Spatial's closing price of 6.75 pence on Wednesday, the deal gives a value of about 7.628 pence to each scheme share, a premium of about 27% to the closing price of 6 pence per scheme share on the same day, and values Enables IT's share capital at about GBP2.08 million.

Strategic Minerals, up 9.1%. The company said it has secured a maiden resource estimate for the Tatu project in the North Island of New Zealand. The JORC compliant resource estimate, provided by Gordon Geotechniques, forecasts there is 6.7 million tonnes of measured and indicated thermal coal in place at the project. Strategic Minerals said the estimate is of "high certainty" because 75% of the resource is classified as measured.

Tristel, up 7.8%. The manufacturer of infection prevention, contamination control and hygiene products said it will pay a special dividend of 3 pence a share on top of the final dividend it still expects to pay. It will pay it on August 6 to shareholders on the register June 26. The ex-dividend date will be June 25. It still expects to declare a final dividend when it announces its full-year results on October 12.
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AIM ALL-SHARE LOSERS
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Sirius Minerals, down 16%. Shares in the potash project developer are down after it said the North York Moors National Park Authority's planning committee made no recommendation in its report on the planning application for the company's potash project, meaning it remains hung in the balance. The authority's special planning committee will meet, as previously announced in June 30 to determine the planning application.

By Daniel Ruiz; danielruiz@alliancenews.com

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