John Laing Infrastructure Fund Share News (JLIF)

LONDON (Alliance News) - The following stocks are the leading risers and fallers within the main London indices on Monday.----------FTSE 100 - LOSERS----------Fresnillo, down 2.4%, Randgold Resources, down 1.7%. The gold miners were tracking spot gold prices lower quoted at USD1,212.66 compared to USD1,217.93 at the London equities close Friday. ----------FTSE 250 - WINNERS----------Morgan Advanced Materials up 4.0%. Berenberg raised the ceramic materials manufacturer to Buy from Hold. ----------John Laing Infrastructure Fund, up 3.4% at 144.61 pence. The infrastructure fund said it has accepted Jura Acquisition's cash offer which values the company at GBP1.45 billion. The company said that the offer values its shares at 142.5 pence each with shareholders also to receive JLIF's 3.57p interim dividend. Jura Acquisition is a newly-formed company owned by a consortium led by funds managed by infrastructure investors Dalmore Capital and Equitix Investment Management. The offer price represents a 24% premium on the company's last closing price of 118.2p on July 13, the last day before the commencement of the takeover discussions. ----------Synthomer, up 3.2%. The speciality chemicals company said its profit in the first half of the year climbed 61% on the back of stronger revenue and higher gains on disposals. For the six months to June 30, pretax profit jumped to GBP86.2 million from GBP53.4 million in the comparative year-ago period. Revenue increased 8.2% to GBP833.8 million from GBP770.3 million year-on-year. Both of the company's units increased revenue with Europe & North America up 8.9% to GBP646 million and Asia & Rest of World up 6% to GBP187.8 million. Synthomer lifted its interim dividend by 8.1% to 4.0 pence per share from 3.7p paid to shareholders for the same period a year ago.----------FTSE 250 - LOSERS----------Spire Healthcare, down 23%. The private healthcare company said it expects 2018 profit to be "materially lower" than 2017 after declines in its NHS business and increased investment. For the six months ended June, Spire expects revenue to drop 1.1% to GBP475 million from the GBP481.0 million reported the year prior. Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation is expected to fall to GBP66 million from GBP83.2 million the year before. This would represent an Ebitda margin of around 14% from 18.1% the year before. Interim performance was hurt by a sharp fall in revenue from its UK National Health Service business. Spire - in which London and Johannesburg-listed Mediclinic International holds a 29.9% stake - expects to see further private payor growth in the remainder of 2018. This growth will continue to be impacted, however, by "continuing weakness in the NHS business where we see new signs of further NHS triaging and rationing". Mediclinic shares were down 3.1%. ----------IWG, down 21%. The office space provider said it terminated takeover talks with the remaining three bidders - Starwood Capital European Operations, Terra Firma Investments and TDR Capital - saying none were capable of delivering an executable transaction at a recommendable price. IWG, which was formerly called Regus, added that it is focused on continuing to grow the company and confident that the business has an exciting future as an independent public company. In response, the three bidders issued separate announcements stating their intention to abandon their plans to acquire IWG. For the six months to June 30, IWG recorded pretax profit of GBP54.3 million, down from GBP80.8 million in the year ago period, on revenue of GBP1.20 billion and GBP1.17 billion, respectively.----------OTHER MAIN MARKET AND AIM - WINNERS----------Candor Gold, up 17%. The gold miner said it has received environmental approval for a processing plant and other works at its La India gold project. Condor is re-permitting an old mining area at La India, located in Nicaragua's Leon province, with a company called Noranda Mining producing an estimated 576,000 ounces of gold in the 18 years prior to 1956. A public consultation was held in mid-July over the site, at which Condor said it had received "overwhelming" support for its project, with 600 signing up for work. Condor is looking to build a processing plant, and associated infrastructure, capable of processing 2,800 tonnes of ore a day. Gold production is expected to be around 80,000 ounces a year from an open pit. ----------OTHER MAIN MARKET AND AIM - LOSERS----------FireAngel Safety Technology, down 25%. The home safety products supplier said it expects to swing to an operating loss in the first half of the year. For the six months to June 30, the group said it expects operating loss of GBP1.8 million compared to GBP1.5 million profit registered in the comparative year-ago period. The company expects revenue to fall by 32% to GBP17.7 million from GBP26 million year-on-year. FireAngel blamed the poor results on "certain short term transitional issues within the supply chain" combined with the "continued weakness of the Sterling against the US Dollar and difficult UK high street trading". ----------