Johnson Matthey Share News (JMAT)

LONDON (Alliance News) - The following stocks are the leading risers and fallers within the main London indices on Wednesday.----------FTSE 100 - WINNERS----------NMC Health, up 8.0%. JPMorgan upgraded the UAE-focused healthcare provider to Overweight from Neutral. Johnson Matthey, up 7.1%. The speciality chemicals firm hiked its interim payout following a growth in profit in the first half of its current financial year, and said it expects an annual performance towards the upper end of guidance. Johnson Matthey said pretax profit in the six months to the end of September grew 19% to GBP244 million from GBP205 million reported for the same period a year ago. Revenue improved 10% to GBP7.11 billion from GBP6.48 billion year-on-year, driven by continued strong growth in the Clean Air division, where sales were up 10% to GBP1.31 billion. Johnson Matthey declared an interim dividend of 23.25p, up 7% year-on-year. Looking forward, the company expects annual sales and underlying operating profit to benefit from foreign exchange movements by GBP1 million and GBP2 million, respectively. British Land, up 2.5%. HSBC raised the commercial property company to Buy from Hold. ----------FTSE 100 - LOSERS----------Sage Group, down 4.9%. The accounting software provider reported a rise in annual revenue and profit but expects organic operating margins to shrink in 2019. For the year ended September 30, Sage's organic revenue increased 6.8% to GBP1.82 billion from GBP1.70 billion the year before, slightly behind the firm's guided target. Recurring revenue increased 6.7% to GBP1.44 billion from GBP1.35 billion, of which subscription revenue jumped 25% to GBP839 million from GBP670 million. For the year, Sage managed underlying operating margin of 27.2%, flat on the year before and slightly behind guidance. In August, Sage guided for a 7% growth in organic revenue with "around" 27.5% operating margin. Looking forward, Sage said it expects organic operating margin will fall to between 23% and 25%, as the company anticipates operating expenses to increase around GBP60 million on accelerated investment into cloud services. ----------Kingfisher, down 3.3%. The DIY retailer announced its exit from the Russian, Spanish and Portuguese markets to focus on the areas where it can "reach a market leading position". For the three months to October 31, total group sales trickled up 0.2% to GBP3.05 billion, but were up 1.4% at constant currency. In France, the company's Castorama store chain continued its downward path, leading to a 1.3% decline in the group's like-for-like sales for the third quarter. Total sales for France were down 3.9% - 3.4% on a like-for-like basis - to GBP1.11 billion. Castorama sales declined 8.5%, while Brico Depot sales were up 1.5%. UK & Ireland, the company's core market, saw total sales up 1.4% to GBP1.29 billion. On a like-for-like basis, UK sales were down 0.7%.----------FTSE 250 - WINNERS----------Wizz Air, up 5.0%. UBS upgraded the central and eastern European-focused budget airline to Buy from Neutral. ----------FTSE 250 - LOSERS----------Indivior, down 13%. The drugmaker said it was "surprised and disappointed" by a US court's decision to vacate a preliminary injunction against Indian rival Dr Reddy's Laboratories, but does not expect the generic product to enter the market in 2018. The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit vacated an injunction that previously prevented Dr Reddy's from selling offering to sell, or import its generic buprenorphine/naloxone sublingual film product. Dr Reddy's will now look to launch a generic product in the US, eating in to Indivior's market share. If the generic product does enter the market, Indivior expects a "rapid and material loss" of market share for its Suboxone sublingual film. Compounding its woes, RBC cut the stock to Sector Perform with Speculative Risk from Outperform.----------Babcock International, down 8.2%. The defence contractor reported a sharp fall in profit and warned on the revenue impact from ending of Magnox joint venture. For the six months to September, Babcock's pretax profit fell 64% to GBP65.1 million, though on an underlying basis the figure was 2.5% higher at GBP245.5 million. Revenue fell 2.7% to GBP2.25 billion, with underlying revenue slipping 2.3% to GBP2.58 billion. The Magnox contract is with the UK's Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, with Babcock cleaning up reactor sites. The ending of the contract had previously been expected to hit revenue by around GBP100 million for its next financial year, but Babcock has now guided for a GBP250 million hit. Further, in its year ending March 2021, Babcock expects a GBP100 million revenue hit, resulting in a GBP7 million knock to operating profit.----------SSP Group, down 7.5%. The food & drinks concessions operator reported strong revenue and profit growth for its recently ended financial year and announced the departure of its Chief Executive Officer Kate Swann. She will be replaced by Simon Smith, currently chief executive officer for UK & Ireland, who will take up the role on June 1, 2019. For the year ended September 30, SSP's pretax profit jumped 26% to GBP182.9 million from GBP144.8 million a year prior. In addition, revenue rose 7.8% to GBP2.56 billion from GBP2.38 billion, with like-for-like sales up 2.8%, driven by airplane passengers and "retailing initiatives". The company proposed a final dividend of 5.4 pence per share, bringing its full-year dividend to 10.2p, up 26% on last year. In addition, SSP said it plans a special dividend worth GBP150 million, "underpinning confidence in the business".----------TalkTalk Telecom Group, down 6.0%. The home phone and broadband provider guided for a significantly narrowed interim loss, amid acceleration in customer growth. TalkTalk expects its statutory pretax loss to be GBP4 million for the six months to September, compared to GBP95 million the year before. Operating profit on a statutory basis is guided to be GBP19 million, after a GBP62 million loss year-on-year. TalkTalk expects total headline revenue to rise 3.9% to GBP771 million, with second quarter growth at 3.7%. On a statutory basis, revenue is guided to fall 0.6% to GBP822 million mainly due to the closure of its mobile virtual network operations. TalkTalk is guiding for headline earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortisation of GBP101 million, from GBP75 million year-on-year. The dividend will be 1.00 pence, down from 2.50p a year before, but will meet its policy. ----------OTHER MAIN MARKET AND AIM - WINNERS----------Ethernity Networks, up 21%. The network processing technology product supplier said it inked a new supply contract with an unnamed Tier 1 North American aviation and defence original equipment manufacturer to supply its ENET firmware. Ethernity said the contract is worth USD400,000 in short-term revenue with additional future royalty streams. Under the terms of the deal, the company will integrate its ENET Switch/Router firmware on the customer's field-programmable gate array-based avionics platform. ----------OTHER MAIN MARKET AND AIM - LOSERS----------Biffa, down 5.9%. The waste management company reported a drop in interim profit on expected headwinds from competitive markets. For the 26 weeks to September 28, the company's pretax profit decreased 19% to GBP23.7 million from GBP29.2 million in the 26 weeks to September 22, 2017. In the same period, Biffa's revenue increased 2.7% to GBP549.2 million from GBP534.6 million. Biffa increased its interim dividend by 6.0% to 2.30 pence from 2.17p paid out the year before. The firm's largest division, Industrial & Commercial, increased its revenue by 7.9% to GBP302.9 million from GBP280.7 million. Biffa's other three major divisions - Municipal, Resource Recovery & Treatment and Energy - all suffered a drop in revenue. The company blamed "competitive markets" for the collective drop. Biffa has undergone a "thorough review" in its Municipal division to stabilise its underlying performance.----------