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(Alliance News) - The following stocks are the leading risers and fallers within the main London indices on Friday.
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FTSE 100 - WINNERS
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Berkeley Group, up 1.9%. The house builder said market conditions in London and the south east of England were consistent with its June update and prices were stable, although transaction costs and uncertainty are a challenge. The house builder holds its annual general meeting on Friday, where it will provide a trading update for the period from May 1 to August 31. Berkeley said its forward sales position is still more than GBP1.8 billion. Berkeley said the wider market is still "constrained by high transaction costs and the uncertainty in the macro political and economic environment", although there is underlying demand for "new homes built to a high quality that are well located and properly priced to meet the local housing need, supported by good availability of mortgages". Berkeley did not provide specific short-term targets but said it plans to generate a GBP3.3 billion pretax profit for the six years to April 2025, with profit in any single year being between GBP500 million and GBP700 million, subject to "the timing of delivery". For its financial year ended April 30, Berkeley posted a pretax profit of GBP775.2 million, down 21% year-on-year. This would imply that future profits for the years to 2025 will be, on average, lower than financial 2019.
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Barratt Developments, up 1.5%. The housebuilder was higher after Bank of America upgraded the stock to Buy from Neutral.
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FTSE 100 - LOSERS
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United Utilities, down 2.3%. Royal Bank of Canada cut the stock to Sector Perform from Outperform.
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Royal Bank of Scotland, down 1.9%. Deutsche Bank cut RBS to Hold from Buy.
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Taylor Wimpey, down 1.2%. Bank of America cut the housebuilder to Neutral from Buy.
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Diageo, down 1.2%. Societe Generale reinitiated the drinks maker with Sell.
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FTSE 250 - WINNERS
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Dunelm, up 3.4%. HSBC upgraded the home furnishing retailer to Hold from Reduce.
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Ashmore, up 2.0%. The emerging markets asset manager reported a "strong" financial 2019 as the emerging markets investment manager ended the period with sharp growth in assets under management, despite escalation of the US-China trade war. At June 30, Ashmore's assets under management stood at USD91.8 billion, up 24% from USD73.9 billion at the same point a year ago. The asset manager's Blended Debt theme grew by 23% over the period, ending the year at USD24.3 billion. The Corporate Debt theme added 58%, ending at USD15.5 billion. External Debt and Local Currency themes grew by 32% to USD19.1 billion and 16% to USD19.7 billion, respectively. Ashmore delivered USD10.7 billion of net inflows in the period while its investment performance added USD6.9 billion. The asset manager said its positive investment performance was delivered in the second half, as markets "rallied" and Ashmore's active investment processes delivered "strong" absolute and relative performance.
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Weir Group, up 1.8%. The engineer won a GBP100 million contract to work on the Iron Bridge magnetite iron ore project in Western Australia's Pilbara region. The Iron Bridge project is a joint venture between Fortescue Metals Group and Formosa IB. Weir, which provides engineering to the mining, infrastructure, and oil & gas industries, will be carrying out energy saving services at the mine. The aim is to reduce energy consumption and wet tailings waste by over 30% compared to traditional mining technologies, Weir said. Iron Bridge is scheduled to start producing in 2022, with an output of around 22 million wet tonnes of ore a year once fully operational. The overall investment in the project stands at USD2.6 billion.
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FTSE 250 - LOSERS
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SIG, down 3.8%. The building materials supplier reported a sharp drop in first half profit, but a rise on adjusted basis, and said that there has been a marked deterioration in construction activity in the UK. SIG said, however, that its ongoing business transformation and the normal seasonality pattern will lead to a stronger second half, despite increasing political and macro-economic uncertainty. SIG posted pretax profit of GBP5.2 million for the six months to June 30, down 73% from GBP19.6 million profit a year ago. The profit drop was primarily due to GBP22.1 million in exceptional charges including impairment charges, profits and losses on sale or closure of non-core businesses, costs attributable to non-core businesses, and other items. Stripping out exceptional charges, first half pretax profit jumped 20% to GBP30.0 million from GBP25.1 million year-on-year. First half reported revenue was down 7.9% to GBP1.27 billion from GBP1.38 billion. Revenue, excluding divested businesses, fell 5.1% to GBP1.26 billion from GBP1.34 billion. The revenue drop was blamed upon a 3.8% decline in like-for-like revenue over the period, including an adverse 0.6% currency movement and a 0.7% impact from fewer working days. First half gross margins increased year-on-year to 27.0% from 26.5%, Adjusted margins increased to 27.1% from 26.4%.
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OTHER MAIN MARKET AND AIM - WINNERS
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Edenville Energy, up 14%. The coal producer raised GBP300,000 through a placing which will go towards accelerating mining and processing operations at the Rukwa coal project in Tanzania. In addition, the company said it has postponed its proposed share consolidation to 2020 at the earliest, following further consultation with its shareholders. Edenville issued 600.0 million shares at a price of 0.05 pence per share, through joint broker Brandon Hill Capital. Shares in Edenville were trading at 0.062 pence on Friday in London. Specifically, the proceeds will go towards working capital, following the decision to acquire new equipment and change shifts to increase Rukwa's productivity.
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Randall & Quilter, up 8.9%. The non-life legacy insurance investor said profit quadruped in the first half of 2019 due to the acquisition of Global Re. Randall & Quilter posted a GBP33.1 million pretax profit for the six months ended June 30, more than four times its GBP7.8 million profit the year before. This was "as expected", according to Randall & Quilter, thanks to its USD80.5 million acquisition of Global US and subsidiary Global Reinsurance Corp of America. The firm recorded goodwill on bargain purchase totalling GBP42.9 million, up from only GBP1.2 million - of which GBP40.6 million was from Global Re. The company said that the retroactive reinsurance of Schools Association for Excess Risk also helped profit, which was further boosted by "substantially increased investment earnings" on its insurance float. Investment income rose to GBP16.0 million, many times the GBP2.6 million figure the year before. Gross premiums written increased 43% to GBP226.1 million from GBP157.6 million, although reinsurers' share of gross premiums rose to GBP138.3 million from GBP112.4 million so that premiums written, net of reinsurance, fell 22% to GBP87.8 million from GBP112.4 million. Earned premiums net of reinsurance fell 20% to GBP90.8 million from GBP113.5 million. Randall & Quilter proposed an interim distribution per share of 3.8p, up 5.6% from 3.6p.
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Kibo Energy, up 8.4%. The Africa-focused energy firm said the required statutory payments for its seven mining rights and the Mbeya coal to power project have been accepted by the Tanzanian Ministry of Minerals. Kibo Chief Executive Louis Coetzee said: "Today's announcement provides further confirmation that the Mbeya project is rapidly gaining momentum and we are looking forward to providing further updates in due course."
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OTHER MAIN MARKET AND AIM - LOSERS
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Motorpoint Group, down 15%. The company's co-founder and non-executive director, David Shelton, along with his associates have sold 11 million ordinary shares in the car supermarket through a placing, significantly higher than previously announced, bookrunner Numis Securities said. Shelton and his connected persons via Shoby Investments Partnership sold 11 million Motorpoint shares at 200 pence each, raising GBP22 million in total. London-listed shares in Motorpoint on Friday were trading at 205.00 pence each. Shelton and his associates, following completion of the 11 million stock sale, continue to hold 2.4 million shares in the company, around 3% of the issued share capital. Numis on Thursday said Shelton and his associates intended to sell at least 8 million shares in Motorpoint in connection with divorce proceedings. Motorpoint, separately, said on Friday that it has agreed to buy GBP5.2 million worth of placing shares from Shelton and his associates. The car dealer bought 2.6 million shares at the same placing price.
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ProPhotonix, down 37%. The LED systems developer reported a pretax loss of USD206,000, narrowed from USD507,000 the year before. This was mainly due to a reduction in total operating expenses by 26% to USD2.8 million. However, gross profit fell by 20% to USD2.7 million from USD3.4 million the prior year. The gross profit margin declined to 37.2% from 38.6%, caused by a shift in product mix and manufacturing overheads. In addition, revenue fell 19% to USD7.2 million from USD8.8 million the prior year, due to a decline in sales in Laser & Diode products, as well as the delay in a new product launch. Looking ahead, ProPhotonix expects revenue for the second half to be almost equal to that reported for the first half, and also expects its business to continue to be loss making.
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