Legal & General Share News (LGEN)

(Alliance News) - The following stocks are the leading risers and fallers within the main London indices on Wednesday.----------FTSE 100 - WINNERS----------Rolls-Royce Holdings, up 2.2%. Sky News reported the jet engine maker is in advanced talks to sell the majority of its International Instrumentation & Control unit. According to Sky, a French-led consortium, Framatome, is willing to pay about GBP100 million for a portion of the civil nuclear business. Framatome, a nuclear reactor firm, is majority-owned by EDF Energy, and part-owned by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and Assystem. Citing City sources, Sky said the deal is likely to be announced in the coming weeks.----------FTSE 100 - LOSERS----------Legal & General, down 0.3%. HSBC downgraded the insurer to Hold from Buy. ----------FTSE 250 - WINNERS----------Victrex, up 4.2%. Barclays raised the speciality chemicals company to Equal Weight from Underweight. ----------Tullow Oil, up 3.5%. Peel Hunt started coverage on the oil and gas company with a Buy rating. ----------Capita, up 3.0%. Goldman Sachs raised the outsourcer to Buy from Neutral. ----------FTSE 250 - LOSERS----------OneSavings Bank, down 5.5%. The challenger bank reported a slight drop in interim profit ahead of its planned merger with lender Charter Court Financial Services. OneSavings's pretax profit fell slightly to GBP91.0 million from GBP91.8 million the year before. The lender booked a GBP5.9 million charge in the half for expenses related to its merger with Charter Court. OneSavings's administrative expenses increased 14% to GBP40.9 million from GBP35.9 million. As a result, the lender's cost-to-income ratio edged slightly higher to 28% from 27%. Net interest income increased 12% to GBP151.0 million from GBP135.2 million. OneSavings's net interest margin ended the half at 2.78%, down from 3.01% the year before. OneSavings and Charter Court agreed an all-share merger in March. The deal has been approved by both sets of shareholders and the UK competition watchdog but it still requires approval from the UK Financial Conduct Authority and the UK Prudential Regulation Authority. ----------Charter Court Financial Services, down 5.0%. The specialist lender saw its loan book end the half at GBP7.0 billion, 23% higher year on year from GBP5.7 billion and 4.5% higher from GBP6.7 billion at the end of 2018. Mortgage originations in the first half were 7.1% higher year on year to GBP1.5 billion from GBP1.4 billion. Charter Court's core buy-to-let lending increased 4.4% over the first six months of the year to GBP4.7 billion Similar to OneSavings, Charter Court's pretax profit slipped in the first half, declining 11% to GBP82.6 million from GBP93.1 million the year before. The decline included a GBP3.8 million charge from the proposed merger. Lower gains on structured asset sales, net fair value movements on derivatives and increased administrative expenses were also blamed for the decrease in profit.----------OTHER MAIN MARKET AND AIM - WINNERS----------Costain Group, up 11%. The infrastructure construction and engineering firm reported a significant decrease in earnings in the first half of 2019 due to contract delays, but said it is on track to deliver growth in 2020. Costain said revenue declined 22% in the six months to the end of June to GBP594.1 million from the GBP758.7 million reported a year earlier, resulting in a reduction in pretax profit to GBP8.4 million from a restated GBP19.9 million. In late June, Costain warned underlying operating profit for all of 2019 is expected to be in the range of GBP38.0 million to GBP42.0 million. In 2018, underlying operating profit was GBP52.5 million, so it will be down by as much as 28% in 2019. ----------Bahamas Petroleum, up 35%. The oil and gas company said it is on track to drill its initial exploration well in the first half of 2020 at a much lower estimated cost than expected. The company is now expecting the initial exploration well - set to be drilled offshore in the Bahamas - to cost between USD25 million and USD30 million, and less than USD50 million in total if the company embarks on a concurrent two-well campaign. This is far below the previous estimate of between USD60 million and USD80 million for just one well. Moreover, the company has secured conditional agreement from Bizzell Capital Partners for a GBP10.3 million convertible loan investment - covering around half the cost of a single well. As consideration for entering the agreement, Bahamas Petroleum has agreed to issue 25.0 million share options to Bizzell with a 2 pence per share exercise price. The loan would be for three years and have a coupon of 12% per annum.----------OTHER MAIN MARKET AND AIM - LOSERS----------Brady, down 36%. The risk management software firm said it expects an 18% reduction in revenue in 2019 as its pipeline of new work is not set to materialise. The AIM-listed company has had "positive" engagements with existing customers over the six months to the end of June, and the recurring revenue is in line with expectations. However, the AIM-listed company noted the pipeline of revenue from new customers forecast will not materialise during 2019, although new business bookings are anticipated in the second half. Brady said full year revenue will be GBP19 million, and this will have a consequent impact on earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization performance. In 2018, Brady delivered revenue of GBP23.2 million and Ebitda before exceptional costs of GBP2.6 million.----------