Legal & General Share News (LGEN)

LONDON (Alliance News) - The following stocks are the leading risers and fallers within the main London indices on Wednesday.
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FTSE 100 - WINNERS
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Rio Tinto, up 2.9%, BHP Billiton, up 2.8%, Glencore, up 1.9%. Broker Liberum upgraded all three of the miners to Hold from Sell, saying it thinks the recent drops in their share prices leave the risk-reward ratio fairly poised.

London Stock Exchange Group, up 1.9%. The exchange operator said it made a GBP239.4 million operating profit in the six months ended June 30, compared with GBP205.7 million in the corresponding half of 2014. Revenue was driven higher by the USD2.7 billion acquisition of Frank Russell Co, which was completed in December. The group also increased its interim dividend by 11% to 10.8 pence, and said it wants to provide an update on capital allocation, including its longer-term dividend policy, in March 2016.

Legal & General Group, up 1.5%. The insurance and investments company said its first half operating profit rose by 18%, driven by growth in four of its six divisions. L&G increased its interim dividend by 19% to 3.45 pence per share from 2.90p, as operating profit increased by 18% to GBP750 million in the six months to the end of June, ahead of the 3.36p interim dividend and GBP692 million operating profit analyst forecast provided by the company.
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FTSE 100 - LOSERS
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Travis Perkins, down 2.6%. Citigroup cut its recommendation on the builders' merchant to Neutral from Buy. That overshadowed price target hikes on the stock from both Barclays and Numis.

Rolls-Royce Holdings, down 2.1%, Smiths Group, down 1.3%. The engineers saw their shares give back some of the gains made on Monday and Tuesday when both were boosted by news that US activist hedge fund ValueAct had built up stakes in the two companies.
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FTSE 250 - WINNERS
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IP Group, up 1.7%. The intellectual property commercialisation company said it is seeing opportunities to increase the deployment of capital within its existing portfolio of companies, and that it has a "healthy pipeline" of new and potential business opportunities. IP said the value of its portfolio amounted to GBP478.2 million at the end of June, up from GBP349.9 million six months earlier and from GBP319.6 million at the same stage last year.

Electra Private Equity, up 1.5%. The private equity investor said it has agreed to sell its ventilation systems manufacturer Nuaire to Polypipe Group, which manufactures plastic piping systems, in a deal valued at about GBP145 million in cash. Electra said it would receive about GBP72 million on completing the deal, an uplift of GBP24 million on the value it gave to Wales-based Nuaire at the end of March. Polypipe shares were up 7.4% on the deal.
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FTSE 250 - LOSERS
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Spirax-Sarco Engineering, down 7.5%. The company, which makes steam management systems and peristaltic pumps, said a slowdown in global industrial production, together with negative currency movements, dragged down its pretax profit and revenue in the first half. Spirax also incurred costs associated with the start-up of its business in India and with the restructuring of its UK operations. It said pretax profit in the first half was down by 10% to GBP57.3 million from GBP63.5 million a year earlier.

Rotork, down 3.9%. Credit Suisse and JPMorgan both cut their price targets on the actuators and flow control products manufacturer. On Tuesday, Rotork said its pretax profit and revenue both declined in the first half as the group continues to suffer the effects of the downturn in the oil and gas industry.

BBA Aviation, down 2.4%. The aviation services company said its pretax profit fell in the first half due to weakness in the European business and general aviation and commercial aircraft markets, which also caused revenue to fall, though it still raised its dividend slightly. BBA said its pretax profit for the six months to the end of June was USD61.7 million, down from USD92.0 million a year before, as revenue fell to USD1.10 billion from USD1.15 billion due to lower fuel prices and the effect of the stronger dollar.
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AIM ALL-SHARE - WINNERS
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Stratex International, up 15%. The miner said cold commissioning at the Altintepe gold mine in Turkey will start in the middle of this month. Stratex said construction is on track to complete this month, with cold commissioning to follow ahead of hot commissioning and, ultimately, full production. Stratex owns a 45% stake in the project, with the rest owned by joint venture partner Bahar Madencilik.

Coal of Africa, up 10%. The company said it has secured two tranches of new funding, split between a GBP9.4 million subscription and a USD10 million loan. The funding will be used to finance the pre-construction costs of the Makhado coking and thermal coal project in South Africa. The financing has been agreed with Yishun Brightrise Investment PTE Ltd, a Singapore-based investment company which has interests in coal and nickel assets in China and Indonesia.
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AIM ALL-SHARE - LOSERS
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Galileo Resources, down 13%. The oil company said it has raised GBP375,000 via a discounted share placing. It has issued 31.3 million shares at 1.2 pence per share to raise the funding, which will be used for working capital purposes, including paying its annual licence fees on its properties in Nevada.
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By Sam Unsted; samunsted@alliancenews.com; @SamUAtAlliance

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