Last checked at 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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RSA Insurance Group, up 1.4%, Persimmon, up 1.3%, Taylor Wimpey, up 1.3%, Direct Line Insurance Group, up 1.0%. Blue-chip insurance and housebuilding stocks were higher as fears eased that the UK will vote on Thursday to leave the European Union. A survey from Survation has put the Remain camp in the lead a day before Britain goes to the polls to vote on EU membership, albeit at a narrower margin. The survey found the Remain camp at 45% compared to 44% for Leave, with 11% still undecided. Survation also noted the IG EU Referendum Barometer, an indicator of what traders are predicting will happen in the referendum, shows a 75.5% chance of the UK voting to Remain, against a 24.5% chance of a vote to leave.
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FTSE 100 - LOSERS
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Associated British Foods, down 3.0%. Morgan Stanley downgraded the food, ingredients and retail group to Equal Weight from Overweight.
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FTSE 250 - WINNERS
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Circassia Pharmaceuticals, up 8.3% at 105.00 pence. The biopharmaceutical company's shares continued to recover some of their losses after plummeting 66% on Monday. They rose 6.7% on Tuesday. The company on Monday said a late stage study for its key cat allergy treatment failed to achieve its primary endpoint, as the treatment and a placebo used in the study proved equally effective. The stock set a new 52-week low of 87.0 pence on Monday.
Safestore Holdings, up 7.8%. The self-storage provider said it expects to complete the GBP44.4 million acquisition of Space Maker on July 29. Safestore announced the deal in March and said the acquisition is set to be immediately earnings accretive. It added the purchase will support its future dividend-paying capacity. Like Safestore, Space Maker also provides self-storage facilities.
Grainger, up 2.0%. The residential landlord was upgraded to Overweight from Neutral by JPMorgan.
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FTSE 250 - LOSERS
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Elementis, down 6.7%. The specialty chemicals company said its earnings for 2016 are set to miss market expectations amid difficult conditions for its chromium division. The company, which manufactures additives used in industrial, personal care and oilfield drilling markets, said that while sales and margins in its North American chromium business are set to be broadly in line year-on-year, market conditions outside the North American market are proving challenging.
Debenhams, down 5.0%. The department store chain said its annual pretax profit is set to meet its guidance, though it slightly pulled back its margin forecasts as like-for-like sales declined in the 15 weeks to June 11. Debenhams said gross transaction values in the 15 weeks to June 11 grew 0.5% year-on-year, while like-for-like sales in the period declined 0.2%. Online sales grew 7.0% year-on-year. Group constant currency like-for-like sales were down 1.6%. Debenhams said the trading environment in the UK has been weaker since the turn of the year, particularly for clothing.
Synthomer, down 4.9%. The speciality chemicals company was cut to Sell from Neutral by UBS. The Swiss bank said it expects the stock to de-rate as the market prices in further medium- and long-term challenges. "We downgrade Synthomer to Sell from Neutral based on a challenging outlook that, in our view, does not support the 39% premium on 2017 enterprise value to earnings before interest tax interest depreciation and amortisation (versus peers) at which the stock currently trades."
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MAIN MARKET AND AIM - WINNERS
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Mirada, up 15%. The digital television operators software provider said it has launched the full commercial roll-out of its Iris Multiscreen Solution software for one of the largest telecommunications firms in Mexico, izzi Telecom. Mirada said the commercial deployment of the software is the company's "largest deployment to date" and will be accompanied by an extensive marketing campaign by izzi Telecom. The platform will now be made available across all of izzi's five cable networks throughout the Mexican territory, building on the first roll-out in February across izzi's Cablevision Monterrey network. The full commercial roll-out will be the first time izzi will offer a unified offering across all of its networks, having previously run them all separately, Mirada said.
Cap-XX, up 8.2%. The supercapacitors manufacturer said it has secured new orders for its supercapacitors from passenger and heavy vehicle manufacturers. Three new orders have been received in total, the company said, covering evaluation units for large supercapacitor systems. The customers include a North American vehicle maker, an Asian tier-1 original equipment manufacturer and an Asian distributor, none of which were named. CAP-XX added it was holding advanced talks with additional North American and Asian companies on the supply of further supercapacitor evaluation units.
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MAIN MARKET AND AIM - LOSERS
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Lansdowne Oil & Gas, down 41% at 1.26 pence. The oil and gas company's shares were restored to trading. Last Friday, Lansdowne Oil said it conducted a severely discounted placing in order to keep the company going until next year after terminating a formal sales process because it received no formal proposals. The proceeds from the placing will keep the company funded until the middle of next year, and the placing was announced in tandem with the company's full-year results covering 2015 - which saw the company book a substantially wider pretax loss of GBP15.1 million. The placing raised a total of GBP2.1 million through the issue of 210.0 million new shares priced at 1.0 pence each. Lansdowne had a cash balance of just GBP320,000 at the end of 2015.
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By Arvind Bhunjun; arvindbhunjun@alliancenews.com; @ArvindBhunjun
Copyright 2016 Alliance News Limited. All Rights Reserved.
IN BRIEF: Lansdowne Oil & Gas shares up on ECT claim update
Lansdowne Oil & Gas - Exploration company with licences in the Irish offshore shelf areas - Says that shareholder will receive an economic benefit relating to their shareholder if the company is successful in its ongoing claim against the Irish government, following its refusal to grant the company a lease undertaking for the Barryoe gas field. In May, the company was informed by the Irish environmental department that the Barryroe lease undertaking would not be granted, after the company had invested USD20 million in the project. Lansdowne is pursuing a claim against the country through the Energy Charter Treaty, an international agreement permitting companies to sue national governments. Lansdowne says that the benefit will be taken from the net proceeds of the ECT claim, after legal and ancillary cost deductions, but notes that there is no guarantee of success.
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