Lpa Share News (LPA)

LONDON (Alliance News) - The following stocks are amongst the biggest risers and fallers within the main London indices midday Thursday.
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FTSE 100 WINNERS
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Royal Mail, up 3.7%. The mail and parcels delivery company said it is confident it will meet its own full-year expectations, after reporting that group revenue was up just 1% in the nine months to December 28, whilst revenue was flat in both its parcels and letters businesses. The slight overall revenue growth marks a deterioration from the position half way through the mail operator's financial year, when revenue growth had stood at 2%, although parcel revenue improved and analysts said the figures met market hopes.

RSA Insurance Group, up 2.9%. Credit Suisse has raised the insurer to Outperform from Neutral.

Smiths Group, up 2.6%. The engineering company is paying US telecoms group AT&T Inc USD100 million to expand its global communication services infrastructure for the next six years.

Tullow Oil, up 1.8%. The oil and gas company announced a set of mixed results for its Kenyan prospects, with one well plugged and abandoned but seismic surveys showing improved prospects elsewhere. It said the Epir-1 exploration well, located at Block 10BB in the North Kerio Basin, did not show an oil discovery, but had oil and wet gas shows over a 100 metre interval of non-reservoir quality rocks. The Ngamia-5 and Ngamia6 appraisal wells have both been completed and have been suspended, but will remain available for use in an extended well test the company intends to start in the second quarter of 2015.
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FTSE 100 LOSERS
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SSE, down 1.9%, and Compass Group, down 1.3%. The companies are trading lower after going ex-dividend, meaning new buyers no longer qualify for the latest dividend payouts.

Fresnillo, down 1.5%, and Randgold Resources, down 0.6%. The gold miners are trading lower as the price of gold has fallen from its recent highs. The yellow metal fell to a low of USD1,283 an ounce Thursday.

Imperial Tobacco Group, down 1.3%, British American Tobacco, down 0.2%. UK Public Health Minister Jane Ellison said on Wednesday the government plans to vote on the introduction of standardised packaging for tobacco products before the General Election in May, with plans to implement the rules by May 2016. Speaking in Commons, Ellison said the legislation would be put to a vote before the end of this parliament in April.
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FTSE 250 WINNERS
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CLS Holdings, up 8.5%. The London-focused commercial property company said it expects its financial results for the year to December 31 to be materially ahead of current market expectations on the back of a significant rise in the value of its London property portfolio.

Playtech, up 5.8%. The gaming software company said it expects revenue and adjusted earnings before income, taxation, depreciation and amortisation to be "comfortably" in line with market estimates.
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FTSE 250 LOSERS
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Oxford Instruments, down 29%. The technology tools and systems provider issued a profit warning as its orders were hit by Russian sanctions, it saw weaker trading in its Industrial Analysis business, and the recovery it had forecast for the Japanese market failed to occur. The company now expects to post a pretax profit adjusted for acquisition and related costs of around GBP35 million for the year to end-March, compared to an adjusted pretax profit of GBP47.1 million a year before.

Card Factory, down 4.0%. The cards and gifts retailer is trading lower after its like-for-like sales rose 1.8% in the 11 months to the end of December, after a 3.1% increase in like-for-like sales last year. The company also said it is trading in line with its expectations for the year on the back of a rise in revenue in the first eleven months.

Countrywide, down 2.6%. The estate agency said it expects to deliver record results for the year, though it reported a deterioration in market conditions over the course of 2014. For the year, the company expects total house exchanges to rise 11% and residential lettings properties under management to rise 25%. But the slowdown seen in the fourth quarter was evident in its exchanges for its London & Premier arm, which rose only 1% for the year after falling 14% in the fourth quarter, while fourth quarter total exchanges fell 2%.

Thomas Cook Group, down 1.5%. Exane BNP Paribas has cut the UK travel operator to Underperform from Neutral.
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AIM ALL-SHARE WINNERS
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Cyan Holdings, up 25%. The provider of wireless technology for utility meters and lighting control said it had won an order worth about GBP1 million for a smart metering project in southwest India, which it believes is the first commercial implementation of smart metering by an Indian public utility.

ImmuPharma, up 19%. The company said it has entered an agreement with Simbec-Orion Group Ltd to begin a phase III study of ImmuPharma's Lupuzor treatment for lupus and will get an investment from the company. Simbec-Orion has agreed it will reinvest a significant proportion of its fees into new ImmuPharma shares at a price of 150 pence per share, a 206% premium on the company's closing mid-market price Wednesday. Shares in ImmuPharma are currently trading at 58.40 pence.

32Red, up 15%. The remote gaming operator said net gaming revenue rose by more than a quarter in 2014, marking a fifth consecutive year of double-digit growth, and said revenue growth had accelerated in the first few weeks of 2015.

Evocutis, up 9.7%. The natural resources investor said there is "significant near and long term potential" to expand mining operations following the completion of a NI 43-101 technical report compiled by Micon International Co Ltd and an operations update for the Bodó Tungsten Mine in Brazil.

Stellar Diamonds, up 8.2%. The company said it has raised GBP1 million in a share issue to back its Baoulé kimberlite project.
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AIM ALL-SHARE LOSERS
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TXO, off 17%. The energy and clean technology investment company suffered a further hit to its share price after its nominated adviser and broker Northland Capital Partners resigned. Northland's resignation will be effective from February 20. TXO said its shares will be suspended from trade on February 23 if a replacement adviser has not been appointed by that time.

LPA Group, down 15%. The maker of LED lighting and electronic systems warned that its current financial year had got off to "an extremely slow start", meaning it's going to be playing catch-up for the rest of the year, although it added that its medium-term prospects remain bright. It said it had been caught in a trough between the completion of several major road projects and the start of several new ones, and was also still suffering from a hiatus in UK rail franchise awards.

Monitise, down 12%. The company put itself up for sale as the payments company warned that it no longer expects to report double-digit revenue growth for the 2015 financial year, while its EBITDA loss is also likely to widen from that reported in the prior year. Monitise, which had previously guided revenue to grow by at least 25%, now expects full-year revenue to be between GBP90 million and GBP100 million, compared with GBP95.1 million in its last financial year, as it reported a fall in first-half revenue to GBP42.4 million from GBP46.5 million.
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By Neil Thakrar; neilthakrar@alliancenews.com; @NeilThakrar1

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