Macfarlane Grp. Share News (MACF)

LONDON (Alliance News) - The following stocks are the leading risers and fallers within the main London indices on Tuesday.
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FTSE 100 - WINNERS
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Smiths Group, up 11%. The engineer said it has a resilient first quarter as the diversity of its operations helped to offset some tough trading in the oil and gas markets, which dragged on revenue in its John Crane energy services business. The company, which has operations spanning energy services, medical devices and security sensors, said underlying, constant currency revenue declined 4.0% in the first quarter to the end of October, though its group operating margin was broadly flat year-on-year.
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FTSE 100 - LOSERS
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easyJet, down 2.9%. The budget carrier reported growth in profit in its recently-ended financial year as revenue rose and it carried more passengers than the prior year, while it said the long-term outlook for the business is positive. It said pretax profit in the year ended September 30 grew 18% to GBP686 million from GBP581 million the year before, as revenue rose 4% to GBP4.68 billion from GBP4.52 billion. Profit was in line with the company's guidance of between GBP675 million and GBP700 million, though short of consensus around GBP695 million. easyJet said passengers increased 6% in the year to 68.6 million, with a record load factor in August of 94.4%. Annual load factor increased by 0.9 percentage point to 91.5%. easyJet will pay a total dividend of 55.2 pence per share for the year, a 22% increase on the 45.4p it paid the prior year.
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FTSE 250 - WINNERS
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Kaz Minerals, up 11%. The miner said it has reached an agreement with its main construction contractor on the Atkogay project to defer payment of USD300.0 million. Under the revised terms of its agreement with Non Ferrous China, the USD300.0 million in construction costs that had been due to be paid in 2016 and 2017 will now be settled in 2018. There is no change to the overall budget of the project or the total amount payable to the contractor.

Bodycote, up 9.3%. The specialty chemicals company maintained its full-year profit guidance on Tuesday but said its markets remain challenging and are likely to stay that way in the near term. Bodycote said group revenue was down 9.7% in the four months to the end of October, with revenue from its aerospace, defence and energy business declining 11% and automotive and general industrial revenue down 8.8%. The group added its restructuring programme is on track and said it will accelerate its greenfield investment programme, which will drive up start-up costs for the company in 2016.

WS Atkins, up 7.4%. The engineering, design and project management consultancy said it has acquired the projects, products and technology arm of EnergySolutions, the nuclear engineering services company. Atkins said the deal values the business at USD318.0 million and will further the group's presence in the nuclear energy market. Atkins said the deal will provide it will immediate access to a series of Tier 1 contracts for the management and decommissioning of nuclear sites in North America and will give it a bigger footprint in Asia Pacific, a fast-growing decommissioning market.

Halma, up 7.0%. The safety, heath and environmental technology group said its pretax profit and revenue both edged higher in the first half as it posted sales growth across all sectors. The company, which makes hazard detection systems, medical devices and environmental monitoring units, said its pretax profit for the half to the end of September was GBP64.2 million, up from GBP61.2 million a year earlier. Revenue rose to GBP379.7 million, up from GBP340.9 million a year earlier, with robust revenue growth in all of its sectors.
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FTSE 250 - LOSERS
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B&M European Value Retail, down 3.5%. The discount retailer said it swung to a profit in the first half of its financial year while growth in revenue was boosted by new store openings. The company said it made a GBP66.7 million pretax profit in the 26 weeks ended September 26, having suffered a GBP16.5 million pretax loss in the same period the year before as it was hit by higher finance costs which did not repeat in the current year. Revenue rose by more than a quarter to GBP930.3 million from GBP739.8 million. B&M will pay an interim dividend of 1.6 pence per share, a 78% increase on the 0.9p it paid the prior year.
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MAIN MARKET AND AIM - WINNERS
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Macfarlane Group, up 11%. The packaging and labels company said it maintained its trading momentum in the second half and is on track to meet its expectations for 2015. The group said its Packaging Distribution division sales increased 14% in the year to date, driven in part by acquisitions but also 6.0% organic, like-for-like growth. Operating profit from the division is set to rise significantly year-on-year. Macfarlane said its Manufacturing Operations sales were down 2.0% for the year to date, though sales have improved in the second half. Demand weakness in exports markets continued to drag on packaging design and manufacturing sales, it said, though margins in the business were helped by the group exiting its labels business.

Carclo, up 7.5%. The plastics company said trading has met its expectations in the first half and it expects a better second as total revenue for the group increased and it swung to a pretax profit. Carclo said its pretax profit for the half to the end of September was GBP4.1 million, compared to a GBP21.2 million loss it booked a year earlier when it booked GBP23.5 million in exceptional costs related to the exit from its CIT Technology business. Adjusted pretax profit, stripping out those one-off costs, rose to GBP4.1 million from GBP2.3 million. Revenue in the half rose to GBP57.2 million from GBP48.8 million, with higher sales in its technical plastics, LED technologies and precision engineering businesses.
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MAIN MARKET AND AIM - LOSERS
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CDialogues, down 54%. The mobile marketing company said its revenue in the third quarter was hit by weaker performances from certain projects, leaving it set to deliver full-year results below market expectations. The company said its revenue in the quarter to the end of September was weaker than in the first two quarters of 2015, while monthly revenue in October and November has been broadly flat on the lower September numbers. These trends are likely to continue until the end of 2015, the company said. In addition, delays in its new business pipeline have led to certain product launches due to take place in the fourth quarter being pushed to 2016, despite CDiaglogues already having booked costs related to some of these projects.

Havelock Europa, down 40%. The furniture and interior services company said it has been informed by its largest client in the financial services sector that it will be substantially cutting its refurbishment and development spend in 2016. Due to this anticipated sales reduction, the company expects revenue from this client to be "negligible" in 2016 and its revenue for next year will take a "material hit" from the changes. The group is now seeking to take mitigating actions to offset the problems and will be cutting costs, seeking to diversify its customer base and streamlining and simplifying its business model.
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By Sam Unsted; samunsted@alliancenews.com; @SamUAtAlliance

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