Marks & Spencer Share News (MKS)

LONDON (Alliance News) - The following stocks are amongst the biggest risers and fallers within the main London indices midday Wednesday.
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FTSE 100 WINNERS
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Vodafone Group, up 3.4%. The mobile communications company shares are higher as merger and acquisition speculation supports telecommunication stocks. "Vodafone has been on our watch list for some time and with fellow UK companies Sky and BT already having found their complementary partners in Spain's Telefonica and the UK's EE, a vicious price war may soon see Vodafone's fast ageing business model causing it to lag the competition," said Augustin Eden, a research analyst at Accendo Markets. Vodafone is taking back Tuesday's losses which came after it reported revenue and earnings ahead of expectations, but investors focused on a 19% fall in adjusted operating profits excluding exceptional costs and a more cautious outlook than expected.

Marks & Spencer Group, up 1.4%. The clothing and food retailer's shares have risen to the highest level since December 2007 after the retailer posted profits that beat analysts' expectations as it discounted less and improved its product sourcing, and it further sweetened the news for shareholders by announcing a GBP150 million share buyback. Shore Capital upgraded the company to Buy from Hold.
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FTSE 100 LOSERS
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Burberry Group, down 4.7%. The fashion retailer lowered its profit guidance for its current financial year due to movements in foreign exchange rates and also cautioned that it is seeing "increased uncertainty" in some markets. If exchange rates remain where they are, it expects retail and wholesale profit in the current financial year to be around GBP10 million higher than at the prevalent exchange rates in its last year. That is GBP40 million lower than the guidance it gave in its trading update in April. It reported a pretax profit in the year ending March 31 of GBP445 million, up from GBP444 million the year before as revenue rose 8% to GBP2.5 billion.

Hargreaves Lansdown, down 3.3%. The retail fund supermarket's shares are down even though it reported an increase in assets under administration in the opening four months of 2015, bolstered by net inflows of GBP2.75 billion in a period including the crucial end of the tax year in the UK. It said assets under administration amounted to GBP55.3 billion at the end of April, an increase from the GBP49.1 billion recorded at the end of 2014.

Old Mutual, down 1.1%. JP Morgan downgraded the Anglo-South African financial services group to Neutral from Overweight.

SSE, down 0.8%. The energy company's shares are down even tough it reported annual results that were in line with analyst expectations as a drop in wholesale profits were offset by strong growth in retail profit. Its closely-watched pretax profit before exceptional items and remeasurements was GBP1.56 billion for the year ended March 31, up 0.9% from GBP1.55 billion a year earlier, as revenue rose to GBP31.65 billion from GBP30.58 billion. It's also going to close the coal-fired Ferrybridge plant in Yorkshire.
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FTSE 250 WINNERS
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Intermediate Capital Group, up 5.7%. The specialist asset manager said it is to return GBP300 million in capital to shareholders through a special dividend, as it reported higher assets under management and profit over its last financial year. It said it made a GBP178.5 million pretax profit in the year ended March 31, compared with GBP164.4 million in the prior year. Assets under management increased to EUR18.0 billion from EUR12.98 billion as fundraising inflows more than offset the outflows from realisations. The company raised its ordinary dividend for the year by 1.0 pence to 22.0p.

Aveva Group, up 5.1% at 2,019p. JP Morgan upgraded the engineering software company to Neutral from Underweight, while Credit Suise raised its price target to 2,200p from 1,800p, reiterating its Outperform stance.

Bank of Georgia Holdings, up 4.0%. The holding company for JSC Bank of Georgia reported higher first-quarter pretax profit, as higher revenue in its banking and healthcare operations more than offset lower contributions from insurance and real estate. It said it made a GEL73.2 million pretax profit in the three months ended March 31, compared with GEL63.9 million in the corresponding period of the prior year, even as impairment charges for loans to customers jumped to GEL38.9 million from GEL9.1 million.

Morgan Advanced Materials, up 1.4%. The carbon and ceramic products manufacturer affirmed its full-year expectations after saying trading in the first four months has been in line with its forecasts. The company said its like-for-like revenue in the four months to the end of April rose 1.9%, with its year-to-date book-to-bill ratio at the end of April at 1.07. Its outstanding order book was around 8% higher than at the same time a year earlier on a constant currency basis.

TalkTalk Telecom Group, up 1.3%. Citigroup upgraded the telecommunications company to Buy from Neutral.
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FTSE 250 LOSERS
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Allied Minds, down 6.2%. The science and technology development and commercialisation company's shares are down after Invesco Asset Management confirmed that it sold more Allied Minds shares than expected. Invesco said it intended to sell 13 million shares in Allied Minds, but eventually sold 16 million shares at 565 pence per share, raising GBP90.4 million.

Britvic, down 4.2%. The soft drinks company's shares are down even though its pretax profit rose in the first half of its financial year as a gross margin improvement offset a fall in revenue, and the group hiked its dividend on the back of a confident outlook for the full year. It said its pretax profit in the 28 weeks to April 12 was GBP51 million, up from GBP45.3 million in the 28 weeks to April 13, 2014. Revenue was down to GBP650.3 million from GBP670.7 million, but the group's earnings before interest, taxation and amortisation margin improved to 9.9% from 9.0% a year earlier to offset the revenue decline.

Great Portland Estates, down 3.6%. Shares in the real estate investment trust are down even tough it joined its peers in the UK commercial property sector in reporting higher returns and profits for its last financial year as the booming property market drove up the value of its portfolio and rental values. It reported EPRA net asset value per share of 709 pence at the end of March, up 24.6% from a year earlier, while EPRA pretax profit grew 17.4% to GBP45.1 million. The growth was driven by 18.0% growth in the value of its portfolio and rental value growth of 10.3%.

Cable & Wireless Communications, down 3.5%. The company reported higher operating profits and revenue for its last financial year, as it saw growth across its mobile, business and video businesses and continue to strip out costs, but said it has much more to do if it is going to realise the full potential of the business. The company reported earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation of USD585 million for the year to end-March, up from USD546 million a year earlier. However, its net profit declined to USD253 million from USD859 million as gains on disposals dropped by two thirds.

Tate & Lyle, down 3.2%. Exane BNP downgraded the sugar company to Underperform from Neutral, according to traders.

Elementis, down 2.8%. Credit Suisse initiated the specialty chemicals company with Underperform.

Zoopla Property Group, down 2.7%. Shares in the company are down even tough it reported higher profits for the first half of its financial year, as revenue was buoyed by higher revenue per agent and higher advertising revenue, and it said it had stemmed the loss in agents that had been caused by the opening of a new rival property portal. It reported a pretax profit of GBP18.4 million for the six months to end-March, up from GBP16.3 million a year earlier, as revenue rose to GBP42.0 million from GBP38.3 million.

Victrex, down 2.0%. Numis downgraded the polymers company to Hold from Add.
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AIM ALL-SHARE WINNERS
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Cyan Holdings, up 22%. The utility metering and lighting control software company said it has received a letter of intent from Egypt-based El Sewedy Electrometer Group to supply its CyLec smart metering product for a contract El Swedey has won in Western Africa. The letter of intent says El Sewedy intends to appoint Cyan to provide the smart metering products for up to 200,000 customers over three years, a deal worth up to USD3 million to Cyan.

Proxama, up 12%. The company, which provides banks and card issuers with contactless payment technology, is trading higher after winning a five-year deal to provide software services for the Navy Federal Credit Union's 4 million-strong debit card portfolio. The company also said its pretax loss widened in 2014 as revenue ticked lower and it invested in its technology. Proxama said its pretax loss widened to GBP5.9 million in 2014, from GBP5.4 million in 2013, as revenue fell to GBP650,978 from GBP813,380 and it ramped up technology investments.
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AIM ALL-SHARE LOSERS
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Praetorian Resources, off 33% at 3p. Shares in the company are down after it said it has completed a discounted share placing. Praetorian said it issued 90.2 million shares at 2.5 pence per share to raise GBP2.3 million to be used for working capital.

By Daniel Ruiz; danielruiz@alliancenews.com

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