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LONDON (Alliance News) - The following stocks are the leading risers and fallers within the main London indices on Friday.
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FTSE 100 - WINNERS
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Banks - Barclays, up 4.5%, Royal Bank of Scotland Group, up 4.1% Standard Chartered, up 5.1%. Financial services stocks were up after European Central Bank President Mario Draghi on Thursday damped prospects for further interest rate cuts. Draghi said that while eurozon interest rates are likely to remain at their current low to negative levels for an extended period of time, he does not anticipate the need for further rate cuts. Negative interest rates hurt bank earnings.
Royal Dutch Shell 'B' shares, up 2.3%. Goldman Sachs promoted the oil major's B shares to its Conviction Buy List from Buy. Kepler Cheuvreux also started Shell at Buy.
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FTSE 100 - LOSERS
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Old Mutual, down 4.6%. The Anglo-South African financial services company, said there is "limited rationale" for its four main divisions to be part of the same group, confirming that it intends to separate them by the end of 2018 in a move to cut debt, costs and complexity. Bruce Hemphill, a former executive at African lender Standard Bank Group, said the review he began when he succeeded Julian Roberts as Old Mutual's chief executive in November 2015 showed that there is "very little commonality" between the businesses. The group's four divisions are comprised of its 54% stake in South African lender Nedbank, an emerging markets business also based in South Africa, a UK-focused wealth arm, and a US institutional asset manager. As Old Mutual manages their separation and sells assets, it will consider returning any excess capital generated to shareholders. "The strategic review, whilst positive, will take time to effect: capital won't be in investors' pockets for a while," commented Edward Houghton, an analyst at Sanford C Bernstein. Old Mutual shares had jumped 7% on Monday following a Sky News report of the break up plan but is now lower for the week as a whole.
Marks & Spencer Group, down 2.8%. The food and clothing retailer was downgraded to Underperform from Neutral by Merrill Lynch.
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FTSE 250 - WINNERS
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Marshalls, up 5.0%. The block paving manufacturer said pretax profit grew by more than half in 2015, after strong public sector and commercial market sales lifted revenue. The company posted a pretax profit of GBP35.3 million for 2015, up 57% from GBP22.4 million in 2014, as revenue rose 8.0% to GBP386.2 million from GBP358.5 million. Marshalls recommended a final dividend of 4.75 pence per share, which means its full-year dividend is 7.00p per share, up from 6.00p in 2014. Marshalls also proposed a supplementary dividend of 2.00p per share, in light of its strong cash flow, meaning shareholders will receive 9.00p in total for 2015. Marshalls said it has completed phase one of its strategy to return to pre-recession profitability and has now launched the next phase of its growth strategy which will take it to 2020.
Just Retirement Group, up 2.5%, and Partnership Assurance Group, up 5.6%. The annuities providers said they remain confident of achieving at least GBP40.0 million of cost savings through the GBP1.60 billion merger of the life insurers. The pair said they expect their merger to complete in April, with the aim of creating JRP Group, as they separately reported earnings. Just Retirement said it swung to a first-half pretax profit of GBP26.1 million in the six months ended December 31, from a GBP9.2 million pretax loss in the corresponding period of 2014. Partnership swung to a full-year pretax loss of GBP16.5 million in 2015, from a GBP24.1 million pretax profit in 2014, saying it was hit by one-off costs, particularly the new Solvency II rules for insurers across the EU, and lower sales volumes.
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FTSE 250 - LOSERS
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Computacenter, down 4.2%. The IT infrastructure services group said its pretax profit rose as a result of a one-off gain and lower restructuring costs in 2015, though revenue dipped amid continued challenges in France. The company said pretax profit jumped 66% to GBP126.8 million for the year to the end of December from GBP76.4 million in 2014. The increase was driven by a one-off gain made from the sale of Computacenter's RD Trading recycling subsidiary and from lower restructuring costs related to a redundancy programme in France. The group said it will pay a second interim dividend of 15.0 pence per share, taking its total payout to 21.4p for 2015 from 19.8p in 2014.
Restaurant Group, down 2.7%. Deutsche Bank downgraded the Chiquito and Garfunkel's owner to Hold from Buy. Restaurant Group's repositioning strategy will be dilutive in the medium-term and will result in no like-for-like sales growth for two years, the German bank said.
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MAIN MARKET AND AIM - WINNERS
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Nighthawk Energy, up 92%. The exploration and production company said its application for its planned Arikaree water flood enhanced oil recovery project has been approved by the Colorado Oil & Gas Conservation Commission. This approval is subject to the company obtaining 80% approval of non-working interest owners within the next six months. Nighthawk believes it will obtain its required approvals in the next few months.
InfraStrata, up 9.1%. The petroleum exploration and gas storage company said wellsite construction has commenced at its Woodburn Forest-1 well in Northern Ireland, as it prepares for drilling. InfraStrata said drilling of the well is expected to commence in May, adding the well will target three conventional sandstone reservoir intervals: the Triassic Sherwood, Permian Lower Permian Sandstone and Carboniferous Sandstones. It noted the Woodburn Forest site has estimated prospective resources of 25 million barrels of oil.
Imagination Technologies Group, up 11%. The chip-designer was upgraded by N+1 Singer to Buy from Hold. The broker said it is convinced of the quality of Imagination Technologies' intellectual property, which could attract potential bidders.
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MAIN MARKET AND AIM - LOSERS
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LightwaveRF, down 19%. The group said its pretax loss widened and revenue fell in the year to the end of September due to distribution issues towards the end of the period. LightwaveRF, which has developed an Internet of Things platform to let people control connected devices in the home, said its pretax loss widened to GBP420,000 in the year to September 30, from GBP300,000 a year earlier.
Cambian Group, down 14%. The healthcare group issued a profit warning for 2015 and said it has agreed a temporary waiver on financial covenants with its lenders. The company said it was now likely that, given an ongoing finalisation of costs and the completion of its audit for the year to the end of December, its results will be slightly weaker than previous guidance.
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By Arvind Bhunjun; arvindbhunjun@alliancenews.com; @ArvindBhunjun
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