Marks & Spencer Share News (MKS)

LONDON (Alliance News) - The following stocks are the leading risers and fallers within the main London indices on Monday.----------FTSE 100 - WINNERS----------Centrica, up 1.7%. The British Gas parent company said it has traded in line so far in 2019, though the company has faced several headwinds. The UK tariff cap has led to a one-off GBP70 million impact. This has combined with warmer-than-normal weather and falling natural gas prices in the UK to hold back performance in the first four months of 2019. Centrica also said outages at the non-operating Dungeness B and Hunterston B nuclear power stations have continued. In response, Centrica has made "good" progress on cost controls and efficiency, and also completed the sale of the non-core Clockwork Home Services unit in North America, for USD300 million. Centrica is reiterating 2019 guidance, including for adjusted operating cash flow between GBP1.8 billion and GBP2.0 billion, and net debt of between GBP3.0 billion and GBP3.5 billion. "The company is no doubt working hard to steady its ship and the market certainly likes the sound of a rough plan to cut costs, improve customer service and maintain financial discipline," AJ Bell's Russ Mould said. ----------Royal Dutch Shell 'B', up 1.4%, Shell 'A', up 1.3%. The oil major was raised to Buy from Hold by HSBC. ----------Marks & Spencer, up 1.0%. Citigroup raised the food, clothing and homewares retailer to Buy from Neutral. ----------FTSE 100 - LOSERS----------Vodafone Group, down 3.7%. The telecommunications provider was down after a newspaper report asserting that the company will cut its dividend at its annual results on Tuesday. The Sunday Times over the weekend reported that Vodafone is set to slash its payout in order to invest in next-generation 5G mobile networks and to tackle its mounting debt pile. "Vodafone was the biggest faller on chatter that it would cut its dividend given hefty investment requirements for 5G," noted Russ Mould, investment director at AJ Bell.----------Evraz, down 2.2%. The Russian steelmaker was cut to Underweight from Equal Weight by Morgan Stanley. ----------FTSE 250 - LOSERS----------Intu Properties, down 5.0%. JPMorgan downgraded the shopping mall operator to Underweight from Neutral.----------Metro Bank, down 3.8%. The challenger bank confirmed that plans for its GBP350 million equity raise is "well advanced" and it has begun final discussions with potential investors. The lender said it has started its final talks with both existing shareholders and new investors and received positive feedback, with the GBP350 million equity raise to complete via placing by the end of the second quarter of 2019. Metro Bank said Monday it was responding to "recent press speculation". An article in the Financial Times on Friday last week said there had been some concern that the GBP350 million was not enough to support Metro Bank's capital position and it may be "forced to raise a larger amount".----------Rotork, down 3.5%. The valve actuators maker was downgraded to Underperform from Neutral by Credit Suisse. ----------OTHER MAIN MARKET AND AIM - WINNERS----------Wey Education, up 51%. The online education services provider reported strong growth in its two core offerings, helping the firm post a positive first-half performance. Wey's revenue for the six months to February was GBP2.7 million, with the gross profit margin improving to 56.4% from 51.9% year-on-year and 53.5% at the end of August. Wey's pretax loss did widen to GBP585,000 from GBP118,000, but excluding exceptional items, the adjusted pretax profit climbed to GBP124,000 from GBP23,000. During the period, Wey decided to focus on its online schooling business InterHigh and Academy21, which provides alternative education services for schools and colleges. Looking ahead, Wey sees "outstanding" opportunities for InterHigh, while Academy21's outlook is also bright. ----------Argo Blockchain, up 41%. The crypto-mining platform unveiled a new strategic partnership with HIVE Blockchain Technologies. The foundation of the partnership is a share swap arrangement whereby Argo will receive 16.3 million HIVE shares - 5% of HIVE's share capital - in exchange for 44.1 million Argo shares representing 15% of Argo's share capital. The deal values Argo's shares at 11.6 pence each and will involve no cash exchange. Under the strategic partnership, for which conditional heads of terms have been signed, Argo and Hive intend to create "the world's largest purpose-built business-to-business [bitcoin] mining service provider" which will target "large-scale enterprise and institutional customers". The partnership is the culmination of three months of discussions and will give cryptocurrency miners access to Argo's 10.5 megawatt and part of HIVE's 45 megawatt capacity. ----------CentralNic, up 14%. The internet domain name owner reported a doubling of annual revenue on Monday, though it did swing to a loss due to its KeyDrive acquisition. Revenue for 2018 doubled to GBP42.7 million, and CentralNic posted a GBP3.8 million pretax loss versus GBP1.4 million profit a year ago. The loss came from a sharp rise in administrative expenses as well as increased amortisation, non-core expenses, and finance costs. CentralNic said it was an "outstanding" year following the purchase of KeyDrive, which sells domain names, web hosting, and advertising tools. It was bought in a reverse takeover in August last year for GBP24 million. ----------OTHER MAIN MARKET AND AIM - LOSERS----------Sabien Technology Group, down 28% at 0.09p. The energy reduction technologies provider said it raised GBP300,000 in a heavily discounted share placing. Sabien's broker Peterhouse Capital issued 300 million shares at a price of 0.1 pence per share, a 26% discount to last Friday's closing price. Following admission, expected on Friday, the company will have 890.3 million shares in issue, with the placing size representing 34% of the enlarged share capital. The proceeds of the placing will be used to provide additional working capital for the company and in particular, to finance the delivery of the current sales order. Furthermore, the cash raised will also allow the board to continue to evaluate additional acquisition and investment opportunities to enhance the long-term value of the company for shareholders.----------