Millennium & Copthorne Hotels Share News (MLC)

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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Coca-Cola HBC, up 2.8%. The soft drinks bottler beat market expectations, reporting growth in profit in 2015 as volumes increased in all of the markets in which it operates, but revenue continued to be hit by unfavourable movements in foreign exchange rates, as anticipated. The company made a pretax profit of EUR357.1 million in 2015, up from EUR352.0 million in 2014, despite net sales revenue slipping to EUR6.35 billion from EUR6.51 billion. Coca-Cola HBC said volume grew 2.6% in the full year, following a 2.8% decline the prior year, as strong underlying trends continued into the fourth quarter, particularly in the sparkling, water and juice categories.

ITV, up 1.6%. The broadcaster said it has secured Irish ministerial approval for the acquisition of the television assets of UTV Media. ITV is acquiring the assets for GBP100.0 million in cash via a deal struck in October. The deal has now been approved by Irish Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources and the pair expect the deal to complete by the end of February. UTV was down 1.7%.

Standard Life, up 1.3%. The investment manager reported higher operating profit before tax in 2015, as stronger fee-based revenue more than offset a fall in spread/risk margin business. The Edinburgh-based firm, which provides pensions, savings, insurance and investments products, said operating profit before tax from continuing operations amounted to GBP665 million in 2015, up from GBP608 million in 2014, and ahead of analyst forecasts of GBP616 million. Standard Life lifted its dividend for the year to 18.36 pence per share from 17.03p. Analysts had forecast an annual dividend of 18.32p.
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FTSE 250 - WINNERS
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Essentra, up 11%. The plastic and fibre products company saw its pretax profit drop due to one-off costs, but its revenue rose and it hiked its dividend as its non-oil and gas-exposed business performed well, sending its shares higher as it outlined a positive outlook for 2016. The company said its pretax profit for the year to the end of December fell to GBP90.4 million from GBP99.7 million, primarily due to one-off write-offs which hit its operating margin. These mostly related to the acquisition of Clondalkin Specialist Packaging and subsequent site rationalisation measures. Essentra will pay a final dividend of 14.4 pence per share, up from 12.6p a year earlier, pushing its total dividend for the year to 20.7p, up 13%.

CLS Holdings, up 2.1%. The property investor said it has struck a deal to sell a mixed-use property in Sweden for SEK590.0 million, or around GBP48.8 million. CLS sold the Vänerparken property in Vänersborg to Bengt Linden AB, a privately-owned real estate company. The 418,813 square foot mixed-use scheme includes office assets, plus education, leisure and healthcare facilities. Excluding costs, the sale price represents an 11% rise on the valuation of the property at the end of June
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FTSE 250 - LOSERS
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Indivior, down 8.4%. The pharmaceuticals stock was giving back some of the gains made on Thursday, when it closed up 16% after the company reported 2016 results.

Millennium & Copthorne Hotels, down 3.2%. The hotel operator slashed its dividend for 2015 after suffering a drop in profit, despite revenue benefiting from favourable movements in foreign exchange rates. The group reported a 42% drop in pretax profit to GBP109 million in 2015 from GBP188 million in 2014, despite revenue growing 2.5% to GBP847 million from GBP826 million, leading it to slash its total dividend to 6.42 pence from 13.59p. Millennium & Copthorne said the fall in profit was because of a GBP43 million net charge as a GBP33 million net revaluation gain on investment properties failed to fully offset a GBP76 million impairment loss. The company had warned last Friday it would be making the charge.
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MAIN MARKET AND AIM - WINNERS
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Milestone Group, up 122%. The digital media and technology company said its Nexstar joint venture with Black Cactus Holdings has launched a new music streaming platform called MusicRoo. The platform has been developed by Black Cactus and will gather music content from a number of suppliers, while allowing users to buy music from its library. The library will be provided under licence from other streaming services, including Deezer and Spotify, and will include more than 35.0 million licensed tracks.

DDD Group, up 22%. The imaging and 3D technology company said its commercialising subsidiary GenMe has signed a software distribution agreement to provide TriDef SmartCam software to multimedia specialist AVerMedia Technologies. DDD Group said AVerMedia will be using the software for its LGX Live Gamer Extreme game capture and streaming box, which allows the recording of gameplay from PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Xbox 360 and Wii U consoles.

Cluff Natural Resources, up 15%. The natural resources investing company said it signed a two-year agreement extension with a unit of US oil services group Halliburton Co. Cluff has signed a further two-year memorandum of understanding with Halliburton Manufacturing & Services Ltd to work on developing Cluff's North Sea gas and underground coal gasification assets. No financial details on the extension were disclosed.
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MAIN MARKET AND AIM - LOSERS
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APC Technology Group, down 16% at 6.80p. The said it has raised GBP1.3 million by selling new shares, in a move to "take advantage of additional procurement opportunities" to reduce costs and increase margins. APC, which distributes electronic components and provides energy efficiency products, said it is placing just shy of 18.0 million shares, and selling another 3.0 million shares through a subscription to raise the funds. The shares will be sold at 6.0 pence per share, a 26% discount to their closing mid-market price of 8.125 pence on Thursday.
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By Arvind Bhunjun; arvindbhunjun@alliancenews.com; @ArvindBhunjun

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