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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Burberry Group, up 4.7%. The fashion house has sought help from its financial advisers to defend itself against a possible takeover bid after a mystery investor built up a 5.0% stake in the company, the Financial Times reported. A person close to the company said Burberry had unsuccessfully attempted to obtain the identity of the investor from HSBC, which is listed as the custodian for the stake.
Supermarkets Tesco, up 1.9%, J Sainsbury, down 0.5% The latest Kantar Worldpanel grocery sales data showed total UK grocery sales for the 12 weeks to February 28 fell 2.0% year-on-year, Kantar said, but Sainsbury's saw its sales rise 0.5% in the period. Sainsbury's market share also held firm at 16.8%, flat from a year earlier. It marks the seventh consecutive period of sales growth for the company. Tesco sales fell 0.8% and its market share dipped to 28.4% from 28.7%. "Tesco shares are higher after the latest Kantar report showed that its decline in sales was starting to slow," commented CMC Markets chief market analyst Michael Hewson.
Admiral Group, up 0.5%. Nomura upgraded its rating on the insurer to buy from Neutral.
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FTSE 100 - LOSERS
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Worldpay Group, down 7.8%. The payments processing company said it swung to a pretax profit in 2015, reporting its maiden set of results since becoming a publicly listed company. Pretax profit amounted to GBP19.1 million in 2015, versus a pretax loss of GBP47.1 million in 2014, the company said. Worldpay processed 13.1 billion transactions in 2015, up 14% on the number processed in 2014, driving net revenue up by about the same percentage to GBP981.7 million. Worldpay declared no dividend for 2015, in line with its guidance at the time of its IPO.
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FTSE 250 - WINNERS
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CLS Holdings, up 3.2%. The property investor's pretax profit fell in 2015, with the gain in the valuation of its property portfolio half what it was in 2014. CLS reported pretax profit of GBP151.2 million for 2015, down from GBP236.8 million the previous year, as it registered a GBP98.0 million gain in the valuation of its property portfolio, compared to a GBP186.0 million gain in 2014. However, CLS is proposing a tender offer buyback of 1 in 57 shares at 1,810 pence per share in April, with a plan to distribute GBP13.4 million to its shareholders, equivalent to 31.8 pence per share. This would bring total shareholder distributions for 2014 to GBP19.1 million, up 20% year-on-year. CLS said, effective Tuesday.
John Laing Group, up 2.6%. The infrastructure investor said its pretax profit fell in 2015 due to a lower fair value movement in its investment portfolio. Pro forma pretax profit 2015 was GBP106.6 million, compared to GBP120.4 million in 2014. John Laing saw a rise in the value of its portfolio in 2015, to GBP841.4 million from GBP772.0 million. The group made investment commitments of GBP180.5 million in the year and realised GBP86.3 million from the sale of investments. "Our market is also affected by external factors such as government policies, interest rates, exchange rates and, for our renewable energy assets, energy prices. But John Laing is well positioned to mitigate the consequences while capturing opportunities and creating shareholder value," said Chief Executive Olivier Brousse.
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FTSE 250 - LOSERS
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Close Brothers Group, down 8.7%. The banking, securities and asset management group lifted its interim dividend, reported an increase in first-half profit, and said it expects a "satisfactory performance" for its current financial year as a whole. Pretax profit rose to GBP108.7 million in the six months ended January 31, Close Brothers said in a statement, up from GBP106.2 million the corresponding half the prior year. The financial company lifted its interim dividend to 19.0 pence from 18.0p. However, Numis cut its rating on the stock to Add from Buy, saying Close Brothers' results fell shy of its estimates, and Panmure Gordon cut its rating to Hold From Buy.
Millennium & Copthorne, down 3.6%. Berenberg downgraded the hotel operator to Sell from Hold.
Capital & Counties, down 2.9%. Exane BNP cut the property company to Underperform from Neutral.
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MAIN MARKET AND AIM - WINNERS
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RapidCloud International, up 16%. The software provider said it has signed a strategic partnership for the South East Asian market with Alibaba.com Singapore E-commerce, a unit of Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group. Under the partnership, RapidCloud, a cloud computing infrastructure provider, will be able to offer public cloud infrastructure, consulting, managed services, training and support from AliCloud, Alibaba's cloud computing division.
Sierra Rutile, up 9.3%. The miner said it has extended the maturity dates on two lending facilities from South Africa's Nedbank. Sierra Rutile said its existing USD20.0 million working capital facility and its USD15.0 million standby loan facility have been extended another 14 months and now will expire at the end of May 2017. The working capital facility continues to carry an interest rate of Libor plus 5%, while the standby facility carries a rate of Libor plus 2%, also the same as previously.
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MAIN MARKET AND AIM - LOSERS
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Brammer, down 11%. The industrial maintenance and repair services company said pretax profit for the year to the end of December fell to GBP13.5 million from GBP17.7 million a year earlier, down 24%, as sales fell 0.9% to GBP717.3 million from GBP723.6 million. Margins dipped in the year, with its gross margin at 30.9% from 31.7% in 2014, due to a restructuring programme put in place to improve its operational efficiencies, some benefits of which were seen in the second half, the company said. Brammer said it continued to perform well in continental Europe in the year, but this was not enough to offset a disappointing period in the UK and Nordic regions. 2016 has started similarly, Brammer Chief Executive Ian Fraser said, and he expects to see a turnaround emerge this year.
St Ives, down 7.1%. The marketing services provider said pretax loss narrowed in the first half of its financial year, and it affirmed its full-year expectations, although it cautioned on the outlook for marketing budgets in the second half. St Ives said its pretax loss for the 26 weeks to January 29 was GBP2.8 million, compared to a GBP8.7 million loss a year before, as it continued to restructure its business to better position it for growth, including repositioning its Strategic Marketing division. Stripping out one-off costs, pretax profit rose to GBP16.1 million from GBP15.4 million. CEO Matt Armitage said group remains confident on meeting expectations and that the Strategic Marketing arm is focused on service areas which will remain robust, even if the current global economic uncertainty does exert pressure on the allocation of marketing budgets.
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By Arvind Bhunjun; arvindbhunjun@alliancenews.com; @ArvindBhunjun
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