Moneysupermarket.Com Share News (MONY)

LONDON (Alliance News) - The following stocks are the leading risers and fallers within the main London indices on Thursday.
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FTSE 100 - WINNERS
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Anglo American, up 3.7%. JPMorgan upgraded the miner to Overweight from Underweight and hiked its target price to 1,050 pence from 540p previously. Anglo shares were trading at 844.60p mid-morning.

Sage Group, up 2.7%. The accounting software group was initiated at Buy by Deutsche Bank. "Sage's revenue growth has accelerated as it migrates its large installed base from a traditional licensing model to subscriptions, reducing churn and increasing average customer run rate. We think this acceleration can continue and are satisfied that the risk of defection to competitors is mitigated by Sage's strong brand, service and local market expertise," the German bank said.
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FTSE 100 - LOSERS
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Fresnillo, down 1.2% and Randgold Resources, down 0.7%. The gold miners were tracking a lower spot gold price, quoted at USD1,325.81 an ounce, compared to USD1,340.50 at the London equities close Wednesday.
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FTSE 250 - WINNERS
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SuperGroup, up 14%. The Superdry brand owner reported a fall in profit in its recently-ended financial year due to it booking higher one-off costs than the prior year, but revenue rose and the clothing store chain announced payment of its first special dividend. The company said pretax profit in the year ended April 30 fell to GBP55.4 million from GBP59.5 million the year before, as it booked exceptional costs of GBP17 million. SuperGroup will pay a total dividend of 23.2 pence, plus a special dividend of 20p for the year.

MoneySupermarket.com Group, up 9.0%. The price comparison service said it expects revenue for the first half of 2016 to grow around 10% year-on-year following a good performance across its divisions. MoneySupermarket said its anticipates revenue for the six months to the end of June will grow to GBP158.0 million, up 10% year-on-year. Revenue grew the same 10% in the second quarter to GBP74.0 million. Adjusted operating profit, which strips out acquisition-related and one-off costs, is set to grow around 6.0% year-on-year in the half to GBP54.0 million, behind the revenue growth due to additional marketing spending.

Micro Focus International, up 8.8%. The software provider said its pretax profit more than doubled in its recently-ended financial year thanks to strong revenue growth, but said it expected either a slight drop or flat revenue in its next financial year as it looks to implement its four-phase plan. Micro Focus posted revenue of USD1.25 billion million for the year ended April 30, up from the USD83.5 million reported a year earlier, after a strong performance from its SUSE product portfolio, offsetting anticipated revenue reductions in its Micro Focus product portfolio. The growth meant its pretax profit more than doubled to USD195.4 million from USD91.4 million, an increase which was helped by lower operating costs as a result of integration benefits.

Hays, up 5.1%. The recruiter said strength in its Europe division helped total net fee income grow in the fourth quarter of its financial year and said its operating profit will outpace market expectations, despite a sluggish and Brexit-hit UK market. Hays said total net fees grew 12% in the quarter to the end of June, with like-for-like growth of 8.0%. The firm's Continental Europe & Rest of World division delivered total net fee income growth of 29% in the quarter. But total net fees in the UK & Ireland fell 3.0% in the quarter and by 4.0% on a like-for-like basis, reflecting continued softness in public sector recruitment and a weakening of sentiment in the private sector ahead of the EU referendum vote.
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FTSE 250 - LOSERS
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BTG, down 3.8%. The healthcare company said its overall performance and trading since April 1 has been in line with expectations. Guidance is for revenue of between GBP485 million and GBP515 million, research & development costs of between GBP85 million and GBP95 million, and selling, general & administrative expenses of between GBP160 million and GBP170 million. However, if sterling was to weaken even further against the dollar, revenue guidance would improve to between GBP510 million and GBP540 million, R&D investment would be between GBP90 million and GBP100 million, and SG&A expenditure would be between GBP165 million and GBP175 million. BTG said if this were to happen, the foreign exchange benefit would be mostly offset in the short term by foreign exchange losses on existing forward contracts to hedge future US dollar cash flows.
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MAIN MARKET AND AIM - WINNERS
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McColl's Retail Group, up 13%. The convenience store operator late Wednesday said it has signed a conditional agreement to purchase 298 convenience stores from the Co-Operative Group for a total of GBP117.0 million. McColl's already has 933 stores and the business believes it will benefit from higher sales and earnings, potential synergies using its existing operating model and increased exposure to the growth category of fresh and chilled food products. All 3,800 staff at the Co-Op stores will be transferred over to McColl's. "The board expects the acquisition to be significantly earnings enhancing in the first full year following completion of the acquisition," said the company.

Lavendon Group, up 5.6%. The equipment rental firm said trading in the first half of 2016 was in line with its expectations. Lavendon said total revenue in the first half to the end of June grew 11% year-on-year, with rental revenue rising 9.0%. UK rental revenue rose 7.0% and Middle East rental revenue was up 22%, driving the total higher as Continental Europe revenue increased 3.0%. The group said it increased investment in its UK fleet in the first half and while this will have a short-term impact on margins, it anticipates this will unwind over the course of the second half.

Goldplat, up 5.1%. The miner said it has signed a deal that could potentially lead to a Canadian-listed company joining the Anumso gold project in Ghana. The company has signed a non-binding letter of intent to provide an option to Gulf Shore Resources to join the project, with a formal deal expected to be signed within the next month. Goldplat owns a 90% stake in the project, which has a 10-year mining lease and a resource of 166,865 ounces of gold graded at 2.04 grammes per tonne of ore. Gulf Shore will have the option to 75% of the stake held by Goldplat, which would give the Toronto-listed company an overall stake of 67.5% in the project. In return, Gulf Shore will spend at least USD3.0 million over two-and-a-half years on the project.
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MAIN MARKET AND AIM - LOSERS
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Digital Globe Services, down 27%. The customer acquisition consulting company said it expects to post full year revenue ahead of market expectations, though noted it will incur a one-off expense of around USD4.0 million and pointed to a gross margin compression in its second half. The company said it expects to post revenue of USD48.0 million for its year ended June 30, up from the USD40.3 million reported a year earlier and "marginally ahead of market expectations". However, Digital Globe said its earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation is expected to be below market expectations at around USD3.1 million, due to a weaker gross margin and direct labour costs associated with its acquisition of an on-shore call centre to support new verticals that require on-shore fulfillment centres. The company said it expects gross margin to recover to historic levels as new business matures.

Nostra Terra Oil & Gas Co, down 23% at 1.83 pence. The oil and gas operator said it has raised funds to back a push to proactively seek out new acquisitions. which has assets in the US and Egypt, said it has issued 12.5 million shares at 2.00 pence each to raise GBP250,000. Nostra Terra raised GBP25,000 of the funds via the PrimaryBid online platform, which provides investors access to placings by AIM-listed companies. Nostra Terra said the funds will allow it to seek out more acquisitions as it awaits the proceeds from the sale of its Chisholm Trail interest in Oklahoma. Nostra Terra has sold its 20% interest in Chisholm Trail to Ward Petroleum Corp, a privately-held, Oklahoma-based oil and gas company, for USD2.1 million.

Gulf Keystone Petroleum, down 23% at 3.56p. The Iraqi oil producer said it has signed an agreement with the majority of its bond and loan note holders to address its hefty debt pile which will result in significant dilution to existing shareholders. Gulf Keystone said it has reached an agreement with the bond holders that hold two-thirds of the guaranteed loan notes and 50% of the convertible bonds, as well as the company's two largest shareholders, Capital Research and Management Co, as investment advisor to New World Fund and SMALLCAP World Fund. "The end result of this process is that the board has concluded that the only prospect for the company to continue trading and avoid a liquidation is to effect a substantial restructuring of the company's balance sheet and that the restructuring is in the best interest of the company and its stakeholders," said the company.
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By Arvind Bhunjun; arvindbhunjun@alliancenews.com; @ArvindBhunjun

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