LONDON (Alliance News) - The following stocks are the leading risers and fallers within the main London indices on Friday.----------
FTSE 100 - WINNERS----------
Whitbread, up 16%. The hospitality firm said it agreed the sale of its Costa Coffee business to US soft drinks giant Coca-Cola Co at an enterprise value of GBP3.90 billion. Whitbread, which also owns the Premier Inn hotel chain, is expecting net proceeds of GBP3.80 billion, and said most of this will be returned to shareholders. The sale, the company continued, will reduce debt and also allow for an increased pension contribution and further expansion of Premier Inn in both the UK and Germany. Whitbread believes a "substantial" premium would have been created by its planned demerger of Costa Coffee, which was announced in April this year. At the time the company had described itself as "committed" to demerging Costa after the coffee chain saw a decline in annual profit.----------
FTSE 100 - LOSERS----------
Sage Group, down 6.5%. The accounting software provider said Chief Executive Officer Stephen Kelly has stepped down from his role with immediate effect. He is to "remain available to the group" until May 31, 2019. Kelly has been chief executive of Sage for nearly four years since 2014. The FTSE 100 group has started the process to find a new chief executive. Chief Financial Officer Steve Hare has been given the additional post of chief operating officer on an interim basis, giving him full authority to run the business until a new chief executive is appointed. In addition, Sage said it has continued to trade in line with its full-year guidance of 7.0% organic revenue growth and a 27.5% organic operating margin. The group said achieving this guidance is dependent on the closing of several Enterprise Management opportunities in September.----------
Evraz, down 1.5%,
Glencore, down 1.2%,
BHP Billiton, down 0.9%. The commodity stocks were lower amid concerns that the US-Chinese trade dispute may intensify and over metal tariffs. US President Donald Trump said he could move ahead with a plan to impose tariffs on USD200 billion in Chinese imports as early as next week. In addition, Trump also threatened to pull out from the World Trade Organization and called European trade policies "almost as bad as China," raising fresh worries over trade friction.----------
FTSE 250 - WINNERS----------Hays, up 6.4%. Shares in the recruiter were rebounding after it expressed uncertainty for its UK market due to economic instability, despite reporting positive results for its recently ended financial year on Thursday. The stock closed down 4.7% on Thursday. ----------
FTSE 250 - LOSERS----------
Serco Group, down 3.1%. Exane BNP downgraded the outsourcer to Neutral from Outperform.----------
OTHER MAIN MARKET AND AIM - WINNERS----------
Midatech Pharma, up 31%. The rare disease-focused pharmaceutical company announced positive data from its proof of concept exploratory study for its key oncology drug candidate MTD201. MTD201 Q-Ocreotide is a sustained-release treatment for carcinoid cancer and acromegaly. In a a double-blind exploratory study, the tolerability, pharmacokinetics and growth hormone profiles after a 30 milligram injection in 24 healthy subjects were compared between MTD201 and Novartis AG's Sandostatin LAR. Results from the study indicated that MTD201 produces a safe sustained-release profile of octreotide with growth hormone levels suppressed by an average of 25%, comparable with Sandostatin. Midatech will now seek regulatory approval for MTD201 as an equivalent product of improved product to Sandostatin in preparation for a follow-on trial.----------
OTHER MAIN MARKET AND AIM - LOSERS----------
FFI Holdings, down 27%. The entertainment industry contract provider said profit halved as costs associated with its recently listing hurt despite revenue jumping on acquisitions. For the year ended March 31, pretax profit halved to USD5.3 million from USD10.3 million the year prior. This was despite revenue rising to USD58.9 million from USD38.8 million the year before. Profit performance was hurt by a sharp rise in administrative and exceptional costs. Administrative expenses rose to USD29.4 million from USD18.9 million the year prior primarily driven by a jump in staff costs. Exceptional costs also rose to USD10.7 million from USD1.9 million the year before which was chiefly related to USD9.5 million in initial public offering costs.----------
