Northgate Share News (NTG)

LONDON (Alliance News) - The following stocks are amongst the biggest risers and fallers within the main London indices midday Tuesday.
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FTSE 100 WINNERS
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Hikma Pharmaceuticals, up 0.6%. The pharmaceutical company is among bidders for Boehringer Ingelheim GmbH's Roxane Labs business in the US, Bloomberg reported citing people familiar with the matter. The report said that other potential buyers for the generic pharmaceutical unit, which may fetch as much as EUR2 billion or USD2.2 billion, include Mallinckrodt and Perrigo Co. A decision on the winner could be made within weeks, though the German drugmaker may still choose to keep the asset.
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FTSE 100 LOSERS
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Tesco, down 2.1%, J Sainsbury, down 1.6%. Sainsbury's and Tesco came in joint second place out of the big four in the Kantar Worldpanel UK's grocery market data published on Tuesday, both experiencing an annual sales decline of 1.3% in the period. Sainsbury's sales were at GBP4.18 billion, down from GBP4.23 billion a year before, as its market share declined to 16.5% from 16.7%, while Tesco sales fell to GBP7.24 billion from GBP7.34 billion, as its market share dropped to 28.6% from 28.9%. Wm Morrison Supermarkets, whose shares are down 0.3%, was for the second month in a row the only member of the big four UK supermarkets to increase sales.
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FTSE 250 WINNERS
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Home Retail Group, up 3.5%. Morgan Stanley upgraded the owner of the Argos general merchandise chain and the Homebase DIY chain to Overweight from Equal Weight, lifting its price target to 180 pence from 170p.

St Modwen Properties, up 2.1%. The regeneration property company said it expects to see positive momentum continue into the second half of its financial year after reporting a jump in pretax profit for the first. It made a GBP177.6 million pretax profit in the six months ended May 31, compared with GBP48.6 million in the corresponding period of the prior year. St. Modwen also was upgraded by Numis to Buy from Add, and its price target lifted to 570p from 471p.
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FTSE 250 LOSERS
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Northgate, down 7.4%. The commercial light vehicle rental company said pretax profit surged in its 2015 financial year as revenue rose across both hire and sale business, prompting the company to hike its dividend payout by nearly half. However, N+1 Singer retains its Hold recommendation due to currency headwinds and depreciation. Meanwhile, Numis downgrades the stock to Hold from Add, raising its price target to 640p from 612p. Though saying Northgate results were "impressive", Numis also notes forex headwinds and depreciation as reasons to be cautious.

Ocado Group, down 1.7%. The online grocery business reported a small decline in profit in the first half of its financial year even though sales grew, as it booked costs associated with investments, distribution and administration. It said pretax profit in the 24 weeks ended May 17 slipped to GBP7.2 million from GBP7.5 million in the same period the year before, despite revenue rising 18% to GBP507.7 million from GBP429.7 million. Shore Capital said it retains a Sell recommendation on the company after the results.

Ultra Electronics, down 1.4%. Berenberg downgraded the defence company to Sell from Hold, cutting its price target to 1,600p from 1,600p.
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AIM ALL-SHARE WINNERS
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Taihua, up 17%. The chinese pharmaceutical company doubled its pretax profit in 2014 despite lower revenue, thanks primarily to robust sales of its Forsythia product and due to lower inventory provisioning. It said its pretax profit for the year was CNY6.6 million, up from CNY3.3 million a year earlier, despite revenue falling to CNY50.9 million from CNY52.3 million.

Mountfield Group, up 7.3%. The company said the review of its Mountfield Building Group business is already producing measurable benefits. It said the review of the building group business led to a change in focus from carrying out projects with a high risk, fixed-price nature to targeting works directly awarded by clients, which offer lower risks and better margins. Those changes have resulted in a significantly improved trading performance for the division in the year to date, Mountfield said.
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AIM ALL-SHARE LOSERS
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William Sinclair Holdings, down 27%. The company, which makes gardening products, said it is arranging meetings with investors to test demand for a sizeable share placing, while warning that progress on funding is required in the next few weeks. It said it is still considering its strategic options, with the process now beyond the first phase and the company receiving numerous signs of interest, following a review of the business.

Strat Aero, down 22%. The company said its revenue in the first half of 2015 has been weaker than expected as it published its 2014 results. Strat Aero said revenue in the year to date has been "considerably lower" than its expectations and said it was difficult to predict how the growth of the Unmanned Aerial Vehicle, or drone, market will pan out. It said its pretax loss for the year to December 31 was USD1.2 million, on revenue of USD630,685. No comparable figures were provided.

Sweett Group, down 15%. The construction and building consultancy scrapped its dividend after swinging to a loss in its 2015 financial year, hit by goodwill charges and a decline in revenue. It swung to a pretax loss of GBP1.1 million in the year to the end of March, compared to a GBP2.8 million profit a year earlier, due primarily to a GBP2.4 million goodwill impairment charge it booked related to a probe by the UK's Serious Fraud Office into the conduct of a former employee of its Cyril Sweet International subsidiary in the Middle East.

By Daniel Ruiz; danielruiz@alliancenews.com

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