OPHR.L Share News (OPHR)

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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BHP Billiton, up 6.6%. The Anglo-Australian mining giant said its profit and earnings both plummeted in its recent financial year due to falling commodity prices, but the miner surprised the market by improving its dividend. BHP reported a pretax profit of USD8.05 billion in the year ended June 30, a huge fall from the USD21.73 billion profit made a year earlier, as revenue dropped to USD43.45 billion from USD55.04 billion. But the group surprised markets by increasing its dividend for the full year to 124.0 cents per share from 122.0 cents last year. Analysts were expecting the dividend to remain flat year-on-year.

Antofagasta, up 5.5%. The Chilean copper miner reported a huge fall in profit and earnings in the first half of the year, as expected, and cut its dividend, after being hit by lower production, sales and commodities prices. Antofagasta posted a dramatic fall in pretax profit to USD297.3 million in the first half of 2015 from a USD820.8 million profit a year earlier, as revenue declined to USD1.78 billion from USD2.60 billion. In line with BHP, however, shares in the company were trading higher as they recovered from the sharp falls seen on Monday.

RSA Insurance Group, up 4.7%. The insurer said it has received a revised takeover offer from Swiss rival Zurich Insurance Group Ltd and said it has indicated a willingness to recommend it, though Zurich said it reserves the right to make a bid below the price at which the new offer has been made. The bid is for 550.00 pence per share, or GBP5.59 billion in total, and would allow RSA shareholders to get the 3.5p per share dividend RSA announced in its interim results earlier this month. The stock is quoted Tuesday at 517.50p.
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FTSE 250 - WINNERS
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Regus, up 7.1%. The office space provider posted robust results for the first half of the year, with the group's pretax profit more than doubling, its revenue pushing higher, and its return on investment in the period improving, all in line with its expectations as it works to capitalise on the growth of flexible working. Regus said its pretax profit for the six months to the end of June was GBP79.1 million, more than double the GBP31.0 million it posted a year earlier, helped by an improvement in Regus' return on investment in the half to 23.1% from 20.9% in the comparable period in 2014.

Ophir Energy, up 5.8%, John Wood Group, up 5.6%, Tullow Oil, up 4.9%, Premier Oil, up 4.9%, Hunting, up 4.7%. Oil and gas-related stocks were in recovery mode following the steep falls seen on Monday and were given a further boost by the Brent oil price rising by 2.5%.
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FTSE 250 - LOSERS
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James Fisher & Sons, down 3.6%. The marine engineering services company said its pretax profit ticked lower in the first half of 2015, as the company was hit by the downturn in activity in the oil and gas industry, but it still raised its dividend. James Fisher said its pretax profit in the first half to the end of June was GBP17.9 million, down from GBP20.8 million a year earlier, as revenue fell to GBP213.1 million from GBP216.1 million. While its specialist technical, marine support and tankships divisions all performed well in the half, its offshore oil unit's revenue was significantly lower due to the downturn in the oil and gas industry, where operators have been cutting back on spending in order to cope with the collapse of the oil price.

Home Retail Group, down 2.6%. The Argos and Homebase owner was downgraded to Underweight from Equal Weight by Barclays.
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AIM ALL-SHARE - WINNERS
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Gulf Marine Services, up 12%. The group posted a solid set of results for the first half, with profit and revenue both higher and the group's fleet utilisation remaining strong, along with confidence that earnings will improve in the second half. The company, which provides self-propelled self-elevating support vessels to the offshore energy sector, said its pretax profit for the six months to the end of June was USD36.1 million, up from USD34.3 million a year earlier, as revenue for the group increased to USD98.2 million from USD90.7 million.
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AIM ALL-SHARE - LOSERS
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Infrastrata, down 29%. The petroleum exploration and gas storage company said one of the participants providing funding for the Woodburn Forst-1 well in Northern Ireland has backed out of the project. Infrastrata said Larne Oil and Gas, which exercised an option to participate in the PL1/10 licence in September last year, has "run into funding difficulties" and will not be participating in the project. The terms of Larne's exit are currently being resolved, but the partners on the project are now seeking to secure around GBP2.8 million in funding in order to ensure the well is drilled in the winter.

Premier African Minerals, down 12%. The company said it has completed the modifications to the process plant at the RHA tungsten project in Zimbabwe which has improved the plant throughput but also increased its costs. Premier African said said it has finished modifying the plant and also replaced the tailings discharge system to allow the plant to cope with the increased capacity due to the modifications made. But compounding a fall in tungsten prices, Premier African said the cost per metric tonne unit is now higher than its forecast of USD89 per unit because of the modifications made to the plant.

MXC Capital, down 10%. The investment company said it will acquire parent company MXC Holdings Ltd in a share-for-share deal that values MXC Holdings at GBP15 million, excluding the shares MXC Capital already owns in the company, in a move to unify all of its activities and investments into a single structure.
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By Sam Unsted; samunsted@alliancenews.com; @SamUAtAlliance

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