(Alliance News) - The following stocks are the leading risers and fallers within the main London indices on Friday.
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FTSE 100 - WINNERS
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Anglo American, up 1.7%. The miner reported the value of rough diamond sales for De Beers' sixth and seventh sales cycles of 2020, amounting to USD116 million and USD320 million, respectively. Owing to the restrictions on the movement of people and products in various jurisdictions around the globe, De Beers has continued to implement a more flexible approach to rough diamond sales during the sixth and seventh sales cycles, Anglo American said. "Diamond markets showed some continued improvement throughout August and into September as Covid-19 restrictions continued to ease in various locations, and manufacturers focused on meeting retail demand for polished diamonds," said De Beers Chief Executive Bruce Cleaver.
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London Stock Exchange, up 1.6%. Pan-European stock market operator Euronext said it is in negotiations with the London Stock Exchange Group to buy the Milan stock market. Euronext – which operates the stock exchanges of Amsterdam, Brussels, Dublin, Lisbon, Oslo and Paris – confirmed in a statement "it is currently in discussions with Cassa Depositi e Prestiti to submit an offer to London Stock Exchange Group for the acquisition of the business and key operational assets of Borsa Italiana." "A further announcement will be made as and when appropriate," it said.
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FTSE 250 - WINNERS
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Royal Mail, up 7.1%. JPMorgan raised the postal services provider to Neutral from Underweight.
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Ferrexpo, up 6.0%. The Swiss-headquartered iron ore company's 6.6 cents per share special dividend, combined with its June special dividend and interim dividend of the same amount, takes Ferrexpo's total distributions announced for 2020 to 19.8 cents per share from 13.2 cents per share. Ferrexpo said: "Today's special interim dividend reflects the group's strong cash generation and is in line with the board's strategy to maintain a balance between sustainable and attractive shareholder returns, investment in growth opportunities and balance sheet strength. Since the first half of the year, Ferrexpo's operations have continued to perform well and demand remains strong for the company's iron ore pellets."
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Essentra, up 2.2%. Jefferies upgraded the plastic and fibre products supplier to Buy from Hold.
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Travis Perkins, up 2.2%. Jefferies upgraded the home improvement retailer to Buy from Hold.
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OTHER MAIN MARKET AND AIM - WINNERS
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88 Energy, up 28%. The Alaskan North Slope oil explorer reported results from the Charlie-1 appraisal well, Alaska. The final interpretation provides a significant increase in net pay, compared to the initial interpretation, with the largest contribution coming from the Lima discoveries in the Seabee formation. These improvements are despite using higher cut-offs for both reservoir and net pay. Both Upper and Lower Lima are confirmed as large oil discoveries by this interpretation and the lab results. The results are particularly significant as these targets are the most extensive of the Icewine conventional horizons as well as being relatively shallow, by comparison to the Torok formation. The extent of the accumulations will be estimated over the coming weeks as these final petrophysical numbers are integrated into the updated seismic inversion product.
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Pembridge Resources, up 22%. The mining company said Minto Explorations Ltd has secured a prepayment funding facility with Sumitomo Canada Ltd, who are also Minto's copper concentrate off take agreement counterparty. This facility of up to USD12.5 million is additional to the existing offtake agreement, under which Sumitomo makes an advance payment of 90% of the value of concentrate output each month, and represents a further development in Minto's relationship with Sumitomo. "We are delighted to have developed our relationship with Sumitomo in this way. Such an arrangement had been under discussion for a year and it is a measure of the progress Minto has made in that time that Sumitomo has now committed to it. Such support and commitment from Sumitomo is important to Minto and will help the ongoing development of the mine," said Chief Executive Gati Al-Jebouri.
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OTHER MAIN MARKET AND AIM - LOSERS
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Hurricane Energy, down 49%. The miner marked the first anniversary of production from the Lancaster early production system. During the period, 2.7 million barrels of oil was produced from the field, compared to just 528,000 barrels a year ago, taking total production since field start up in May 2019 to 6.6 million barrels. Hurricane Energy said revenue for the six months to the end of June rose to USD81.9 million from USD22.5 million, as sales volumes grew to 2.8 million barrels from 356,000 barrels year-on-year. Average sales price realised were lower, however, at USD29.8 per barrel versus USD63.2 a barrel a year earlier. "2020 is proving to be a hugely challenging year for Hurricane. We have had to contend with not only a significant fall in oil prices and the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic, but also poorer than expected reservoir performance from the Lancaster early production system," said Chair Steven McTiernan.
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Baron Oil, down 24%. The oil and gas exploration company focused on the UK and Peru posted a pretax loss of GBP705,000, widening from GBP307,000 a year prior. Administration fees increased to GBP367,000 from GBP227,000 the year before. Baron Oil said that the increase in administration expenses was largely due to higher professional fees related to fund raising activities which includes legal, registrar and corporate advisory costs. In Peru, the company intends to push on with drill the El-Barco-3X well once restrictions are lifted. In the UK, the company has two projects. For the first, at Inner Moray Firth, the seismic field data has been located, copied and is being validated. The company said it is looking forward to receiving the results of the studies being carried out by the large European exploration and production company in due course. In Dorset, work continues on PEDL330 and PEDL 345. In Timor-Leste, work on the Chuditch PSC has been progressed as far as possible in the absence of the original raw seismic data but the problem is being dealt with, the company said.
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By Evelina Grecenko; evelinagrecenko@alliancenews.com
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