(An item published at 1145 GMT mistated the year-earlier period in the Fenner summary and the revenue figures in the Inchcape summary. The correct version follows:)
LONDON (Alliance News) - The following stocks are the leading risers and fallers within the main London indices midday Tuesday.
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FTSE 100 - WINNERS
Sports Direct International, up 2.5%. The sports goods retailer said it plans to reward its founder, deputy chairman and biggest shareholder, Mike Ashley, with share options worth more than GBP65 million, money it says is due to him for the company's strong performance as a listed company. Ashley has not been paid for his executive role at the company since the business was listed in February 2007, despite two previous attempts by the board to reward him. Sports Direct said its board had therefore decided to propose to shareholders that he be given options over eight million shares in the company, a further 1.3% stake.
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FTSE 100 - LOSERS
WM Morrison Supermarkets, down 1.2%. The food retailer is once again amongst the biggest blue-chip losers Tuesday, having fallen heavily on Monday on a report in the Sunday Telegraph that the supermarket is expected to announce big price cuts with its results on Thurday. Weighing on the stock Tuesday, retail sales growth in the UK declined sharply in February, according to a survey produced by the British Retail Consortium and KPMG. The data shows that non-food materially outperformed the food category, says Shore Capital analyst Clive Black. Subsequently, Black expects to issue "material downgrades" to his estimates for Morrison in the near future.
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FTSE 250 - WINNERS
Inchcape, up 2.9%. The car retailer's pretax profit rose in 2013, driven by higher like-for-like sales, an Australian acquisition and cost cutting, and it raised its dividend by 20%. Pretax profit rose to GBP266.1 million, up 7.4% from GBP247.7 million in 2012, as revenues rose to GBP6.52 billion, from GBP6.09 billion. It boosted its final dividend to 11.7 pence a share, resulting in a total dividend for 2013 of 17.4 pence per share, higher than the 14.5 pence per share paid last year.
Close Brothers, up 2.6%. The firm has reported increased half-year pretax profit, driven by its banking division's increased lending to commercial and retail borrowers, while its securities and asset management divisions also delivered growth. It made a GBP94.8 million pretax profit in the six months ended January 31, compared with GBP78.0 million in the corresponding period in the previous year, driven by a 14% rise in operating income to GBP322.0 million.
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FTSE 250 - LOSERS
African Barrick Gold, down 15%. Canadian gold producer Barrick Gold Corp said Tuesday it has completed the sale of 41 million shares, representing 10% of the issued share capital of ABG, while entering a lock-up agreement for its remaining holding for the next 120 days. Following the transaction, Barrick's holding in ABG has been reduced to 63.9%.
Fenner, down 6.1%. The polymer products manufacturer has seen its shares fall after it confirmed that its results for the first half of its current financial year will, as previously highlighted, be below those it recorded in the first half of fiscal 2013.
Computacenter, down 3.4%. The group's share price has dropped despite raising its total dividend for 2013 and reporting an increase in revenue for the year. While group revenue rose to GBP3.07 billion, up from GBP2.91 billion in 2012, the company posted a pretax profit of GBP50.5 million, down sharply from the GBP64.8 million recorded in the previous year, as it was hit by exceptional costs of GBP27.1 million.
Esure Group, down 1.9%. The motor and home insurer reported a marginally larger annual pretax profit, but said the costs of severe weather events in the first quarter of the new year are likely to cost GBP3.0 million to GBP4.0 million more than expected. Furthermore, while Shore Capital analyst Eamonn Flanagan believes that the company has "undoubted income attractions," he believes that a 11.5x price-earnings ratio for 2014 is "much too aggressive." Flanagan also expects all of the motor insurers, including esure, to react negatively to the Financial Conduct Authority's proposed shake-up of the GBP1 billion insurance add-on markets.
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AIM - WINNERS
Plethora Solutions Holdings, up 31%. The biotechnology company said it was in negotiations with a number of potential marketing partners for its premature ejaculation treatment PSD 502. It said that it is making "excellent progress" with its preferred manufacturing partner, and that it had received expressions of interest from several potential marketing partners for out-licensing PSD 502 in the US, EU and other territories. The company also said that, following its meeting with the US Food and Drug Administration in the first quarter, the FDA had confirmed that premature ejaculation is an area of "high medical need".
Ceres Power Holdings, up 14%. The low-cost fuel cell technology firm has signed a joint development agreement with a wholly-owned subsidiary of power firm Cummins PLC. It said the agreement with Cummins Power Generation would see the firms work together on a non-exclusive basis to combine their technical capabilities. The companies said further stages of the agreement could include a combined system feasibility project, as well development programmes with end-users and utilities, noting that successful completion of the initial joint venture could result in a broader co-operative development programme.
Empresaria Group, up 10%. The recruitment firm posted an increase in profit and revenue for the full year, boosted by a strong performance from its UK division. It posted pretax profit of GBP4.9 million for 2013, up from GBP3.6 million in 2012, as revenue rose slightly to GBP194.4 million, from GBP194.3 million a year earlier. Empresaria also announced an acquisition in the Middle East.
Deltex Medical Group, up 8.8%. The company has reported that its 2013 pretax loss came in at GBP2.2 million, unchanged from the figure reported in 2012, while revenues rose to GBP7.2 million, up from the GBP6.8 million reported in 2012, driven by sales of its surgical probes in 2013. The company also has launched a new training aide, an oesophageal Doppler patient simulator.
Share, up 7.2%. The company, which owns investment site The Share Centre, said 2013 pretax profit more than doubled, boosted by heightened investor interest after the initial public offering of Royal Mail PLC and by historically low interest rates driving savers to equity markets in the search for yield.
CloudBuy, up 7.1%. The firm said it has been awarded a contract in India to provide a cloudBuy private purchasing portal for electronic payments. It said the contract with Sarth Surfacrete builds on its investments in the country, after boosting its capabilities to cover India's range of in-country taxes in its eCommerce engine.
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By James Kemp; jameskemp@alliancenews.com; @jamespkemp
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