Scholium Group Share News (SCHO)

LONDON (Alliance News) - The following stocks are the leading risers and fallers within the main London indices on Thursday.
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FTSE 100 - WINNERS
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Unilever, up 3.7%. The consumer goods giant reported a rise in sales in the third quarter of 2015 and said it expects underlying sales to grow at the upper end of its guided range for the full year. The maker of consumer products said revenue in the third quarter of the year grew 9.4% to EUR13.4 billion, while rising 11% to EUR40.4 billion in the first nine months of the year. Unilever said growth was helped by soft comparatives in China, strong ice cream sales, and price increases in Latin America. The company added however, that consumer demand remained fragile, while volume growth was "barely positive" in the markets in which it operates.
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FTSE 100 - LOSERS
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Burberry Group, down 12%. The luxury goods retailer said its second quarter was hit by a challenging environment for the luxury goods industry, particularly in China, and said it will take further cost-control actions in the second half to minimise the impact on its profit for the full year. Still, the group said it expects its adjusted pretax profit for the full year to be in line with analyst expectations, despite the tough environment. Burberry said its retail revenue was up 2% on an underlying basis in the first half to the end of September to GBP774.0 million, with like-for-like sales growth of 1.0% in the period.
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FTSE 250 - WINNERS
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WH Smith, up 6.0%. The newsagent announced a share buyback as it reported a rise in pretax profit in its recently-ended financial year, boosted by strong sales in its travel division, and it said its struggling high street business also picked up in the second half. WH Smith reported an 8% rise in pretax profit in the year ended August 31 to GBP121 million from GBP112 million the year before. WH Smith said it will buy back shares in the company of up to GBP50 million, following the completion of a share buyback for the same amount which it announced in October last year. It also will pay a total dividend of 39.4 pence for the year, a 13% increase on the 35.0p it paid the prior year.

Man Group, up 3.4%. The hedge fund manager said it had USD1.4 billion of net inflows in the third quarter, driven by flows into its quant strategies, although overall funds under management fell due to negative investment movements of USD2.7 billion and a USD600,000 hit from the strength of the US dollar. The quarter coincided with tough conditions towards the end of August, with market volatility up due to fears about China's economy and concerns about a looming US interest rate rise and its likely effect on emerging markets. "Despite the extreme market movements in late August impacting absolute performance across our long-only strategies, we have seen good relative performance across the majority of our strategies for the year to date," Chief Executive Manny Roman said.
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FTSE 250 - LOSERS
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Spectris, down 2.3%. Goldman Sachs removed the company from its Conviction Buy List, though it kept its recommendation on the instruments and controls company at Buy, and it cut its target price to 2,300 pence from 2,550p. Spectris shares were trading at 1,696.00p Thursday morning.

Booker Group, down 1.1%. The wholesale retailer reported a rise in profit in the first half of its financial year although sales fell slightly as it was hit by the UK government's ban on tobacco displays in small shops, which came into force earlier in the year. The convenience store chain operator reported a 10% rise in pretax profit in the 24 weeks ended September 11 to GBP74.1 million from GBP67.4 million the year before, although revenue fell 1% to GBP2.24 billion from GBP2.26 billion.
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MAIN MARKET AND AIM - WINNERS
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Alpha Pyrenees Trust, up 100%. The trust said it has signed an agreement with Barclays Bank to extend its debt facilities to April 2016. Alpha said its board has agreed an extension to its facilities with Barclays and the maturity on its EUR257.8 million in debt has been extended to April 15, 2016. Barclays is supporting the orderly realisation of the company's investment property, Alpha Pyrenees said.

Scholium Group, up 75%. The fine art and collectibles trading company said improved revenue in the first half will see it return to profit, following a tough previous financial year hit by a volatile trading environment for its Shapero Rare Books unit. Though trading can still be variable for the business, Scholium said it is starting to see better results for Shapero, particularly for modern and contemporary prints which have provided a valuable new revenue stream. Elsewhere, the company said its Scholium Trading business has entered into a number of transactions with other dealers, primarily in the rare book market, with the return on capital employed "very encouraging".

Zytronic, up 12%. The touch sensors manufacturer said it delivered a strong second half and said the improvement in revenue will mean its full-year results outpace market expectations. Zytronic said its total revenue for the year to the end of September was up 13%, with a strong performance in the second half and particularly in the fourth quarter. The improvement in revenue, plus production efficiencies and benefits from capital investments, will mean the group's pretax profit will be "materially ahead" of market expectations, it said.
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MAIN MARKET AND AIM - LOSERS
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Carclo, down 12%. The plastics company said it has traded ahead year-on-year in the first half of its financial year, but a recent announcement from Volkswagen will likely mean its results will miss market expectations. Carclo said the announcement from VW that its flagship luxury vehicle due for launch in 2017 will not be launched as a fully-electric vehicle is still being assessed in terms of the effect this will have on the lighting requirement, but will almost certainly mean the launch of the vehicle will be delayed, hitting the timing of revenue for Carclo's Wipac unit in its LED Technologies division.

Vmoto, down 23%. The Chinese electric scooter manufacturer said it has decided to cancel its shares from trading on AIM. Its shares will be cancelled on November 19. Vmoto said the decision was made following a review by the board which concluded that the costs incurred in maintaining a secondary listing on AIM exceeded the benefits obtained from the listing, given that the company's shareholder base is predominately Australian as well as the relatively low volume of trading in shares on AIM.
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By Sam Unsted; samunsted@alliancenews.com; @SamUAtAlliance

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