Spire Healthcare Share News (SPI)

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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Whitbread, up 2.6%. The owner of hotel chain Premier Inn and coffee shops Costa Coffee was boosted by a price target upgrade from Credit Suisse. The bank upgraded Whitbread's price target to 5,800 pence from 5,500p, keeping an Outperform rating in place. Whitbread shares were trading at 4,815.00p.
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FTSE 100 - LOSERS
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BHP Billiton, down 2.9%. Antofagasta, down 2.4%, Anglo American, down 2.3%, Fresnillo, down 2.3%. Miners were trading lower as the gold, silver, zinc and copper prices all sunk on Thursday morning, with gold quoted at USD1,050.00 an ounce, having hit a morning low of USD1,046.
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FTSE 250 - WINNERS
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Go-Ahead Group, up 4.1%. The transport operator said its 65%-owned London Midland arm has secured an extension of the franchise to run the West Midlands passenger train service in the UK until October 2017. The direct award by the UK's Department of Transport has been agreed, the company said, and will include schemes to benefit passengers throughout the new franchise, including two extra evening services on weekdays between London and the Trent Valley, earlier services to Birmingham on Sunday mornings and free WiFi on long-distance journeys.

Ted Baker, up 3.2% at 3,483.83p. The fashion retailer's target price was hiked to 4,300 pence from 3,560p by Goldman Sachs, which kept a Buy rating on the stock.
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FTSE 250 - LOSERS
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Spire Healthcare Group, down 6.6%. Investec downgraded the private healthcare company to Sell from Hold and slashed its target price to 234p from 275p. Spire shares were trading at 307.1p. Investec said the company faces an uncertain future in the short-term amid decelerating NHS volumes and with proposals from health regulator Monitor to cut orthopaedic prices. A future increase in the proportion of sales the group gets from the NHS, couple with the cost of new hospital openings, will squeeze margins for the group until 2018, the broker said.

DS Smith, down 3.1%. The packaging company said its pretax profit dipped in the first half due to restructuring costs, and revenue also was held back by the weak euro, though the group's underlying performance was solid. DS Smith said its pretax profit for the six months to the end of October was GBP91.0 million, down from GBP123.0 million a year earlier, as the group booked GBP48.0 million in exceptional costs, mostly related to closing its Wansborough paper mill and other restructuring activity in the UK and northern Europe. It will pay an interim dividend of 4.0 pence per share, up from 3.7p.
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MAIN MARKET AND AIM - WINNERS
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Starcom, up 56%. The wireless monitoring products company said it has signed a supply and support deal with Pinnacle Systems for its Helios fleet tracking units. Pinnacle, a Nairobi, Kenya-based road safety, fleet management and vehicle security systems company, will buy thousands of Helios units over a three-year period in a deal valued at around USD5.5 million for Starcom.

Pantheon Resources, up 14%. The oil and gas company said it has successfully drilled the VOS-1 well situated in Tyler County, Texas, in the US. Drilling and logging operations at the vertical well have been completed and the company said it will conduct a flow test using a lower cost workover rig which it will contract shortly. Pantheon's initial data from electric logs indicate there is a "potentially significant" reservoir in the Eagle Ford/Woodbine sandstone. However, it did state the "significance" of the electric log data will not be known until the flow test has been completed.
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MAIN MARKET AND AIM - LOSERS
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DiamondCorp, down 17%. The diamond miner late Wednesday aid it has secured formal approval to reschedule its loan with the Industrial Development Corp of South Africa and said it has proposed raising GBP4.0 million via a share placing. The company said it has secured approval from the IDC to reschedule its ZAR220.0 million loan held by its Lace Diamond Mine Pty Ltd. Under the terms of the new agreement, ongoing capitalisation of interest previously payable in 2016 will be carried out, while no capital repayments will be made before the start of 2017. In addition, DiamondCorp said it has proposed raising up to GBP4.0 million via a share placing, to be conducted via a bookbuilding process which will begin immediately.
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By Sam Unsted; samunsted@alliancenews.com; @SamUAtAlliance

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