SSY.L Share News (SSY)

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
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Pearson, up 1.5%. Morgan Stanley has raised the stock's rating to Overweight from Equal-Weight with a price target increase to 1,350 pence from 1,100p. The company trades at 1,224p.

Royal Dutch Shell 'A', up 0.1%. US-based energy firm ConocoPhillips has hired banks to sell its 24% stake in the Clair oilfield, the UK's largest oilfield, the Financial Times reported quoting people familiar with the matter. The stake is said to fetch between USD2 billion and USD3 billion. Royal Dutch Shell has a 28% holding in the field.

Anglo American, up 0.4%. Deutsche Bank has raised the miner's rating to Buy from Hold with a price target of 2,100p. The stock currently trades at 1,494.5p.
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FTSE 100 LOSERS
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St James's Place, down 2.9%. The Financial Conduct Authority said it has fined Peter Carron, a former senior partner at St James's Place Wealth Management, GBP300,000 after he was found to have advised clients to invest a total of GBP2.4 million in three companies in which he was a director without adequately disclosing his interests. Between 2004 and 2010, Carron advised clients to invest GBP2.4 million in the three companies without disclosing his position on the board of the firms. These clients later lost approximately GBP2.2 million when the companies were placed into liquidation between May and August 2010. St James's Place subsequently paid GBP1.9 million in compensation to the 11 investors involved.
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FTSE 250 WINNERS
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Ladbrokes, up 2.8%. Citigroup has raised the bookmaker's rating to Neutral from Sell with a price target increase to 125p from 90p. The stock currently trades at 129.2p.

Vesuvius, up 2.4%. UBS has raised the company's rating to Buy from Sell.

Ophir Energy, up 1.5%. The upstream oil and gas exploration company said it has found a new gas discovery at the Silenus East-1 well in Block R in Equatorial Guinea, saying the new find allows it to upgrade the Block R floating liquefied natural gas project. The initial drill at the well encountered a 67 metre gross gas column with high-quality reservoir in line with the pre-drill expectations, Ophir said. The company said Silenus East-1 has discovered an estimated mean recoverable 405 billion cubic feet of gas from the upper and deeper reservoirs, significantly de-risking a group of similar surrounding prospects. The results mean the total mean recoverable gas in the Silenus area, including the new discovery, is now estimated at around 1.2 trillion cubic feet.

Marston's, up 1%. Citigroup has raised the company's rating to Buy from Sell with a price target increase to 180p from 125p. The stock currently trades at 148.4p.
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FTSE 250 LOSERS
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Thomas Cook Group, down 6.7%. The UK travel operator, in a trading update, said that Germany bookings have slowed, and its German business experienced weaker margins in the fourth quarter due to a combination of reduced demand and excess market capacity. Furthermore, the company's UK summer sales are flat from the previous year with the group saying it has sold approximately 92% of its its Summer 2014 programme but average selling prices have fallen 4% year-on-year.

N Brown, down 4.9%. The home shopping company posted a drop in revenue for the first half of the year, hit by a fall in sales from its main brand JD Williams, but it said it is on track to deliver on its full-year forecasts as it continues to invest in revitalising and expanding its businesses. The company said revenue in the 26 weeks to August 30 was down 0.6% and by 0.5% on a like-for-like basis, mainly due to a 3% fall in sales at JD Williams. Store like-for-like sales were strong, up 17%, it said. The retailer also said it reduced marketing investment in catalogues by 24% in the first half, and moved its marketing spend into customer recruitment, but weighted more towards the second half, which it said resulted in a 3.2% sales decline in the second quarter.

Crest Nicholson, down 3.6%. The housebuilder reported there has been a slight moderation of sales rates in the last few months but says that they still remain significantly above the historic norms. The company also said that, as of September 5, all reservations required for 2014 legal completion have been secured, and the business expects to deliver an around 15% increase in volumes over the prior year.
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AIM ALL-SHARE WINNERS
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TXO, up 110%. The energy and clean technology investment company said portfolio companies Oil Recovery Services Ltd and Athabasca Resources have signed joint venture. Oil Recovery Services and Athabasca, both of which TXO holds a stake in, will work together in order to exploit a technology from Oil Recovery Services, which helps recover waste oil and remediate oil spills and contamination using enzymes and surfactants, amongst other things. TXO owns a 25% stake in Oil Recovery Services and a 19% stake in Athabasca Resources. The company said the joint venture is designed to develop and exploit the technology and put it to use in recovering oil and bitumen from the leases Athabasca Resources is in the process of acquiring in the Athabasca oil sands region.

Rurelec, up 12%. The power generation company said it is progressing with work on its Chilean and Peruvian businesses and said its Argentina arm continues to trade at record levels, with the company now pursuing potential alliances in Latin America to allow it to further accelerate its growth. Rurelec said its Termonor subsidiary in Chile has given notice to the relevant authorities in the country for the start of works at the Parinacota project in Africa, with expectations that preliminary works will begin in mid-October. The company is currently assessing offers to acquire 50% of Termonor and is expecting to complete a sale of the stake at a premium to book value. The group expects to secure the debt needed to complete the Termonor project and the equity on the Parinacota project has been paid up by the company. Rurelec is also assessing offers for 50% of the Central Illapa project and expects to complete a sale at a premium to book value.

SCISYS, up 6.3%. The company said that it has signed a contract with Airbus Defence and Space Ltd to deliver rover vehicle visual localisation flight software for the European Space Agency's 2018 mission to Mars. It said the contract is valued at EUR2 million, with the significant majority of the contract value to be recognised in the current and forthcoming accounting periods up to early 2017. Under the terms of the contract, the company's VISLOC software will be responsible for self-localising and navigating the rover on the Mars surface and is therefore an essential part of the overall software system.
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AIM ALL-SHARE LOSERS
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Thalassa Holdings, off 27%. The company said EU and US sanctions against Russia, alongside the appointment of a new chief executive at its Russian state-owned customer to whom it provides seismic surveys, has jeopardised its ability to convert its pipeline into revenue. The company reported revenue of USD9.3 million in the six months to June 30, compared to USD11.6 million in the first-half of 2013. The decrease is following the conclusion of one-off manufacturing contract worth USD4.5 million in 2013. Its pretax profit for the first six months of 2014 was USD900,000 compared to USD1.4 million in the same period in 2013. The company also said that projects in Ecuador and the Arctic would not be resumed until it has met the new management at SMG and the impact of any further sanctions became clear.

Helius Energy, down 25%. The company said a partner it expected to make an equity investment in the Avonmouth biomass project would no longer be participating in the project, prompting a strategic review of the potential options for the company to maximise value from Avonmouth. Helius has estimated the total capital cost for the construction of Avonmouth is forecast to be around GBP380 million, with GBP155 million to be raised from equity partners. The partner had, Helius said, submitted a non-binding expression of interest with respect to acquiring a significant minority stake in the project, but Tuesday's announcement confirmed that the partner has withdrawn from the deal.

Ortac Resources, down 14%. The company said it is working on developing alternative gold processing methods following the decision by the Slovak government last week to ban the use of cyanide leaching technology for gold processing. The Slovak government last week approved an amendment to the Slovak Mining Law banning the use of cyanide leaching in gold processing.

Iomart Group, down 13%. The web hosting company said its revenues and profits for the half year to end-September are expected to be "substantially" ahead of the previous year. The outlook was provided after Host Europe Holdings Ltd, a company controlled by funds managed by Cinven Capital Management General Partner Ltd, said late Monday it does not plan to make a formal offer for Iomar. The company said that it had traded in line with its expectations in the first half, and demand for its services remains strong, underpinning its confidence for the full year.

Porta Communications, down 11%. The international marketing and communications business is down despite saying that it swung to a pretax profit and revenue almost doubled in the first-half as the company benefited from acquisitions and growing maturity across its divisions. In its interim results for the first-half to June 30, the company said it swung to a pretax profit of GBP71,000, compared to a GBP1.6 million loss during the same period last year and from a GBP3.0 million loss in the full-year. Porta said its new consumer PR company, 13 Communications, and its financial and charity advertising agency, 21:12 Communications, have taken longer than anticipated to break into profits. Porta now believes that both of these companies currently "lack the scale and range of expertise they require," therefore the company intends to expand the two companies, particularly by way of acquisition. Notwithstanding the above, following a number of recent new business wins, both of these companies are expected to report improved profitability in the second-half, it said.

IQE, down 10%. The semiconductor company has forecast lower revenues for the full year, as it swung to a loss in the half year to end-June but has expressed confidence in meeting full year earnings expectations. The company posted a pretax loss of GBP5.8 million, swung from a profit of GBP2.5 million, as revenue declined to GBP52.0 million from GBP63.0 million, and compounded by a GBP7.9 million in exceptional costs.

Charlemagne Capital, down 10%. The emerging markets focused asset manager has seen its shares fall after it said its pretax profit in the six months to June 30 was down to USD1.2 million from USD1.3 million last year. That came on a slight fall in net performance fees in the period, falling to USD0.3 million from USD0.5 million last year as the group contended with what it called a "challenging" environment for emerging markets.

ASOS, down 9.7%. Share in the online fashion retailer, one of the biggest stocks on London's junior market, took a tumble after management guided that profit in the coming financial year is likely to be no better than the current year as it looks to increase its investment spending on "zonal pricing" to make it more competitive in regional markets. ASOS also said that a the recent fire at its Barnsley warehouse cost it between GBP25 million and GBP30 million in sales over its fourth quarter. Analysts have rushed to slash forecasts on the stock following the update, with Numis Securities, for example, cutting its 2015 pretax profit estimate by 27%.
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By Neil Thakrar; neilthakrar@alliancenews.com

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