(Alliance News) - The following stocks are the leading risers and fallers within the main London indices on Monday.
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FTSE 100 - WINNERS
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J Sainsbury, up 1.0%. The supermarket chain said it will partner with retailer Coles Supermarkets Australia. Sainsbury's will supply its own brand products to the Australian food & drink giant, which has more than 2,400 retail outlets. As part of the agreement, Sainsbury's biggest wholesale agreement to date, a number of Australian groceries and alcoholic drinks, sourced through Coles, could be brought to UK customers.
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AstraZeneca, up 0.9%. The drug maker said analyses of a Roxadustat trial for the treatment of patients with anaemia from chronic kidney disease showed positive efficacy and no increased risk of major adverse cardiovascular events. Anaemia is a medical condition in which patients have insufficient red blood cells and low levels of haemoglobin, a protein in red blood cells that carries oxygen to cells throughout the body. Cambridge-headquartered AstraZeneca, which is collaborating with US-based FibroGen for Roxadustat, said pooled efficacy analyses from Phase III programme showed that roxadustat did not increase the risk of cardiovascular events and all-cause mortality in non dialysis-dependent patients compared to placebo and dialysis-dependent patients and compared to epoetin alfa, a current medicine used to treat anaemia.
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FTSE 100 - LOSERS
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Rolls-Royce Holdings, down 2.1%. Societe Generale downgraded the jet engine maker to Hold from Buy.
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FTSE 250 - WINNERS
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Greggs, up 17%. The bakery chain upped its full-year expectations after reporting sales growth over the past six weeks of trading. In the period to November 9, total sales were up 12% year-on-year and the bakery chain registered like-for-like growth of 8.3% in its company-managed shops. In the same period last year, total sales rose by 8.3% and by 4.0% on a like-for-like basis. The Newcastle Upon Tyne-headquartered firm now expects its full-year pretax profit, excluding exceptional costs, to be higher than previous internal expectations. The company previously hiked its 2019 pretax profit guidance in February, after reporting a sales surge helped by its vegan sausage rolls. "The products it sells might not always be the healthiest but its business looks in good shape. Encouragingly, sales growth is being driven by an increase in customer visits, suggesting perhaps that people attracted by the vegan sausage roll are sticking around," commented AJ Bell's Russ Mould.
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Aston Martin Lagonda, up 4.9%. HSBC raised the luxury carmaker to Buy from Hold.
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Kainos Group, up 3.5%. The software company said first half profit grew more than a third and added that it has bolstered its UK and European presence with two new acquisitions. Belfast-based Kainos said its revenue in the six months to September 30 rose by 29% year-on-year to GBP86.9 million from GBP67.2 million. Pretax profit was 38% higher at GBP12.0 million from GBP8.7 million last year, the FTSE 250 firm reported. On an adjusted basis, excluding "share-based payments and related costs", the profit growth was more modest at 27% year-on-year to GBP12.8 million from GBP10.1 million. Kainos boosted its interim dividend by 25% to 3.5 pence per share, from 2.8p last year.
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OTHER MAIN MARKET AND AIM - WINNERS
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Sirius Minerals, up 16%. The fertiliser development company outlined a new two-stage development plan for its North Yorkshire polyhalite mine as it looks to secure funding for the first stage of the project. In September, Sirius announced it struggled to secure the required funding for its current project plan due to "market conditions". Consequently, the firm intended to slow the development of its polyhalite mine. Sirius remains focused on extracting first polyhalite from the mine in order to remove the "greatest perceived construction risk associated with deep shaft construction". This will allow Sirius to explore a wider and cheaper range of long-term financing options for the ramping-up of production. The Scarborough-based firm expects the initial phase to require around USD600 million in investment in addition to its current cash reserves.
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OTHER MAIN MARKET AND AIM - LOSERS
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Evgen Pharma, down 50%. The pharmaceutical company said its "SFX-01 after subarachnoid haemorrhage" trial did not achieve its primary endpoint. In the multi-centre, randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled SAS phase II clinical trial, patients were dosed for a maximum of 28 days following a subarachnoid haemorrhage. Patients were then monitored for a further five months to assess their recovery by collecting endpoints including cognitive measurements. The clinical stage drug development company said the trial did not show any "significant" difference between the SFX-01 and placebo arms. Furthermore, whilst the secondary endpoints were not statistically powered, there were no differences seen between SFX-01 and placebo in key cognition, quality of life and clinical outcomes at three and six months.
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InfraStrata, down 12% at 0.30 pence. The natural gas storage firm said it plans to raise GBP6.0 million through a discounted share placing as it eyes concluding the acquisition of the Harland & Wolff Belfast shipyard assets in December. In the accelerated bookbuild, InfraStrata will price the shares at 0.3p each, a 12% discount to Friday's closing price of 0.34p per share. The proceeds will be used to finance the acquisition of the Belfast shipyard, progress its Islandmagee gas storage project in Northern Ireland and reduce the outstanding GBP600,000 from a bridging loan with investors Riverfort Global Opportunities and YA II PN. InfraStrata aims to conclude the GBP5.3 million acquisition of Harland & Wolff assets, like forklifts, IT equipment and office buildings, in a Belfast shipyard on December 5.
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By Arvind Bhunjun; arvindbhunjun@alliancenews.com
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