Sirius Minerals Share News (SXX)

LONDON (Alliance News) - The following stocks are the leading risers and fallers within the main London indices on Thursday.----------FTSE 100 - WINNERS----------Melrose Industries, up 4.3%. The industrial turnaround specialist said trading remained in line with board's expectations for the current calendar year and GKN is meeting expectations following its acquisition. In addition, Melrose said "no black holes" have been found in the business since its hostile takeover of the engineer. For the six months to June-end, Melrose recorded a pretax loss of GBP303 million, compared with pretax profit of GBP48 million in the year ago period, on a revenue of GBP2.94 billion and GBP1.09 billion, respectively. Acquisition and disposal costs totalled GBP71 million, up sharply from GBP2 million a year ago. Restructuring and other associated costs arising from changes in business strategy totalled GBP128 million versus GBP25 million. Stripping out acquisition and other exceptional costs, pretax profit rose to GBP240 million from GBP131 million.----------Centrica, up 3.9%, SSE, up 1.3%. The energy companies were higher amid plans by Ofgem to implement a price cap to protect customers from being overcharged. More than 11 million households will save a combined GBP1 billion a year under plans to cap "poor value default deals" at GBP1,136, the energy watchdog has announced. Ofgem said each typical customer would save around GBP75 a year on average, with those on the most expensive default standard variable tariffs saving more than GBP120 a year when the cap comes into effect.----------Vodafone Group, up 2.0%. Citigroup raised the telecommunications firm to Buy from Neutral. ----------FTSE 250 - WINNERS----------Go-Ahead Group, up 16%. The transport company reported a 6.5% jump in pretax profit for 2018 financial year on the back of an exceptional gain. The group also said it expects to deliver a robust performance in the new financial year, taking into account the expiry of the London Midland rail franchise. For the year to June-end, Go-Ahead recorded pretax profit of GBP145.7 million, up from GBP136.8 million in the year-ago period, on revenue of GBP3.46 billion and GBP3.48 billion, respectively. The company recorded an exceptional gain of GBP25.1 million in the financial year due to a change in the valuation of its pension liabilities. Go-Ahead Group maintained its full-year dividend at 102.08 pence per share. Peer FirstGroup was also up 3.8%.----------Bovis Homes Group, up 4.9%. The housebuilder said profit rose ahead of expectations in the first half of 2018, amid a higher gross margin on sales, prompting a special dividend payout. Bovis reported pretax profit for the six months to the end of June rose to GBP60.2 million from GBP42.7 million a year before, due to the gross margin rising by 280 basis points to 20.9% from 18.1%. The group declared an interim dividend of 19 pence per share, up 27% from 15p the year before. Alongside the interim dividend, Bovis Homes will pay a special dividend of 45 pence per share, which it said was part of its intention to return GBP180 million in surplus cash to shareholders in the three years to 2020. Peers Redrow and Bellway were up 2.8% and 1.5% respectively. ----------FTSE 250 - LOSERS----------Sirius Minerals, down 14%. The fertilizer development company said it signed two construction contracts for its mine development programme. However, Sirius revised its capital requirement estimates for the North Yorkshire Polyhalite Project, which will increase between a range of USD400 million and USD600 million. This takes the revised capital cost of the project to USD4.17 billion compared to USD3.67 billion previously. "The expected increased funding requirement coming from this process reflects an optimisation of the mineral transport system tunnel design and a significantly improved risk allocation for Sirius to support the senior debt financing. The project's economics remain extremely compelling and we are confident they support the expected additional funding requirement," the company said. ----------Genus, down 5.4%. The animal genetics company said its annual pretax profit was severely harmed by a reduction in the non-cash fair value of its biological assets. In its financial year ended June 30, the company's pretax profit dropped 81% to GBP7.8 million as its net IAS 41 biological asset was marked down by GBP28.7 million in non-cash fair value. This compares with a GBP1.1 million reduction the year before. However, profit after tax increased 21% to GBP41.6 million from GBP34.3 million due to non-cash deferred tax credits relating to its biological assets. The company declared a 17.9 pence per share final dividend, which will bring the full-year total to 26.0p per share. This represents a 10% increase from its 23.6p per share dividend the prior year.----------Bodycote, down 3.9%. Liberum downgraded the heat treatment services provider to Hold from Buy. ----------IMI, down 3.9%. Liberum cut the engineer to Hold from Sell. ----------