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(Alliance News) - The following stocks are the leading risers and fallers within the main London indices on Wednesday.
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FTSE 100 - WINNERS
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Persimmon, up 1.5%. The housebuilder said it expects a decline in full-year revenue, though profit is set to meet market expectations. For 2019, revenue is expected to come in at GBP3.65 billion, a 2.4% decline from GBP3.74 billion last year. New housing revenue dropped by 3.5% year-on-year to GBP3.42 billion, Persimmon said, with new home legal completion volumes down 3.6% to 15,885 from 16,449. Persimmon's average selling prices were broadly in line with 2018, edging 0.1% higher to GBP215,700 from GBP215,563. "The company has sacrificed revenue by slowing down the process of making houses in order to ensure more attention is paid to build quality and customer care. In truth it had little choice after the government raised questions over its eligibility for the lucrative Help to Buy scheme due to the issues faced by Persimmon customers and the huge bonus paid to its former CEO Jeff Fairburn," said AJ Bell's Russ Mould.
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Hargreaves Lansdown, up 1.1%. Berenberg started coverage on the fund supermarket with a Hold rating.
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FTSE 100 - LOSERS
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Royal Bank of Scotland, down 2.5%. Barclays downgraded the state-backed lender to Underweight from Equal Weight.
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FTSE 250 - WINNERS
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Provident Financial, up 8.0%. The subprime lender said it expects 2019 profit to come in line with expectations and has obtained a new loan to fund its Moneybarn business. According to Provident, market consensus is for pretax profit before amortisation of acquisition intangibles and exceptional items of GBP162 million, with a range of GBP155 million to GBP166 million, based on forecasts from 12 equity research analysts. To support Moneybarn business flows, Provident has agreed a bilateral securitisation facility with NatWest Markets. The facility's initial funding will be GBP100 million, but this is expected to increase to GBP275 million over the next 18 months.
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Tullow Oil, up 4.5%. The oil and gas company is making good progress on its strategic review, it said, as it looks for a new chief executive. Tullow announced the review early in December following continued problems at producing fields in Ghana, with then-chief executive Paul McDade leaving the company. Tullow confirmed production in 2019 was at 86,700 barrels of oil per day, and it reaffirmed the 2020 guidance. Financially, Tullow guided for revenue in 2019 of approximately USD1.7 billion, gross profit of around USD700 million, and capital expenditure around USD490 million. However, Tullow will also be booking pretax impairments and exploration write-offs to the tune of USD1.5 billion, due to a USD10 per barrel fall in the company's long-term accounting oil price assumption and a reduction in reserves at the TEN field.
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Capita, up 4.0%. Goldman Sachs promoted the outsourcer to its Conviction Buy List.
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FTSE 250 - LOSERS
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Rathbone Brothers, down 4.5%. Jefferies started coverage on the wealth manager with an Underperform rating.
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OTHER MAIN MARKET AND AIM - WINNERS
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M Winkworth, up 8.5%. The estate agent said it expects annual profit and revenue to be ahead of market expectations. For 2019, M Winkworth said, with network revenue higher compared to that in 2018, pretax profit and revenue for the year is expected to be ahead of market expectations. Pretax profit for 2018 was GBP1.5 million on revenue of GBP6.0 million. Despite an uncertain and difficult year dominated by political developments, the group said revenue growth was driven through portfolio management, despite lower new franchise openings. There was also a stronger performance by Winkworth in the lettings and management sector, despite the effect of the tenant fee ban. Winkworth declared a quarterly dividend of 2.10 pence per share, bringing the total annual payout to 7.80p, up 4.7% from 7.45p the year before.
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OTHER MAIN MARKET AND AIM - LOSERS
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Ince, down 48% at 46.00p. The legal and professional services company said it intends to raise a total of GBP16 million through a placing, an open offer, and staff offer of shares, which will go towards reducing its debt and working capital purposes. Ince priced the placing at 45 pence per share, a 49% discount to its closing share price of 89p on Tuesday. The open offer will give qualifying shareholders the opportunity to subscribe for 4.4 million shares at the same price per share as the placing, on the basis of 1 open offer share for every 8.398 existing shares. The staff offer also is for 4.4 million shares at 45p each. Proceeds from the placing will go towards reducing the amount of Ince's drawn down working capital facility, as well as general working capital purposes as expansion requires.
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Quiz, down 11%. The fashion retailer reported "lower than anticipated" sales in the Christmas period amid footfall declines and difficult trading conditions in the UK. In the seven weeks to January 4, revenue fell 9.3% from the year before, despite the company reporting that it was "pleased" with its Black Friday sales. Black Friday, which occurred later than usual in 2019 on November 29, sees retailers offer a flurry of promotional discounts. Quiz reported that online sales were down 15% year-on-year during the period. This was attributed to the company ending partnerships with third-party sellers. Quiz said: "As previously indicated, during the group's current financial year Quiz's stores and concessions have experienced a reduction in footfall compared to the prior year. This trend continued during the period resulting in revenue from the group's UK standalone stores and concessions decreasing by 7.0%."
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By Arvind Bhunjun; arvindbhunjun@alliancenews.com
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