UDG.L Share News (UDG)

LONDON (Alliance News) - The following stocks are amongst the biggest risers and fallers within the main London indices midday Tuesday.
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FTSE 100 WINNERS
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Barclays, up 3.7%. The bank has been upgraded by Morgan Stanley to Overweight from Equal Weight.

CRH, up 3.5%. The Irish building materials company continues to perform well on the back of its agreement with Lafarge and Holcim under which it will buy a range of assets. The company was upgraded to Buy from Hold by Societe Generale.

Intertek Group, up 3.0%. The inspection and testing services company said it has acquired Adelaide Inspection Services Pty for AUD12 million in cash. AIS provides non-destructive testing services primarily to the power generation sector, along with support services to construction, oil, gas and mining industries.
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FTSE 100 LOSERS
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Aberdeen Asset Management, down 3.6%. The asset manager said assets under management dropped slightly in the first quarter of its financial year as weak investor sentiment hit inflows in December, although it said flows returned to more normal levels in January. However, it's also expecting demand for investment products to remain volatile due to continued volatility in global markets.

Associated British Foods, down 1.1%. The company said it will write down its investment in wheat-fed bioethanol joint venture Vivergo Fuels, and will book an exceptional charge of GBP98 million in its first-half results as a result.

Capita, down 0.7%. The outsourcing company said it has agreed to buy customer contact management services company avocis for EUR210 million on a cash-free, debt-free basis. It said it was buying the company from an unnamed private equity owner and said avocis has a leading position in the customer contact management sectors in Germany, Switzerland and Austria.
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FTSE 250 WINNERS
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Hunting, up 10%, Premier Oil, up 8.4%, SOCO International, up 6.9%, Ophir Energy, up 5.4%, and Petrofac, up 5.2%. The oil related stocks are up due to the continued rise in oil prices. Brent currently trades at USD56.89 a barrel, having touched its highest level since January 2 earlier Tuesday.

Britvic, up 5.3%. The drinks company has been upgraded by Barclays to Overweight from Equal Weight, with a price target increase to 800.00 pence from 725.00p. The stock currently trades at 747.00p

UDG Healthcare, up 5.0%. The healthcare services provider said it expects to see its constant currency earnings per share, adjusted for amortisation and exceptional costs, to rise between 5% and 8% in its current year.
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FTSE 250 LOSERS
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NMC Health, down 1.9%. Goldman Sachs has cut the company to Neutral from Buy.

TalkTalk Telecom Group, down 1.3%. The telecommunications company said it expects its full-year earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation to be at the lower end of market expectations as a result of buying Tesco's loss-making Blinkbox business, and due to lower cost savings than planned.
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AIM ALL-SHARE WINNERS
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Churchill Mining, up 29%. The company said it is seeking to replace its lawyers, Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan LLP, with Clifford Chance LLP, in the ongoing arbitration dispute with the Indonesian government.

SyQic, up 14%. The company said it has inked a deal with Singapore-based streaming website Viki Inc to make its television shows and films available to SyQic customers, and said it is re-branding its recently acquired Maaduu service as 'cool2vu.' SyQic's partnership with Viki could lead to a buy-out or investment by Japanese internet services giant Rakuten if the deal is a success, according to Allenby Capital's head of research.

TomCo Energy, up 12%. The company said it has reached an agreement with environmental group Living Rivers over the Holliday shale gas project in Utah. TomCo said Living Rivers has now withdrawn its objection to the project after TomCo agreed it would not start commercial-scale construction at the project until the results of the early production system capsule for Red Leaf Resources Inc are made available. Red Leaf's project is near the Holliday prospect.

Rose Petroleum, up 9.2%. The company said mud logs from a recently drilled well at its Uinta Basin site in Utah indicated the presence of oil and gas throughout the shale and in a deeper conventional reservoir, while it is also set to start earning revenue at its Mina Charay gold mine in Mexico from March. The resources company said it had successfully drilled the State 1-34 Mancos well in the Uinta Basin to 3,200 total depth and the mud logs indicated oil and gas throughout the Mancos shale. It also thinks there's 84 feet of potential net oil play in the conventional reservoirs below the Mancos across a 600 foot total interval.

Zambeef Products, up 8.3%. The company said it will sell its Zamanita Ltd subsidiary to Cargrill Holdings BV, a unit of US agriculture group Cargill Inc, for USD25.7 million in cash. Zamanita is an edible oil and soybean producer based in Zambia. Zambeef said the proceeds from the sale will be used for general working capital needs and to reduce its debt.
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AIM ALL-SHARE LOSERS
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Premier African Minerals, off 15%. The company said it has signed a GBP1 million convertible loan note financing deal with Darwin Strategic Ltd to finance its RHA Tungsten project in Zimbabwe, but said there remains a USD2 million shortfall still to cover. Under the financing deal, the convertible note will be divided into 40 individual notes with a par value of GBP25,000 each. Darwin also has been issued warrants to subscribe to 40 million new shares in Premier African at an exercise price of 1.25 pence per share.

Oregen Gold, down 13%. The company reported good results from its drilling programme at the Mutsk gold project in Armenia, but said it has issued shares to its joint venture partner to continue work at Mutsk at a big discount. Oregen said it has issued 110.9 million shares to its US joint venture partner on Mutsk, Georaid CJSC, under the deal between the two to allow Orogen to continue exploration at Mutsk beyond the end of December 2014. The agreement between the two means Orogen had to issue shares up to the value of USD100,000, giving an issue price of 0.009 cents per share, or 0.006 pence per share.
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By Neil Thakrar; neilthakrar@alliancenews.com; @NeilThakrar1

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