Victoria Share News (VCP)

LONDON (Alliance News) - The following stocks are among the biggest risers and fallers within the main London indices late-morning Wednesday.
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FTSE 100 WINNERS
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Royal Mail, up 3.4%. The postal services group was upgraded to Neutral from Sell by UBS. Although there are many challenges facing the company, particularly a highly unionised work force during a time of change in the industry, UBS says that this is already reflected in the current share price. Along with the upgrade, the bank reduced its price target to 400p from 450p. Royal Mail closed Tuesday at 392.2p.
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FTSE 100 LOSERS
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Morrisons, down 4.4%; Sainsbury's, down 3.7%; Tesco, down 2.9%. The bad news just keeps coming for the supermarkets. Sainsbury's Wednesday cut its like-for-like sales forecast for the second half of the year, after it said trading in the second quarter slumped. The supermarket also admitted that the sector is going through a big change as consumer shopping habits have shifted and price deflation has set in. Chief Executive Mike Coupe told journalists Wednesday the UK grocery market is facing its most challenging times in his 30 years in the industry. "Customers now have more choice than they have ever had before, and they are shopping around now more than ever before," he said. On top of that, Tesco has said that it is under investigation by the UK Financial Conduct Authority following last week's admission that it found a GBP250 million black hole in its first half profit estimates.

BG Group, down 3.4%; Tullow Oil, down 1.4%. The oil producers are underperforming after the price of Brent oil fell to a fresh two-year low overnight, reaching USD94.24 a barrel.
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FTSE 250 WINNERS
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Countrywide, up 6.3%. The estate agent said it has decided to accelerate its capital returns policy and will Wednesday commence a share repurchase programme for up to GBP20 million. The company said it continues to target a dividend of between 35% and 45% of 2014 reported group profits after tax but before any amortisation.

St Modwen Properties, up 3.0%. St Modwen said it expects pretax profit for the full year to November 30 to be "materially ahead" of 2013, having increased beyond existing market consensus. The company, which specialises in regenerating brownfield land across the UK, said improvement in the commercial property market continues to "gather momentum", and there is a noticeable acceleration in tenant enquiries across its sites, while occupancy levels remain high.
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FTSE 250 LOSERS
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UBM, down 4.4%. The publishing company said it will acquire events and marketing business VSS-AHC Consolidated Holdings Corp, also known as Advanstar Communications, for a total of USD972 million. The acquisition will be funded via a new USD100 million bridge facility and a GBP563 million rights issue to be launched in November. UBM plans to host a markets day ahead of the rights issue, where Chief Executive Tim Cobbold will set out its strategy for growth.

Zoopla Property Group, down 2.8%. Shares of the property search website company, which only joined the FTSE 250 two weeks ago, have seen a little softness after Goldman Sachs initiated analyst coverage on the stock with a Neutral rating and a price target of 242p. Zoopla shares closed Tuesday at 236.6p.
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AIM ALL-SHARE WINNERS
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Graphene Nanochem, up 16%. The speciality chemicals company said it has received its second commercial order for the PlatQuartZ Series oilfield chemicals product. The new order, valued at USD5.6 million, was made by Scomi Oiltools Sdn Bhd for dispersion into water and oil-based drilling systems and deployment to an unnamed national oil company. The second order is for 2,640 drums of the chemical, representing a six-fold rise on the first commercial order of 380 drums, Graphene said.

Victoria, up 15%. The carpets and floor-coverings manufacturer said it has issued 100,000 new shares at 323.5 pence a share to various sellers of the Abingdon Flooring business it recently acquired. In a statement, the carpets and floor-coverings manufacturer said the shares were not part of the consideration it paid for Abingdon, but were being taken as an investment by the various sellers, "reflecting their confidence in the future of the company". The shares were issued at Wednesday's closing price of 323.5p. Cantor Fitzgerald is encouraged by the recent acquisition and has raised its price target on the stock by 45% to 420p from 290p.
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FTSE ALL-SHARE LOSERS
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London Mining, down 23%. The mining group's shares are heavy fallers for the third consecutive day after it raised financing concerns Monday, saying that it does not have sufficient liquidity to continue trading without further financing.

Ferrum Crescent, down 14%. The South Africa iron ore developer reported a wider pretax loss of USD2.6 million for the year ended June 30, compared with the USD1.9 million loss a year earlier, as revenue, which comes from interest received, fell to USD35,844, from USD86,285. It also booked a USD304,600 loss resulting from a re-measurement of its assets and liabilities, compared with a USD608,414 gain in fiscal 2013.

Blinkx, down 14%. The online video advertising company has seen its shares fall as it warned that revenue had continued to slow in its second quarter. As a result of this slowdown, Blinkx now expects revenue in the half year to end-September to be between USD102 million to USD104 million, lagging behind USD111.6 million a year before. It said it expects its earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, amortisation, acquisition charges and exceptional costs to be approximately break even.
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By Jon Darby; jondarby@alliancenews.com; @jondarby100

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