Vodafone Share News (VOD)

LONDON (Alliance News) - The following stocks are the leading risers and fallers within the main London indices on Tuesday.
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FTSE 100 - WINNERS
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Taylor Wimpey, up 6.1%. The housebuilder said the UK new-build housing market remains "very positive", as it upgraded its dividend policy to pay at least GBP150.0 million in ordinary dividends per year, and increased its medium-term financial targets, resulting in a plan to pay out GBP1.30 billion in dividends between 2016 and 2018. The company said it has a strong order book position, with over 70% sold for 2016 private completions as at the end of April 2016, and said this positions it well for the remainder of the year. Liberum upgraded Taylor Wimpey to Hold from Sell, following the "confident" update ahead of the housebuilder's Investor Day later Tuesday. "The step-up in dividend is also a strong sign of confidence," Liberum noted.

DCC, up 4.1%. The sales, marketing, distribution and business support company said it expects to deliver another year of profitable growth ahead as it reported a 47% rise in profit in its last financial year, beating market expectations and prompting a large increase in its full-year dividend. DCC said its adjusted earnings per share rose by over 27% to 257.1 pence in the year to the end of March from 202.2p in the previous year. This easily beat analysts expectations of 251.0p. Revenue in the year, however, remained flat at GBP10.60 billion. DCC increased its dividend by 15% to 97.22 pence per share from 84.54p.

Land Securities Group, up 2.6%. The property company said its pretax profit almost halved due to a reduction in the valuation surplus, but it raised its dividend on continued leasing momentum in its development programme and longer lease terms. The group reported a total business return of 13.4% for the year to March 31, with basic net asset value per share rising to 1,482.00 pence from 1,343.00p a year earlier and adjusted diluted NAV rising to 1,434.00p from 1,293.00p. Pretax profit fell to GBP1.34 billion from GBP2.42 billion a year earlier, despite a 10% increase in revenue profit to GBP362.1 million coming from strong net rental income, after the valuation surplus fell to GBP907.4 million, from GBP2.04 billion a year earlier. However, Land Securities raised its dividend for the year to 35.00p pence, from 31.85p a year earlier.

Vodafone Group, up 2.6%. The mobile operator reported annual results that fell just shy of market expectations, and guided for earnings growth in the year ahead. Vodafone reported earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation of GBP11.61 billion for its full financial year that ended in March, below the range of GBP11.7 billion to GBP12.0 billion that the company had guided and down from the GBP11.9 billion it reported the year before. This was on revenue of GBP40.97 billion, down from GBP42.23 billion in the previous year. Consensus expectations compiled by the company were for Ebitda of GBP11.64 billion, on revenue of GBP40.99 billion. Vodafone proposed a final dividend of 7.77 pence per share, taking its total dividend for the year to 11.45p, up from the 11.22p it paid in the previous year.
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FTSE 250 - WINNERS
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Lookers, up 8.4%. The motor retail and aftersales service group said it has made a good start to 2016 with positive results in the first quarter and therefore should meet current market expectations for the full year. Lookers said it achieved a strong performance in the three months ended March 31 with a particularly good performance in March. Total gross profit from new cars increased by 23% year-on-year in the motor division, or 5% on a like-for-like basis, while used cars gross profit also rose by 23%, or 7% on a like-for-like basis. The aftersales business, meanwhile, saw gross profit rise by 25%, also 7% on a like-for-like basis.

Aggreko, up 5.6%. The power generation and temperature control company was upgraded to Buy from Neutral by Merrill Lynch, according to traders.

BTG, up 2.8%. The specialist healthcare company said its profit more than doubled in the recently ended financial year following a large rise in revenue and said its cash balance also doubled in size over the course of the year. BTG said its pretax profit more than doubled in the year to the end of March to GBP57.5 million from GBP26.7 million as revenue increased to GBP447.5 million from GBP367.8 million a year earlier.
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FTSE 250 - LOSERS
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Halma, down 3.3%. UBS cut the health, safety and environmental technology group to Sell from Neutral.

ICAP, down 2.1%. The interdealer broker was downgraded to Neutral from Outperform by Exane BNP, according to traders. On Monday, ICAP announced plans to change its name, as profit and revenue for the year to the end of March declined. Having agreed to sell its hybrid voice broking and information arm to rival Tullett Prebon, ICAP said it will change its name to NEX Group after the deal completes later this year.

John Wood Group, down 1.4%. The oil and gas services stock was cut to Sell from Hold by Liberum. Last Wednesday John Wood said its earnings in 2016 are expected to be around 20% lower than 2015 as the conditions within the oil and gas market remains challenging. This prompted a downward revision to the broker's forecasts. "We still fear that the Engineering [division] is exposed to a continued slowdown in offshore markets and [its] Production Services Network may be unable to compensate fully if its own prices are under pressure," Liberum said.
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MAIN MARKET AND AIM - WINNERS
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Blinkx, up 19%. The internet media company reported a widened pretax loss for its most recently ended financial year, hit by one-off costs and a fall in revenue. Blinkx said it had achieved profitability in the third quarter, ahead of its expectations, but the fourth quarter had been hit by normal seasonality. For the full year to end-March, the company reported a pretax loss of USD94.3, widened from a pretax loss of USD24.8 million the previous year, as a fall in revenue to USD166.7 million from USD215.0 million was only partly offset by lower operating costs.

Georgia Healthcare Group, up 18%. The Georgia-based healthcare company reported a rise in pretax profit in the first quarter of 2016, helped by a strong performance in its healthcare services business, and gave a bullish forecast for the year ahead. The company reported a pretax profit of GEL12.7M for the quarter to end-March, up from GEL6.9 million in the first quarter of 2015, on revenue of GEL71.7 million, up from GEL53.9 million. At current exchange rates, this is equivalent to a pretax profit of GBP4.0 million, up from GBP2.2 million, on revenue of GBP22.5 million, up from GBP17.0 million.

Circle Oil, up 6.7%. The oil and gas company said the infill drilling programme on the North West Gemsa field in Egypt has been competed. Circle said the second of the two production wells on the site, AASE-24, has been drilled to target depth, completed and tied into the production infrastructure. A well test started this week on AASE-24, and the well has flowed at an average 1,714 barrels of oil per day and 3.062 million cubic feet of gas per day. The well will be produced at a lower rate in order to best manage the long-term field production, Circle said.
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MAIN MARKET AND AIM - LOSERS
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Ten Alps , off 40%. The television and multimedia content producer warned that the turnaround of its loss-making publishing business is taking longer than expected, and as a result the company's full financial year performance will "fall materially behind" market expectations as it prepares to post another loss. "Whilst the company does not yet have total visibility on its full-year results, the directors believe that the company will fall materially behind market expectations for the year ending June 2016," Ten Alps said. The company added it is in advanced discussions about disposing certain parts of its publishing business as it tries to restructure and refocus the business on the remaining parts of the unit.

Lakehouse, down 31%. The housing maintenance contractor said challenges in its regeneration division meant it was revising down its full-year expectations for underlying profit, following a difficult first half in which it was hit by headwinds across its businesses combined with internal disruption. Lakehouse posted a pretax loss of GBP1.8 million for the six months to March 31, compared to the GBP1.2 million profit it reported for the same period a year earlier, while underlying pretax profit, stripping out exceptional and other items, fell 45% to GBP4.7 million from GBP8.6 million. Lakehouse said it was proposing an interim dividend of 1.00 pence per share. No dividend was paid for the corresponding period a year earlier.

Crossrider, down 26%. The digital advertising firm said it now expects its 2016 earnings and revenue to be around a quarter lower than they were in 2015. Crossrider said that structural changes in the markets in which it operates have "negatively impacted" its outlook for future trading, and mobile revenue growth rates have "declined significantly", particularly in mobile subscription campaigns, which have been hit by increased regulation in some countries. Additionally, revenue from monetising web applications through advertising is in decline, Crossider said, at a rate with is "significant and notably faster than previously expected".
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By Arvind Bhunjun; arvindbhunjun@alliancenews.com; @ArvindBhunjun

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