Wood Group (J) Share News (WG.)

LONDON (Alliance News) - The following stocks are amongst the biggest risers and fallers within the main London indices midday Monday.
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FTSE 100 LOSERS
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BG Group, down 1.3%, and Royal Dutch Shell 'B', down 1.2%. The companies are trading lower following another fall in the price of oil to a new five-and-a-half year low. At its lowest point Monday, Brent fell to USD48.52 a barrel, its lowest level since the end of April 2009.

Taylor Wimpey, down 0.7%. The housebuilder is trading lower despite reporting strong growth in completions and average selling prices for 2014, and saying it is entering 2015 with a record order book, giving it confidence in its prospects as it starts the first year of its new medium-term target period. Taylor Wimpey said it completed 12,454 homes in 2014, up 6% from 11,696 in 2013, and it achieved an average selling price of GBP234,000, up 11% from GBP210,000 a year earlier.
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FTSE 250 WINNERS
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AO World, up 7.3%. The online domestic appliances retailer said website revenue rose 38% in its fiscal third quarter which includes the key Christmas trading period, with sales spiking around Black Friday but remaining strong in the run-in to the festive season. It added that it remains confident that it will meet full-year expectations.

Hikma Pharmaceuticals, up 2.8%. The company said it will now prepare to launch its colchicine 0.6 milligram capsules, after Takeda Pharmaceuticals USA Inc failed in its bid to block the distribution of the capsules. The US District Court for Delaware had denied Takeda's motion for a preliminary injunction in relation to the distribution of Hikma's colchicine capsules, and Himka said Monday that Takeda was unsuccessful in appealing this decision.
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FTSE 250 LOSERS
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Afren, down 21%. The oil and gas explorer said it is considering its options for the Barda Rash field in the Kurdistan region of Iraq after the reserve estimate for the prospect was revised down substantially. Afren said an updated competent person's report on the Barda Rash field is expected to show a material reduction to its previously-published estimates on reserves and resources. The explorer said it expects the total reserve estimate for the field to be revised down to 250 million barrels of oil from 1.24 billion barrels previously.

Hunting, down 8.5%, John Wood Group, down 4.9%, SOCO International, down 4.0%, AMEC Foster Wheeler, down 3.6%, Petrofac, down 3.5%, and Premier Oil, down 3.5%. The oil-related stocks are lower following another drop in the price of oil and price target cuts from Goldman Sachs. In addition, Barclays cut its ratings for Hunting and Wood Group to Equal Weight in a review of the oil services and drilling sector, and resumed coverage of Amec Foster Wheeler with the same Equal Weight rating. The bank says oil price volatility, estimates that still embed uncertainty, and fluid capital investment plans of the oil industry are all reasons to wait and see, but the picture is becoming clearer and it sees reasons not to be overly pessimistic.

Synergy Health, down 2.4%. The health services company said the US Federal Trade Commission has requested additional information from both it and STERIS Corp in regards to STERIS's proposed USD1.9 billion cash and share takeover offer for the company.
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AIM ALL-SHARE WINNERS
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Quindell, up 30%. The insurance claims processing company made two appointments to its board, said trading remains "robust" and said it remains in talks over the sale of a still-unnamed part of its business. Quindell said it has named Richard Rose as its non-executive chairman and has hired Jim Sutcliffe as its deputy Chairman and strategy director. In addition to the appointments, Quindell said it has entered into a deal to receive consultancy services from BaxterBruce Ltd. That will see the company work with Marisa Cassoni, the former Royal Mail finance director, and John Tomlins, a former colleague of Sutcliffe, as its consultants.

Active Energy, up 22%. The company said it has won two high-volume wood-chip supply contracts for 2015, will expand its Ukraine-based production capacity, and has introduced a new wood chip product line. Active Energy said it has signed two new supply contracts with Yildiz Entegre, a leading MDF maker in Turkey. Under the deals, Active Energy will deliver up to 300,000 metric tonnes of hardwood wood chip and a further 300,000 metric tonnes of its new line of softwood wood chip.

Fastjet, up 20%. The African low-cost airline said it had made its first profit before interest and tax in December, as revenue and passenger yield soared due to strong demand over the holiday season and its fuel costs fell. The company said yield per passenger was up 20% on the year in December and total revenue more than doubled. Its Tanzanian operations carried 65,653 passengers in the month, up 75% on the year, while load factor, a measure of how full its planes are, rose two percentage points to 76%.

Thor Mining, up 15%. The company posted an upgraded feasibility study for the Molyhil tungsten project in Australia which confirmed the attractive economics of the project and an early payback on the capital required for development. The study indicated a project payback period of 18 months after the payment of royalties and taxation on the project.

Nationwide Accident Repair Services, up 14%. The company said it expects 2014 underlying pretax profit to beat its own expectations after a strong finish to the year, and for its net cash position to be "significantly" ahead of forecasts. It expects 2014 revenue to be about GBP184.0 million, up from GBP156.6 million in 2013, and its net cash position at the end of the year to be about GBP1.5 million, down from GBP6.3 million at the end of 2013 after net outflows of more than GBP13.0 million relating to the acquisitions of Howard Basford and Gladwins.

NetDimensions Holdings, up 12%. The software and services company said in a trading update that its full year loss before interest and some non-cash items for 2014 is likely to be smaller than current market expectations. The company expects to post a full-year 2014 generally accepted accounting principles revenue of over USD22 million, which it said is ahead of consensus forecasts of USD20 million. It said that sales revenue and invoiced sales for 2014 are likely to be "substantially higher than for the prior year".
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AIM ALL-SHARE LOSERS
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Ncondezi Energy, off 21%. The company said it has only managed to raise GBP760,000 from an open offer that was announced in December, less than a quarter of the company's target. In December, the company said it was hoping to raise GBP3.4 million from the open offer to shareholders, which closed last Friday. The offer resulted in the company raising GBP760,000 after shareholders applied for 13.2 million shares at 5.78 pence per share. This represents only 22.29% of the shares offered under the open offer.

Daily Internet, down 15%. The web hosting and cloud infrastructure company said it has repaid GBP170,000 of its 2015 convertible notes. Following the repayment, the company will have GBP105,000 nominal of 9% convertible loan notes 2016 in issue, it said. The 2016 notes have a redemption date of January 8, 2016.

Aurasian Minerals, down 13%. The company said talks on the sale of its stake in the Wamum gold-copper project in Papua New Guinea are progressing slowly. Aurasian still expects to sign a deal in the near future. The company also said Tony Shearer will step down as chairman as Aurasian moves towards the exploration phase.
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By Neil Thakrar; neilthakrar@alliancenews.com

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