Wood Group (J) Share News (WG.)

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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Persimmon, up 4.8%. Persimmon said its pretax profit surged in 2015 following a very strong year for the UK housebuilding industry, with revenue up and operating margins improving as it sold more houses at higher prices. The group said its pretax profit for the year to the end of December was GBP637.8 million, up from GBP475.0 million a year earlier, as its total revenue for the year increased to GBP2.9 billion from GBP2.6 billion. Persimmon said it will accelerate its capital return programme and will now return 110.0 pence per share in cash to shareholders by the start of April, a massive rise on the 10.0p it had been intending to return under its original plans. The total value of its capital return programme has been increased to GBP2.76 billion, up from the GBP1.90 billion it had outlined back in 2012.

InterContinental Hotels Group up 3.6%. The hotel operator said its operating profit rose but revenue dipped in 2015 as it hiked its dividend on its confidence for the coming year and declared a special payout as well. IHG said its operating profit rose to USD680.0 million in the year to the end of December from USD651.0 million a year earlier, despite revenue dipping to USD1.80 billion from USD1.86 billion, due to the sale of two hotels in Paris and Hong Kong. Pretax profit, which includes proceeds from the two hotel sales, came in at USD1.41 billion, up from GBP600 million in 2014. Revenue per available room rose 4.4% on a comparable basis in for the year, though this slowed to 2.4% in the fourth quarter, with growth across all its operation regions. Net room growth for the year hit 4.8%, it said.

Provident Financial, up 3.4%. The subprime lender said it has made a "good start" to 2016, with its Vanquis Bank credit cards business and vehicle finance provider Moneybarn trading strongly and "very satisfactory" collections for its home credit business. The update on trading in the first few weeks of the year came as Provident reported that pretax profit grew to GBP273.6 million in 2015, from GBP224.6 million in the prior year. The lender increased its dividend for the year as a whole by almost 23% to 120.1 pence from 98.0p.
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FTSE 100 - LOSERS
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Standard Chartered, down 5.9%. The emerging-markets focused bank swung to an annual loss in 2015, with the bank hit by restructuring costs and falling commodity prices, and said it expects a "subdued" financial performance in the current year. The bank, which is known for lending to Asia and emerging markets, swung to a USD1.52 billion pretax loss in 2015, versus a pretax profit of USD4.24 billion the prior year, as operating income fell by 15% to USD15.44 billion and operating expenses fell by 2.5% to USD10.48 billion. Restructuring costs amounted to USD1.85 billion. Impairment charges on bad loans almost doubled.

BHP Billiton, down 4.0%. The miner said slashed its dividend by more than half and adopted a payout ratio as it posted a swing to a massive loss in the first half of its financial year, in line with the ongoing turmoil hitting the mining sector. The group said it made an earnings before interest and tax loss of USD7.03 billion in the first half to the end of December, compared to USD7.93 billion a year earlier, as revenue dropped 37% to USD15.71 billion. BHP's attributable loss to shareholders in the half was USD5.67 billion, swung from a USD4.27 billion profit. In line with the dividend cut announced by rival Rio Tinto, BHP slashed its total dividend payout 74% to 16.0 cents per share from 62.0 cents the year prior.

GKN, down 3.3%. The engineering company guided to a tougher year for its aerospace business and continued difficulties in its land systems arm, though profit and revenue for 2015 both increased. GKN said it remains confident on its prospects for growth in 2016, helped by good conditions for its Automotive division and the integration of Fokker Technologies. However, the company said aerospace markets have entered a transition phase over to new programmes by the big manufacturers and the overall market in 2016 is set to be slightly weaker than in 2015.
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FTSE 250 - WINNERS
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Morgan Advanced Materials, up 6.9%. The ceramic products manufacturer said its pretax profit pushed higher in 2015 due to lower one-off charges, but its underlying profit and revenue both fell amid tough market conditions. Pretax profit for the year was up to GBP59.0 million from GBP31.5 million, mostly as a result of it booking a GBP22.1 million one-off charge in its results in 2015, compared to GBP51.9 million a year earlier. Its underlying pretax profit, stripping out the one-off items, fell to GBP88.2 million from GBP91.6 million as its revenue dipped to GBP911.8 million from GBP921.7 million.

John Wood Group, up 6.1%. The oilfield services and engineering firm said it plans to continue growing its dividend despite reporting a large decline in profit in 2015 as the ongoing rout in the oil and gas sector continues. John Wood saw its pretax profit from continuing operations in 2015 plummet to USD138.6 million from USD475.1 million as revenue fell to USD5.85 billion from USD7.61 billion. However, the company still significantly raised its dividend for the year to 30.3 cents per share - more than 10% above the 27.5 cents paid in 2014. More importantly, it said there is "no change to our dividend approach" and said it intends to grow the dividend this year by a "double-digit percentage".

Meggitt, up 6.7%. The aerospace and defence components maker said its pretax profit edged higher in 2015 thanks to growth in revenue and said it is confident on its prospects for 2016 despite experiencing a tough past year. The group said its pretax profit for the year to the end of December rose to GBP210.2 million in 2015 from GBP208.9 million in 2014, while revenue rose to GBP1.65 billion from GBP1.55 billion.

Ladbrokes up 6.1%. The betting chain reiterated its outlook for 2016 as it swung to a pretax loss in 2015 as a result of heavy exceptional costs and an increase in gambling taxation, though it said it remains focused on reaching or exceeding its financial targets for 2017 and said its merger with Gala Coral remains on track. The company undertook a "short and intense" internal review, and in July set out a three year investment programme to build its UK retail, digital and Australian recreational customer base. However, Ladbrokes said its second half results gave it encouragement that its strategy is working, and said its current year has started well, as the "unpredictability of the football season has thus far favoured bookmakers".
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FTSE 250 - LOSERS
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Drax Group, down 1.5%. The coal-fired power station operator said its strong operations mitigated severe market deterioration and difficult regulatory challenges in 2015, but Drax still reported large falls in profit and earnings, leading to a more than 50% dividend cut. The company said its pretax profit in 2015 plummeted to GBP59.0 million from GBP165.9 million in 2014 despite reporting a huge rise in revenue to GBP3.06 billion from only GBP2.80 billion. Drax slashed its dividend for the year to only 5.7 pence from 11.9 pence - in line with its policy to pay 50% of underlying earnings to shareholders, which dropped to GBP46.0 million in 2015 from GBP96.0 million.

Genus, down 1.2%. The animal genetics company said its performance in its first half was "overall in line with expectations" for its full year, and proposed a 10% increase for its interim dividend as it reported a fall in pretax profit. Genus reported a pretax profit of GBP12.9 million for its half year to end-December, down from GBP28.6 million a year before, as revenue declined to GBP188.3 million from GBP198.5 million. Genus attributed its fall in revenue to its exit from its Génétiporc Quebec business and lower pig slaughter prices in North America.
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MAIN MARKET AND AIM - WINNERS
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Image Scan Holdings, up 23%. The X-ray imaging technology company expressed optimism for its first half performance on GBP1.0 million of new orders. This adds to GBP600,000 in orders that were carried forward from the previous year to end-September. Back at the time of reporting its full year results in December, Image Scan reported a widened pretax loss which it attributed to the delayed availability of its new portable X-ray systems. In a statement ahead of its annual general meeting, Image Scan said it has sped up promotion of its portable X-ray products with exhibitions, demonstrations and customer trials. Additionally, its new Precision Linescan Detector project, supported by UK government grant funding, is on schedule.

Regency Mines, up 48% at 0.924p. The miner joined the string of AIM-listed companies involved in the Horse Hill project in southern England, completing its purchase of a stake in the project. The company completed the purchase of a 5% stake in Horse Hill Development, one of the owners of the Horse Hill project, from Angus Energy for a total of GBP400,000. Of the total consideration, GBP223,730 has been paid in cash. That deal was originally announced Monday, and Regency is partly paying the consideration through the issue of 54.2 million new shares to Angus Energy at a price of 0.325 pence each. In addition, Regency has provided Angus with options over another 17.9 million shares which can be exercised at 0.39 pence each within the next 18 months.

Coms, up 13%. The 'smart building' services company said its Redstone division has won a contract to design and install an in-building cellular system in London. The system will allow people to use their mobile phones and mobile-connected devices where signal would otherwise be a problem. The project is worth around GBP750,000 and will cover the UK headquarters of an existing, unnamed Redstone client.
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MAIN MARKET AND AIM - LOSERS
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Stanley Gibbons Group, down 32%. The rare stamps and collectibles retailer said it is in the process of raising funds to back a restructuring and said trading has remained tough, leading it to forecast a full year loss. The group said it is in the process of raising around GBP10.0 million in new fundraising through an equity issue, which will be used to support a restructuring of the business to cut costs, complete the integration of previous acquisitions and provide further working capital. The group said it has continued to see lower revenue across the business, with sales of rare collectibles to high net worth clients weaker than expected and trading very difficult in its interiors division. It added the recent acquisitions it has made had missed synergy targets and it has made continued investments in its online platform, further depressing margins.
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By Arvind Bhunjun; arvindbhunjun@alliancenews.com; @ArvindBhunjun

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