UK WINNERS & LOSERS: Airlines Outperform On Ryanair Update

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 WINNERS
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EasyJet, up 2.4% and International Consolidated Airlines Group, up 0.4%. The airlines are up after Irish peer Ryanair Holdings raised its guidance for the current financial year, after reporting strong growth in profit and revenue in the first half, driven by higher passenger numbers, average fares and lower fuel costs.

Standard Chartered, up 0.6%. Non-executive directors at the Asia-focused bank are intending to meet with the bank's chairman to discuss a succession plan to replace Chief Executive Peter Sands next week, the Financial Times reported on Friday. Some of the biggest shareholders in the bank have either told or plan to tell Chairman John Peace that he would accelerate a plan to replace Sands, the FT said, citing two people familiar with the discussions. However, Standard Chartered's management team received the backing of the bank's second-largest shareholder, Aberdeen Asset Management, whose Chief Executive Martin Gilbert called on his counterpart Sands to "address the bank's current issues and deal with them now".

Carnival, up 0.4%. The cruise company unveiled the cruise industry's first-of-its-kind hybrid wireless network, an enhanced high-speed service to eventually be rolled out to all 101 of its ships on all nine of its brands. According to the company, this technology innovation is expected to revolutionise how millions of its passengers stay in touch during their cruise and generate even greater interest in cruise vacations, especially among the tech-savvy millennial generation.
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FTSE 100 LOSERS
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Royal Bank of Scotland Group, down 1.8%. Investec has cut the bank's rating to Sell from Hold, and raised its price target to 370.00 pence from 360.00p, saying that there are short-term selling opportunities on the stock. RBS currently trades at 382.28p.

HSBC Holdings, down 1.7%. The largest London-listed bank, by market capitalisation, reported a rise in pretax profit in the third quarter, but also joined peers in reporting large provisions for matters including UK customer redress and regulatory investigations into alleged manipulation of the foreign exchange market. HSBC said it made a USD4.61 billion pretax profit in the third quarter, compared with USD4.53 billion last year. However, operating expenses increased to USD11.09 billion from, USD9.58 billion, as it set aside USD701 million in provisions for UK customer redress, including a further USD589 million for possible mis-selling in previous years of payment protection insurance policies. The bank also took a charge of USD378 million relating to the "estimated liability" in connection with the ongoing foreign exchange investigation by the UK Financial Conduct Authority, following similar moves by US and UK peers.
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FTSE 250 WINNERS
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Ophir Energy, up 3.9%. The company confirmed it is in talks with Salamander Energy about a possible all-share takeover deal for the South-Asia exploration and production company after an initial approach last month. Ophir said the combined company would have a strong balance sheet, with operations in both Africa and South East Asia, and would be well-placed to strengthen exploration of Salamander's BlockG4/50 in Thailand and other Ophir assets in Myanmar and Indonesia. A combined company would have production, development and exploration exposure to 21 blocks in South East Asia, Ophir said.

Betfair Group, up 3.1%. The online bookmaker said revenue in the three months to October 31 rose 22% to GBP119 million, and revenue was up 13% when normalised for unusually high gross win margins. The period was boosted by an increase in customer numbers after a strong World Cup.
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FTSE 250 LOSERS
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AVEVA Group, down 4.2%. Goldman Sachs has downgraded the IT system provider to Sell from Neutral, with a price target cut to 1,420.00p from 1,950.00p. The stock currently trades at 1,472.00p.
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AIM ALL-SHARE WINNERS
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Forte Energy, up 67%. The company has seen its shares rise after it confirmed it has entered into a joint venture agreement with European Uranium to earn in on two uranium projects in the Slovak Republic.

Rangers International Football Club, up 12%. The Scottish football club has appointed Derek Llambias to its board as a non-executive director, the latest change at the top since Sports Direct International founder Mike Ashley started building his stake in the club. Llambias, who has been working as a consultant to the Rangers board since Tuesday last week, is the former managing director of Newcastle Football Club, which is itself owned by Ashley. Llambias is a long-time friend and associate of Ashley.

Kodal Minerals, up 10%. The company said it has found high-grade copper at the upper mine in the Grimeli prospect in Norway. The highest grade result from a series of underground channel samples taken from the upper mine returned a grade of 7.24% copper over 1.74 metres, it said. Kodal said it is now planning to start a drill programme to explore the areas to the east, west and below the current sampled area.

Kea Petroleum, up 10%. The company said its pretax loss narrowed significantly in its most recent financial year on the back of a jump in revenue and much lower writedowns on exploration assets. Kea's pretax loss for the year to May 31 was GBP3.8 million, reduced from the GBP9.3 million loss posted last year. The loss in 2013 was pushed higher by the GBP7.2 million writedown the company took on exploration assets, a number which fell to only GBP1.6 million this year. Revenue for the company was up to GBP2.1 million from GBP829,000 a year earlier on the back of increased sales of hydrocarbons associated to production from the Puka-1 and Puka-2 wells in New Zealand.

CloudBuy, up 7.6%. The cloud e-commerce company said it has signed a three-year contract with an unnamed financial institution in Hong Kong, with the number of suppliers on the contract increased since the contract was first announced last month. The company said the deal with the unnamed financial services company to provide a branded e-commerce marketplace has been signed, with the number of business-to-business suppliers on the platform increased to approximately 8,500.
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AIM ALL-SHARE LOSERS
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Touchstone Gold, off 14%. The company said it is in late-stage talks over a possible investment in a technology company, which it will fund from existing cash resources. Touchstone did not provide any financial details on the potential deal, nor define the target.

Dart Group, down 13%. The company said it has set aside GBP17 million in the current financial year to cover potential historical claims related to a claim for compensation after one of its Jet2.com aircraft was delayed by a technical hitch, and it is facing costs of between GBP3 million and GBP5 million a year in future years. The news comes after the Supreme Court rejected Jet2.com's appeal of an earlier decision made by the Court of Appeal.
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By Neil Thakrar; neilthakrar@alliancenews.com

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