UK WINNERS & LOSERS: Bank Of Georgia Up On Possible Special Dividend

LONDON (Alliance News) - The following stocks are the leading risers and fallers within the main London indices midday Friday.
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FTSE 100 WINNERS
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BP, up 0.9%. The oil giant's shares have been oscillating between gains and losses as investors weigh up the potential damage of Thursday's court ruling in the US. The gains come on the back of a near 6% fall in the stock on Thursday. A number of brokers, including Goldman Sachs and Jefferies, have lowered their price targets on the stock to take account of a potential fine, which at current estimates could see BP having to add an extra USD8 billion to its provisions, which equates to about 5.5% of its market capitalisation.

Smith & Nephew up 0.2%. The medical devices company has agreed to pay a USD11.3 million fine to settle allegations that it sold the US government devices it claimed were made in the US, but actually came from Malaysia, Reuters reported late Thursday. The settlement was filed Wednesday, ending a whistle-blower lawsuit brought in 2008 by former Smith & Nephew information technology manager Samuel Cox, the report said.
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FTSE 100 LOSERS
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Rio Tinto, down 1.3% and BHP Billion, down 1.1%. The miners are both down as, according to ABC News, iron ore prices fell to a fresh five-year low.
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FTSE 250 WINNERS
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Bank of Georgia Holdings, up 2.2%. The company revealed that it will consider one-off special dividends in light of potential asset sales over the coming years, while it is also targeting initial public offerings for two of its business divisions. It said it expects to continue to scale up in its insurance and healthcare business division by acquiring hospitals, while aiming to IPO it during 2015. The company is also targeting an IPO of its affordable housing business - in which it is aiming for an internal rate of return of about 40% - as a fund in 2016/2017. Adding to the planned wave of corporate activity is a target to divest JSC Bank of Georgia's non-core subsidiary in Belarus, BNB, within the next two years.
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FTSE 250 LOSERS
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Foxtons, down 3.1%. The Financial Times reported Friday that BC Partners has sold a 7% stake in estate agency chain, cutting its holding in the company by half.
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AIM ALL-SHARE LOSERS
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Premier African Minerals, off 18%. The Western and Southern Africa-focused resources company has said it has adopted a phased implementation strategy of work programmes at the RHA Tungsten project in Zimbabwe, with production targeted for the first-half of 2015 and the estimate of potential early revenue from the site at up to GBP7.3 million. It said it has started an implementation strategy at the RHA Tungsten project consisting of four work programmes and targeting first production from the site in the first-half of 2015.

Boxhill Technologies, down 6.4%. The company's shares are down after shares that were issued after a loan it had was converted into shares started trading. A total of 28.8 million new shares were issued. It also said that its subsidiary SVS Securities PLC has completed the integration of Pay Corp's payment software platform into its foreign exchange trading platform business SVSFX.
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By Neil Thakrar; neilthakrar@alliancenews.com

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