UK WINNERS & LOSERS: Dixons, Carphone Warehouse Rise On Merger Talks

LONDON (Alliance News) - The following stocks are the leading risers and fallers within the main London indices midday Monday.

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FTSE 100 - WINNERS

Vodafone Group, up 6%. Vodafone's shares have jumped after the 6-for-11 consolidation of its share capital became effective and trading in the new shares began. The group now has 28.81 billion shares in issue, which includes 2.37 billion shares held in treasury. The number of voting rights in the company is now 26.44 billion.

Bunzl, up 5.5%. The distribution and outsourcing company reported strong growth in profits and revenues in 2013, driven mainly by further acquisitions. The company, which is highly acquisitive, spent GBP295 million on 11 acquisitions in 2013 alone. That helped push up revenues to GBP6.1 billion, from GBP5.36 billion in 2012, with only 2% of that coming from organic growth. Pretax profit rose to GBP289.9 million, from GBP263.8 million, with margins also improving. Separately, Bunzl said it had bought Dusseldorf-based hygiene and healthcare supplies distributor Bäumer Betriebshygiene Vertriebsgesellschaft mbH and its related company Protemo GmbH in Germany. It has also bought Prague-based Oskar Plast sro, which sells disposable packaging products to customers throughout the Czech Republic

Old Mutual, up 0.4%. The group's majority-owned South African banking subsidiary, Nedbank Group, has reported a 16% rise in annual headline earnings, driven by higher revenues and a slower increase in impairments than in net interest income. Nedbank reported ZAR8.67 billion in headline earnings for 2013, compared with ZAR7.48 billion in 2012. It also declared an increase in its dividend to 895 cents a share from 752 cents the year prior.

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FTSE 100 - LOSERS

HSBC Holdings, down 3.6%. Although the bank's pretax profit rose by 9.3% in 2013, it fell short consensus expectations. HSBC said it made a USD22.57 billion pretax profit for 2013, compared with USD20.65 billion the year prior. Analysts, however, had been forecasting USD24.68 billion in pretax profit.

RSA Insurance Group, down 2.7%. The group said on Sunday that it is considering a number of measures, including a rights issue, in order to raise the capital it needs to boost its balance sheet. RSA is widely expected to cancel its dividend as it struggles with the aftermath of a discovery of a GBP200 million hole in its balance sheet last year, it said no final decision has been made on how to raise the capital it requires.

Associated British Foods, down 2.6%. The group said its sugar business is struggling to deal with unsustainable low sugar prices, and as a result, revenue, profit and margins from its sugar division will be substantially lower than last year. However, it is confident that this weakness will be offset by strong 13% sales growth from its clothing retailer Primark and good performances from its grocery and ingredients divisions.

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FTSE 250 - WINNERS

Dixons Retail, up 4.9%, and Carphone Warehouse Group, up 1%. Shares in the two companies have shot higher after Dixons confirmed that they are in merger talks with the mobile phone retailer. However, it said the talks are at a very preliminary stage, and that there is no certainty a deal will be done.

Bovis Homes Group, up 1.1%. Jefferies has raised Bovis Homes Group's price target to 1,168.00 pence from 1,036.00p, saying that the housebuilder's trading has been "very positive" in the early stage of 2014.

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FTSE 250 - LOSERS

Essar Energy, down 1.8%. The company's shares have been hit after its independent directors said the 70 pence a share bid made by the company's majority shareholders undervalues the business. The bid by Essar Global Fund Ltd., owned by brothers Shashi and Ravi Ruia, was criticised heavily by the company's minority holders for undervaluing Essar and treating minority holders unfairly.

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AIM - WINNERS

Nyota Minerals, up 20%. The gold exploration and development company has developed a renewed strategy to focus on exploration, following the sale of a majority stake in its Tulu Kapi project in Ethiopia during December. It said its start focus is exploration at its 100% owned Northern Block exploration tenements, which were unaffected by its recent sale.

SacOil Holdings, up 12.4%. Shares in SacOil jumped in early trading before being suspended at the request of the company pending an announcement.

Omega Diagnostics, up 12%. The company has announced that it has been granted a USD600,000 grant from Burnet Institute Melbourne and global health initiative UNITAID to build an assembly facility in India for its Visitect CD4 test. The Burnet Institute was awarded a USD1.6 million UNITAID grant to initiate field evaluations in India and South Africa. Omega is working as a partner with Burnet on this project. Separately, Omega said it has made progress in its programme to launch a panel of 40 allergy tests on Immunodiagnostic Systems Holdings PLC's IDS-iSYS automated analyser. IDS-iSYS is used to detect particular substances in samples to aid diagnosis or monitor a disease.

DekelOil, up 12%. The palm oil project operator said it has raised GBP700,000 by placing 46.7 million shares at 1.5 pence each, most of which went to Africa-focused fund Nubuke. DekelOil is entering an expansion phase after starting production at its 60 tonnes an hour crude palm oil extraction mill. Shares in the company are quoted at 1.705p.

Clean Air Power, up 6.9%. The firm said it has received an order for 50 Genesis-EDGE, Dual-Fuel trucks from Sainsbury's. The group did not disclose the financial details of the deal, but it comes just weeks after Clean Air received an order for 19 trucks from an unnamed distribution company in the UK for GBP500,000. The trucks will be fitted with Clean Air Power's Genesis-EDGE system and delivered to Sainsbury's in the first half of the year.

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AIM - LOSERS

Paragon Resources, off 13%. The diamond development and production company said its 85% owned subsidiary Meso Diamonds has now finalised the terms and conditions of the Mining Lease Agreement for the mining of the Lemphane Kimberlite Pipe in Lesotho. The new deal allows it to initiate preparations for, and commence its stage 1 production at Lemphane.

Karelian Diamond Resources, off 10%. The diamond mining company's pretax loss widened during its first-half as operating expenses jumped during the company's development phase. Its pretax loss widened to EUR96,610 for the six months ended November 30, compared with a pretax loss of EUR72,545 in the same period during 2012.

Wildhorse Energy, down 8%. After jumping at the London equity market open, Wildhorse Energy is now amongst the biggest fallers in the index. Its share price has dropped after it signed a binding heads of agreement to sell its underground coal gasification assets to Linc Energy Ltd for AUD4.04 million. Wildhorse will hold an interest in its Mecsek Hills Uranium Project in Hungary after the deal, but its shareholders would also keep exposure to the coal gasification assets because Linc would pay for the assets by issuing a stake to Wildhorse Energy.

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By James Kemp; jameskemp@alliancenews.com; @jamespkemp

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