UK Winners & Losers: Pharmas Struggle; Tullow Oil Leads After Discovery

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

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FTSE 100 - Winners

Tullow Oil, up 2.4%, is the biggest gainers on the FTSE 100. The oil and gas exploration company has reported that the Wisting Central exploration well offshore Norway, in which it has a 20% interest, has made the first ever oil discovery in the Hoop-Maud Basin in the Barents Sea, and will now pursue an exploration and appraisal follow up.

Easyjet, up 1.1%, continues to rebound, albeit at a slower rate, following Ryanair's Wednesday profit warning triggered a dramatic fall in share prices for the majority of airline companies.

Marks & Spencer, up 1.1%. The retailer continues to benefit from HSBC upgrading the company to Overweight from Neutral, with a new target price of 550 pence, rising from 490p, following the introduction of new and improved general merchandising collections.

Diageo are up 0.9% as a result of Citi raising the company's recommendation to Buy from Neutral, increasing the target price to 2,320 pence from 1,830p. Citi is very positive about the long term outlook for spirits in emerging markets and believe that "Diageo is well placed to capture the lion's share of the growth", owing to the fact that it has the strongest routes-to-market in most emerging market regions.

Centrica, up 0.6%. The energy firm announced Thursday that its North American subsidiary Direct Energy has agreed to acquire US-based home services business AWHR America's Water Heater Rentals LLC from MWHR, a US-based investment entity, for GBP19 million in cash plus working capital. The acquisition will provide Direct Energy with an expanded product range and the opportunity to grow its customer base further in the US, offering rentals alongside heating, air conditioning, plumbing and electrical services across its growing North American franchise business, Centrica said.

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FTSE 100 - Losers

Fresnillo, down 2.6%, and Randgold Resources, down 1.6%, are the biggest two losers on the FTSE 100. With intervention in Syria still uncertain the mining sector has suffered with the vast majority of its constituents losers.

GlaxoSmithKline, down 0.7%, and Shire, down 0.8%, are big fallers on the FTSE 100 as members of the pharmaceutical sector continue to struggle following GSK's release of disappointing results of tests of a new melanoma treatment drug.

Vodafone, down 0.6%. Continued volatility following the huge USD130 billion sale of its 45% stake in its joint-venture with Verizon.

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FTSE 250 - Winners

Thomas Cook, up 5.4%, is the biggest gainer on the FTSE 250. The travel company's share price continues to rise following a sudden drop on Wednesday in reaction to Ryanair's profit warning.

Lancashire Holdings, up 3%. The insurance company has approved the proposed acquisition of Cathedral Capital Limited, a Lloyd's insurer, at a special general meeting. "This is a rare opportunity to acquire a high-quality Lloyd's business with short-tail focus, strong business model fit and robust underwriting performance." Chairman Martin Thomas said.

Bwin.party, up 1.9%. Having been a massive loser last week, the digital entertainment company continued their recovery following the announcement that their new poker website has gone live. However, the company still have a long way to go to regain the loses made last week after it said that revenues fell 16% in the first half of the year and would fall further in the full year.

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FTSE 250 - Losers

Supergroup is down 2.6%, falling from Thursdays high, following a reported jump in first-quarter sales.

John Laing Infrastructure Fund, down 2.2%. Investors have reacted negatively to the announcement that the closed-end investment company would raise between GBP100 million and GBP240 million through a share placing to fund the acquisition of a portfolio of three public-private partnership projects for GBP103 million and to refinance existing bank facilities.

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AIM - Winners

@UK, up 18%. The company is one of the biggest gainers on the AIM All-Share after announcing it has signed an exclusive partnership with Visa Inc. to launch its cloudBuy e-marketplace platform in Asia-Pacific. @UK Chief Executive Lyn Duncan said that this deal allows the company to expand their cloud-based e-marketplace value propositions to organizations across the world.

Eurasia Mining, up 7.9%. The mining company continues to experience a positive outcome following Monday's announcement that it had taken a number of positives from its recent drilling campaign to confirm a potential platinum metals resource in Russia.

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AIM - Losers

Blavod Wines and Spirits, down 20%, is by far the biggest loser on the AIM All-Share index. Share price continues to fall following the announcements on Wednesday that its operating loss widened in its recent fiscal year due to acquisition costs and as it continued to make a trading loss from its operations. Its net loss was GBP738,000, wider than the GBP501,000 loss it recorded last year as revenues declined to GBP3.8 million, from GBP4.6 million.

Red Leopard Holdings, down 19%. Investors react negatively to the news that Red Leopard Holdings had conditionally agreed to acquire special-purpose vehicle Red Leopard Mining Inc. for GBP600,000 in a reverse takeover involving the issuance of 33.3 million new Red Leopard Holding shares at 1.8 pence per share. Red Leopard Holding also said it had placed 70.0 million new shares at 0.5 pence per share to raise GBP350,000. The money raised will be used to start exploring the claims held by Red Leopard Mining and to provide working capital.

Bullabulling Gold, down 14%. After being a big winner on Wednesday, following the company reporting that it had begun a 1,600 metre drilling programme at its Gibraltar trend in Australia, Bullabulling is one of the biggest losers on the AIM All-Share index as it falls from Wednesdays highs.

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By James Kemp; jameskemp@alliancenews.com

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