UK WINNERS & LOSERS: Shire Gains As Takeover By AbbVie Confirmed

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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Shire, up 1.6%. Following weeks of speculation that has seen Shire gain about 40% in value, US suitor AbbVie has confirmed that the two companies have agreed on a takeover deal that values Shire at about GBP32 billion. The agreement will give Shire shareholders GBP24.44 in cash and 0.8960 of an AbbVie share for each Shire share. The agreement comes after a series of proposals from AbbVie, which Shire rebuffed on three separate occasions. The agreement is the latest of a number of "tax inversion" deals that has seen US companied re-domicile abroad to take advantage of lower corporate tax rates.

Severn Trent, up 0.9%. The water company is seeing a rebound after falling amid a wider equity sell-off Thursday that saw it lose 1.7%. In a statement Thursday, management said it has been trading in line with expectations in recent months.

British Land, up 0.4%. Barclays upgraded its price target on the real estate investment company by 35%, to 936 pence from 695 pence. The bank said it expects the British Land to outperform as the value of its underlying real estate values continue to increase.
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FTSE 100 - LOSERS
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Barratt Developments, down 2.6%. The housebuilder suffered a downgrade to Hold from Buy by Liberum Capital Friday. In a note on the whole sector, Liberum was positive about the outlook for the housebuilders over the coming year, saying that the market has been overestimating the risk of a near-term UK interest rate rise and that mortgage lending should begin to rise again. Even so, the brokerage lowered its price targets on most of the stocks in the sector to take account of recent weakness and said it has concerns over Barratt Development's relative valuation.

UK Banks: RBS, down 2.0%; Lloyds, down 0.9%; HSBC, down 0.7%; Barclays, down 0.2%. The banking sector is under pressure after the UK Competition Markets Authority recommended an in-depth market investigation into the retail banking sector, saying that essential parts of it do not meet the needs of its customers. The big four banks account for more than 75% of all UK current accounts and, in a worst case scenario for the banks, the CMA could recommend that they are broken-up to increase competition from smaller financial service providers.
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FTSE 250 WINNERS
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Carphone Warehouse, up 3.3%; Dixons Retail, up 2.3%. The shareholders of the two retailers voted overwhelmingly in favour of their proposed merger at their separate annual general meetings on Thursday. The deal will create a new giant of the UK high street, Dixons Carphone, which will own 1,298 stores in the UK, and almost 3,000 worldwide.

Hikma Pharmaceuticals, up 1.3%. Goldman Sachs upgraded the stock to Buy from Neutral, and also increased its price target by 20% to 2,250 pence from 1,800 pence
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AIM All-Share WINNERS
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Anglo Asian Mining, up 15%. The gold producer with operations in Azerbaijan said gold production for its second quarter ended June 30 increased 39% on the previous quarter and 77% on the previous year to 15,736 ounces, with the vast majority coming from its agitation leaching plant at the Gedabek project. The company also increased its copper production target due to strong production from its sulphidisation, acidification, recycling, and thickening (SART) processing operations.
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AIM All-Share LOSERS
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Ducat Ventures, down 29%. The investment company proposed the purchase of OptiBiotix Health Ltd, in a reverse takeover that will turn the investing company into a food science business to be called OptiBiotix Health PLC. In a statement, Ducat Ventures said that its broker, Peterhouse Corporate Finance Ltd, also has conditionally raised an additional GBP3.3 million before expenses for the company by placing 41.3 million new shares at 8 pence each. The net proceeds of the second issuance, estimated at GBP2.8 million, will be used to develop OptiBiotix products and for general working capital purposes.

PhotonStar LED Group, down 10%. The designer and manufacturer of smart LED lighting solutions said it has conditionally raised around GBP2.2 million through a placing of 31.4 million new shares at a price of 7 pence per share. The company said it will use the proceeds of the placing to maximise the commercial opportunities of its Halcyon system. Halcyon is a wireless retrofit lighting system that includes sensors and is controlled wirelessly by a powerful, low cost server.
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By Jon Darby; jondarby@alliancenews.com; @jondarby100

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