UK WINNERS & LOSERS SUMMARY: Future Surges As It Sees Results In Line

Fri, 20th Mar 2020 10:49

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

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FTSE 100 - WINNERS

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InterContinental Hotels Group, up 11%. The Holiday Inn and Crowne Plaza owner said demand is currently at the lowest level it has ever seen. To combat this, IHG is hoping to save about USD150 million through salary cuts, including "substantial" reduction in salary and incentives from its board and executive committee. Also, IHG will pull its final dividend of 85.9 US cents - saving about USD150 million - and said it will delay any further dividends until "visibility has improved". The hotel owner will also delay renovations and relax brand standards. Turning to trading, IHG said its global revenue per available room was down 6% in January and February, with a flat performance in the US being offset by a catastrophic drop in Greater China. In February, RevPAR in Greater China was down 90% year on year.

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Carnival, up 5.2%. The cruise operator said revenue for the first quarter increased 2.1% to USD4.8 billion from USD4.7 billion a year ago. However, Carnival swung to a first-quarter loss, with earnings dented by disruption due to the early days of the current Covid-19 pandemic. The company recorded a GAAP net loss of USD781 million, or USD1.14 per share, for the quarter ended February 29. This compares to net income of USD336 million, or earnings per share of USD0.48, for the first quarter a year ago. The impact of Covid-19 on the first quarter's net loss was around USD0.23 per share, the firm said, taking into account cancelled voyages and disruptions. Carnival said Covid-19 will have a "material negative impact" on its financial results and liquidity.

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FTSE 250 - WINNERS

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Future, up 30%. The media company said declines in its travel magazine portfolio have been offset by its grocery titles, resulting in "strong" digital audience numbers. "The period started well with exceptionally strong digital audience numbers with the resultant beneficial flow through to eCommerce and digital advertising," Future said. As a result, the company expects its results for the six months to the end of March to be in line with internal expectations. "The recent weeks have been unprecedented. However, our business has continued to trade robustly, with the diversified strategy working well. As of today, we have seen limited impact on our digital revenues," Future said. Despite the "robust" trading, Future said it is implementing some profit protection measures.

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JD Wetherspoon, up 27%. The pub chain operator reported a rise in profit and revenue in the first half of its financial year, but has cancelled its dividend due to the uncertainty surrounding the Covid-19 outbreak. In the 26 weeks to January 26, Wetherspoon's recorded pretax profit of GBP57.9 million, up 15% from the GBP50.3 million seen in the same period the year before. Revenue was 4.9% higher year-on-year at GBP933.0 million from GBP889.6 million. Like-for-like sales in the first half of the financial year were 5.0% higher. Like-for-like bar sales increased by 4.2%, food sales by 5.6% and fruit/slot machines by 20%. Like-for-like hotel room sales decreased by 1.3%, however. Bar sales were 60% of total sales, Wetherspoons noted. Despite the strong performance, the bar owner has cancelled its interim dividend - owing to the uncertainty caused by the spread of Covid-19.

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FTSE 250 - LOSERS

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Inchcape, down 3.1%. The automotive retailer said it will suspend its share buyback programme due to uncertainty arising from the Covid-19 outbreak. Inchcape has completed around GBP25 million of the GBP150 million repurchase programme but will serve notice to its brokers to terminate the buyback effective from next Tuesday. "Inchcape has a strong balance sheet and remains committed to its disciplined capital allocation policy, but the board believes this is the right decision at this time," the company said. As at the end of 2019, the company had cash of GBP423.0 million with total assets valued at GBP4.46 billion.

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OTHER MAIN MARKET AND AIM - WINNERS

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Faron Pharma, up 16%. The Finnish drug discovery company said its assets increased to EUR1.6 million in 2019 compared to just EUR400,000 reported a year earlier. As at December 31, the company said it had cash balances of EUR7.1 million compared to EUR4.1 million the year before. As a result, pretax loss narrowed to EUR13.3 million from EUR20.1 million year-on-year. The company did not generate any revenue during the year as it is currently focused on the development of Clevegen, a novel cancer immunotherapy.

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OTHER MAIN MARKET AND AIM - LOSERS

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Christie Group, down 5.5%. The financial services provider said it expects its 2019 results to be in line with expectations. The company said it has benefited from the profitable sale of an office building, as mentioned in our Interim results statement. However, Christie noted that its business - which operate in the hospitality, retail, medical and educational fields - took a hit from the Covid-19. This is primarily as a result of having limited access to certain of its clients' premises. "It is not currently possible to quantify the full effect of Covid-19 related disruption on our business for 2020 or beyond," said Christie in its statement Friday.

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Tracsis, down 1.7%. The traffic data provider said it is not possible to accurately quantify the impact on the second-half trading and therefore full year expectations amid rapidly changing situation with coronavirus. Tracsis said it expects the Rail Technology & Services division to have resilience as it derives most of its income from highly recurring product sales. However, parts of the Traffic & Data Services division are forecast to be hurt by Covid-19. In particular, the company's events businesses SEP and CTM both derive a significant amount of revenue from major UK based outdoor events, and in recent days Tracsis said it has been notified by some major clients that events scheduled for this summer will either be cancelled or postponed to the autumn. Tracsis said it expects further events to be cancelled or postponed in due course.

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By Evelina Grecenko; evelinagrecenko@alliancenews.com