(Alliance News) - The following stocks are the leading risers and fallers within the main London indices on Tuesday.
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FTSE 100 - WINNERS
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BT Group, up 2.2%. Barclays raised the telecommunications firm to Equal Weight from Underweight.
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FTSE 100 - LOSERS
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Fresnillo, down 4.2%, and Polymetal, down 2.0%. The two were lower after a strong start to the week on record gold prices. Gold was quoted at USD1,930.97 an ounce Tuesday, soft on USD1,937.08 on Monday. The precious metal closed in on the USD2,000 mark late Monday, trading just above USD1,980 an ounce. Separately on Tuesday, Fresnillo posted an increase in revenue and profit despite lower ore yields, thanks to rising silver and gold prices in the first half of 2020. The Mexican miner said its pretax profit in the half year to June 30 was up 137% at USD127.9 million, despite taking a hit of USD31.8 million from a revaluation of the Silverstream contract as well as USD41.0 million lost from foreign exchange. Fresnillo said it will be pay an interim dividend of USD0.023 per share, a 12% reduction from USD0.026 a year prior, paid from the remaining balance of retained earnings generated before 2014. Revenue rose 5.2% at USD1.05 billion versus last year's USD1.00 billion. Both Fresnillo and Polymetal shares had closed up 7.1% on Monday.
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FTSE 250 - WINNERS
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Games Workshop, up 9.1%. The miniature wargames manufacturer celebrated an "amazing set" of annual results, with revenue climbing despite being faced with weeks of lockdown measures in the UK. In the year ended May 31, revenue climbed 5.1% to GBP269.7 million from GBP256.6 million. The company's pretax profit rose 10% to GBP89.4 million from GBP81.3 million. Chief Executive Officer Kevin Rountree said: "An amazing set of results - the best year in Games Workshop's history, so far. You can once again see from these results that our business and the Warhammer hobby are in good shape." The company said it lost six weeks of sales and profit due to the lockdown, with its retail channel the hardest hit. It was forced to turn to the UK government's furlough scheme but added it will repay the cash drawn down under the programme.
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Greencore, up 7.1%. The convenience foods maker said it has agreed to sell its interests in its molasses businesses to United Molasses Marketing (Ireland) and United Molasses Marketing for around GBP15.6 million in cash. Greencore said the core activities of its molasses trading businesses - namely Premier Molasses Co and United Molasses (Ireland) - are the import and distribution of animal feed across Ireland. The approximately GBP15.6 million proceeds from the sale will help strengthen Greencore's balance sheet provided anti-trust authority approval is obtained. In the year ended September 2019, Greencore's interests in its molasses trading businsses represented GBP6.0 million of its pretax profit. Net of all non-controlling interests, Greencore's share of profit after tax from these businesses came to GBP3.1 million. Separately, Greencore issued a trading statement in which it said demand has made a "progressive improvement" in its third quarter. The trading statement said that for the 13 weeks ended June 26, its third quarter, revenue fell 36% on a pro forma basis and down 34% year-on-year at GBP240.6 million. For the nine months to June, reported revenue was down 11% and was 12% lower on a pro forma basis at GBP953.3 million.
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FTSE 250 - LOSERS
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Greggs, down 3.0%. The baker said sales slumped in the first half with shops closed for most of the second quarter due to Covid-19. Total sales in the half were GBP300.6 million, down 45% on GBP546.3 million a year ago. Company-managed shop like-for-like sales slumped 49%. This saw the sausage roll maker swing to a pretax loss of GBP65.2 million from a GBP36.7 million profit a year prior. The closure of shops resulted in a number of one-off costs, Greggs said, with the total charge for write-offs and provisions for unusable stock being GBP9.0 million. The weekly cash outflow during the closure period, after support and mitigating actions, was GBP4.4 million per week. The FTSE 250 company did not declare an interim dividend. A year ago, Greggs returned 35.0p per share to shareholders in a special payout, on top of an interim dividend of 11.9p.
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OTHER MAIN MARKET AND AIM - WINNERS
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Card Factory, up 7.7%. The greeting cards retailer said store sales have exceeded initial expectations, with like-for-like sales since reopening down 22% compared to an anticipated 50% reduction in the first month of reopening. Although the number of in-store transactions has fallen, reflecting footfall levels, the average spend has increased by a quarter. "The board is pleased with the trading performance since stores have reopened; however, it is far too soon to determine whether initial trading reflects the release of pent-up demand following lockdown or the point at which consumer footfall and sales (both transactions and average spend) will settle to a sustainable level," said Card Factory.
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By Lucy Heming; lucyheming@alliancenews.com
Copyright 2020 Alliance News Limited. All Rights Reserved.
Greggs (GRG)
Games Workshop (GAW)
Fresnillo (FRES)
BT (BT.A)
Card Factory (CARD)
Greencore (GNC)