WINNERS & LOSERS SUMMARY: Babock Drops After Earnings Decline

LONDON (Alliance News) - The following stocks are the leading risers and fallers within the main London indices on Wednesday.----------FTSE 100 - LOSERS----------Marks & Spencer, down 4.5% at 259.60 pence. The food, clothing and homewares retailer reported a drop in revenue, cut its dividend and announced the terms of its rights issue. For the financial year to the end of March, revenue declined by 3.0% during the year to GBP10.38 billion from GBP10.70 billion reported a year earlier. The company highlighted sales in the final quarter of its financial year were hurt by store closures in the UK and the timing of Easter. However, pretax profit rose 27% to GBP84.6 million from GBP66.8 million a year earlier, thanks to the company's ongoing transformation programme. M&S cut its dividend by 26% to 13.9 pence from 18.7p paid the year before. M&S said it intends to raise GBP601.3 million through a rights issue, which will result in the issue of 325.0 million new shares at a price of 185 pence each. The rights issue price represents a discount of 32% to Tuesday's closing price of 271.2p per share. The fundraising was launched to finance the creation of a 50/50 joint venture with online grocer Ocado, announced in February. ----------FTSE 250 - WINNERS----------IG Group, up 12%. The online trading company issued a strategy update the company hopes will drive growth in the medium term. IG, for the purposes of its updated strategy, has split itself into two divisions: Core Markets and Significant Opportunities. In particular, IG said it has identified a potential opportunity to participate in the leveraged securities market for retail clients in Hong Kong. The company will "pursue partnerships" to assess the opportunity. IG added that it expects its trading revenue to be down sharply in financial 2019 due to the "low levels of volatility and market activity". IG expects its net trading revenue to be down 17% in the twelve months to May 31 compared to the year before. The company reiterated it expects to maintain its dividend at 43.2 pence per share, until its earnings allow the company to resume progressive dividend payments.----------Pets at Home Group, up 9.3%. The pet products retailer said its profit fell sharply in its most recently ended financial year, while revenue increased on higher demand for dog food and toys. The pet supplies retailer reported pretax profit of GBP49.6 million for the 52 weeks to March 28 compared to GBP79.6 million reported for the same period a year earlier, despite revenue climbing by 6.9% to GBP961.0 million from GBP898.9 million. On a like-for-like basis, revenue grew by 5.7%. Looking forward, the company said it expects to see revenue growth in its current financial year, as it continues to improve customer offer and take share. ----------Intermediate Capital Group, up 6.3%. The asset manager said financial 2018 was an "excellent year", one in which its two business saw strong underlying growth. At March 31, Intermediate Capital's assets under management stood at EUR37.08 billion compared to EUR28.70 billion the year prior, a 29% jump. Closing third-party fee-earning assets under management were up 41% at EUR29.6 billion, resulting in a 32% increase in third-party fee income. The company hiked its total dividend by 50% to 45.0 pence from 30.0p the year before.----------FTSE 250 - LOSERS----------Babcock International, down 9.8%. The engineering services firm reported declines in profit and revenue and a weak outlook. For the year ended March, pretax profit narrowed 30% to GBP235.2 million from GBP337.7 million the year prior after revenue fell 4.1% to GBP4.47 billion from GBP4.66 billion the year before. Profit performance was also hurt by a rise in administration costs and GBP160.8 million in one-off charges related to impairments of the oil & gas unit, restructuring costs and pension charges. In financial 2020, Babcock expects underlying revenue to be around GBP4.9 billion with underlying operating profit between GBP515 million and GBP535 million. In financial 2018, the firm generated GBP588.4 million operating profit on revenue of GBP5.16 billion. Compounding its woes, JPMorgan cut the stock to Neutral from Overweight.----------Acacia Mining, down 5.5% at 151.1p. The gold miner received an all-share takeover offer from Canadian parent Barrick Gold Corp for the rest of the company's shares, both companies announced. Barrick is offering 0.153 of a new Barrick share per Acacia share. Barrick already owns 64% of Acacia, whose shares closed flat Tuesday at 159.50 pence each. Barrick said the deal values Acacia at USD787 million, and the stake under offer at USD285 million. Acacia's market capitalisation in London was GBP654.1 million at Tuesday's closing price. Acacia is considering the offer, it said, as Barrick continues to make "significant progress" in coming to terms with the government of Tanzania over Acacia's problems in the country. Acacia, which is not party to the talks, did say the government has warned it will not sign any resolution if Acacia is one of the counterparties to the agreements. ----------OTHER MAIN MARKET AND AIM - WINNERS----------Superdry, up 8.5%. The fashion retailer said it has appointed Nick Gresham as interim chief financial officer. Gresham is currently CFO at online sport and cycling retailer Wiggle, and has previously held the same role at Oak Furnitureland and Connect Group. He will take up the role at Superdry on June 3. In addition, Liberum raised the stock to Buy from Hold. ----------OTHER MAIN MARKET AND AIM - LOSERS----------Ryanair Holdings, down 1.8%. HSBC cut the Irish carrier to Reduce from Hold. Earlier this week, Ryanair reported a significant fall in profit in a year which saw many EU airlines struggle due to higher oil prices and lower fares in a competitive market. It also warned of "zero" visibility on its results beyond the next few months. ----------