WINNERS & LOSERS SUMMARY: ICAP Jumps As Tullett Prebon Confirms Talks

LONDON (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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CRH, up 3.7%. The Irish building materials company was boosted by the US House of Representatives passing a new Highway Bill. The US House of Representatives passed on Thursday in Washington a new six-year Highway Bill entitled 'Surface Transportation Reauthorisation and Reform Act' by 363 against 64 votes. "This is a significant positive for CRH, which is the largest provider of raw materials into this end-market," said Barry Dixon, an analyst at broker Davy Research.

International Consolidated Airlines Group, up 2.3%. upgraded its long-term guidance on returns and margins and announced a reshuffle of its management team. IAG said it has upgraded its sustainable return on invested capital target for 2016 to 2020 to 15% from 12% previously. It has also upgraded its guidance on operating margin target to between 12% and 15%, up from 10% to 14% previously, and is now targeting average annual growth in its earnings per share over the five-year period of 12%, compared to 10% before. IAG also said its group traffic, measured in revenue passenger kilometres, rose 17% in October to 20.7 billion, up from 17.8 billion a year earlier. On a pro-forma basis, including the results from recently acquired Aer Lingus, traffic increased 7.6%.
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FTSE 100 - LOSERS
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BHP Billiton, down 4.3%. The mining giant said it "understands" there has been a "serious incident" at the iron operation in Brazil operated by its partner Samarco Mineracao. BHP holds a 50% stake in Samarco and said it is "concerned for the safety of employees and the local community", but did not reveal any details over what the incident was or any further details. The iron ore operation is in Minas Gerais state in Brazil and is a joint venture with Brazilian iron-ore giant Vale.

Burberry Group, down 1.7%. The luxury goods company was trading lower on a read-across from the weak outlook by Swiss peer Richemont. Shares in Richemont plunged after it posted a surprise fall in sales for October and said the head of its Cartier jewellery and watch label has left the business, leaving the unit without a leader going into the key Christmas period.
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FTSE 250 - WINNERS
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ICAP, up 7.2%. Tullett Prebon said it is in talks to acquire ICAP's global broking business. The interdealer broker said that the talks also cover ICAP's associated technology and broking platforms, including iSwap and Fusion, its associated information services revenue and some of its joint ventures and associates. New shares would be issued by Tullett Prebon to its rival to finance the deal. "It is envisaged that Tullett Prebon would issue more than 100% of its existing share capital as consideration, and the transaction would be structured such that the majority of such new Tullett Prebon shares would be distributed to ICAP's shareholders, with ICAP retaining a minority stake in the enlarged Tullett Prebon," the company said in a statement. ICAP also confirmed the talks. Tullett shares were up 1.5%.
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TalkTalk Telecom Group, up 4.1%. The telecommunications company provided another update on the extent of the recent cyber attack on the company, repeating that while financial details of its customers had been accessed, no money could be stolen by using this data. TalkTalk said the total number of customers whose personal details were accessed in the hack was 156,959, of which 15,656 had their bank account numbers and sort codes accessed. The 28,000 obscured credit and debit card numbers which were accessed cannot be used to make financial transactions, the company said. TalkTalk said its investigation into the attack has confirmed the scale of the breach was much more limited than initially expected and only around 4.0% of its customers had their details accessed.
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FTSE 250 - LOSERS
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Amec Foster Wheeler, down 5.3%. After its profit warning on Thursday, the engineering stock was downgraded by Citigroup and UBS to Neutral from Buy, with its price target cut by four other brokers.

Synthomer, down 4.0%. The specialty chemicals company said it has continued to make progress in line with its expectations in 2015 and said it remains focused on cost controls and improving margins. Synthomer said its expectations for 2015 are unchanged and that improvements in margins and tight cost controls will continue to drive its performance in Europe and North America. In Asia and the Rest of the World, Synthomer said its plans to increase nitrile production in the second half of 2016 will hit the supply-demand dynamics of that market and will leave volumes and margins broadly flat year-on-year.
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MAIN MARKET AND AIM - WINNERS
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Pantheon Resources, up 15%. The oil and gas company said it has found a new oil and gas bearing zone on its acreage in the US that is separate from its existing targets. The company has been drilling the VOS1 well on its acreage in Tyler County in the US with the aim of testing the Eagle Ford/Woodbine sandstone and the Austin Chalk. However, on Friday, Pantheon said it has encountered another oil and gas bearing zone at 12,600 feet which is in addition to those primary and secondary targets, which has flowed natural gas and oil. Pantheon did not state how much oil and gas the new zone has produced.

Darty, up 10%. The electricals retailer and France's Group FNAC said they have reached an agreement on a possible takeover bid for Darty valuing the company at around GBP615.0 million. The pair first disclosed the talks in September and have since been discussing a possible takeover. The two said they have agreed to an offer comprising one FNAC share for every 37 Darty shares. Based on the closing price of FNAC shares on Thursday, which would value Darty at around 116.0 pence per share, a 47% premium to its closing price on September 29, the day before the talks started.
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MAIN MARKET AND AIM - LOSERS
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Reach4Entertainment Enterprises, down 14%. The media and marketing company said it has proposed a series of amendments to restructure its GBP14.8 million loan facility with Irish lender AIB Group. Under the terms of the amendment, ABI will no longer convert GBP5.2 million worth of the debt into shares in Reach4Entertainment or receive a European put option on the shares. Instead, it will be granted warrants over the same value of shares, exercisable within five years at a price equal to the group's proposed equity fundraising, which it still remains in talks on. AIB is considering the proposals, Reach4Entertainment said.

Falanx Group, down 9.5%. The security and risk management consultancy said Executive Chairman Karl Barclay will retire from the role in March 2016. Barclay founded Falanx's Stirling Assynt subsidiary and has been executive chairman of the business since it listed on AIM in 2013. The group has started the search for a non-executive chairman to replace Barclay.
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By Sam Unsted; samunsted@alliancenews.com; @SamUAtAlliance

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