WINNERS & LOSERS SUMMARY: RBS Rises After Strong Annual Results

LONDON (Alliance News) - The following stocks are the leading risers and fallers within the main London indices on Friday.----------FTSE 100 - WINNERS----------Tesco, up 1.6%. The supermarket chain said its adoption new financial reporting standard IFRS 16 will have no real economic effect on the business, but it will increase reported operating profit while reducing pretax profit. Tesco added that the new reporting standard on accounting for leases will not affect sales or cash flow, nor how the business is run. The new accounting rule will change the way the assets, liabilities and the income statement of Tesco is presented, as well as on the classification of cash flow relating to lease contracts, the company explained. This means its first results under the new rules will be its financial 2020 first half results. For comparison purposes, Tesco said applying the rule to the first half of financial 2019 increases operating profit by GBP188 million to GBP1.21 billion, while reducing pretax profit by GBP101 million. ----------Royal Bank of Scotland, up 1.2%. The state-backed lender reported "strong progress" in 2018 as the lender posted its second consecutive year of profit, rewarding shareholders with a special dividend, but warned it may not yet be out of the woods, with further expected strategic costs in 2019. The bank's attributable profit for 2018 came in at GBP1.62 billion, beating consensus of GBP1.42 billion. In 2017, when RBS reported its first profit in a decade, the figure was GBP752 million. Net interest income for 2018 was GBP8.66 billion, against GBP8.65 billion consensus and GBP8.99 billion a year prior. RBS declared a 7.5 pence per share special dividend for 2018, and will pay a final dividend of 3.5p. Combined with the bank's 2.0p interim payout, the year's total payout is 13p. Peers Lloyds and Barclays, which report full year results next week, were up 1.1% and 0.9% respectively. ----------FTSE 100 - LOSERS----------Standard Life Aberdeen, down 5.8% at 234.05p. Major shareholder Mitsubishi UFJ Trust & Banking Corp said it sold its entire stake in the blue chip asset manager. Mitsubishi UFJ said it sold 148.6 million share, or 5.9% stake, at a price of around 234 pence each, worth GBP349.3 million. Mitsubishi UFJ has provided Aberdeen Asset Management products to its clients since the two companies formed a business alliance in 2008.----------FTSE 250 - WINNERS----------Restaurant Group, up 5.1%. The Frankie & Benny's, Chiquito and Wagamama restaurant chain owner was raised to Buy from Hold by Berenberg.----------Capita, up 4.0%. Barclays resumed coverage on the outsourcer with an Overweight rating. ----------Centamin, up 2.8%. The gold miner reported a doubling of the resource at one project and a maiden resource at another, both in the Ivory Coast. The resource at the Doropo project has risen by more than double, to 2.1 million ounces indicated gold and 800,000 ounces inferred. Doropo has 50 million tonnes of ore at a grade of 1.3 grammes of gold per tonne of ore indicated, and 19 million tonnes at the same grade inferred. Centamin completed 57,000 metres of drilling at Doropo during 2018. The new resource is within a six kilometre area, and is suitable for open pit mining, it said. ----------FTSE 250 - LOSERS----------Plus500, down 17%. The contract-for-difference provider said JPMorgan Asset Management Holdings reduced its stake in the company below the minimum threshold for disclosure. Prior to the transaction, which took place on Wednesday, JPMorgan held 5.6% of Plus500. According to the UK Financial Conduct Authority website, the minimum notifiable threshold is 3%. In addition, Plus500 could have misled investors over losses from client trading, the Times reported on Friday. In its 2017 annual results, the Times said, the company stated it had not suffered any losses from client trading activity. However, it actually took a USD103 million hit, the newspaper continued, with Plus500 only discovering the error on Tuesday this week, the same day it issued a profit warning for 2019. ----------Drax Group, down 7.0%. Citigroup cut the power company to Sell from Neutral. ----------OTHER MAIN MARKET AND AIM - WINNERS----------PowerHouse Energy, up 16%. The clean energy technology firm expressed confidence about signing a commercial contract in the near future. PowerHouse is developing a distributed modular gasification technology which can turn waste plastic into hydrogen which can be used, amongst other things, in vehicles. PowerHouse said there has been significant interest from potential customers, development partners, and contractors in the last few months for DMG projects, and it is confident it can soon sign a firm commercial contract which would generate revenue. It expects reaching a heads of terms agreement with "at least" one customer in the next three months. ----------OTHER MAIN MARKET AND AIM - LOSERS----------Premier Foods, down 5.9%. The Mr Kipling cake and Lloyd Grossman sauces maker abandoned plans to sell its Ambrosia custards business, citing an unhelpful business climate. The debt-laden food producer in November said it was in talks regarding the potential disposal of the Ambrosia brand. Premier Foods carried net debt of GBP509.5 million as at the end of September 29. "The board has concluded in the present business climate the process will not result in a satisfactory financial outcome. As a result, these discussions have now concluded," the company said.The scrapping of Ambrosia sale comes following the departure of its long-time Chief Executive Gavin Darby in January. Darby had been facing calls to step down over the company's strategy and heavy debt.----------