WINNERS & LOSERS SUMMARY: Sportech Down As HMRC Pursues VAT Appeal

LONDON (Alliance News) - The following stocks are the leading risers and fallers within the main London indices on Monday.
----------
FTSE 100 - WINNERS
----------
Anglo American, up 7.5%, Rio Tinto, up 5.5%, BHP Billiton, up 5.3%, Glencore, up 4.9%, Antofagasta, 4.5%. The blue-chip index was supported by resource stocks as commodity prices rose due to a weaker dollar following poor nonfarm payrolls figures on Friday. "Mining stocks are topping the FTSE100 this morning as the commodities space benefits from a weaker US dollar basket. The currency’s reversal of recent strength comes in response to Friday’s surprisingly weak May US jobs report that must be considered a setback for Janet Yellen and her motley crew on the FOMC in terms of ability to tighten US monetary policy further this summer," said Mike van Dulken, head of research at Accendo Markets.

BP, up 1.6%, Royal Dutch Shell 'A', up 1.5%, Shell 'B', up 1.5%. The two oil majors were up on a higher crude price. Brent was quoted at USD50.12 a barrel compared to USD49.51 at the London equities close on Friday.
----------
FTSE 100 - LOSERS
----------
Easyjet, down 1.4%. The low cost carrier reported growth in the number of passengers it carried in May, but its load factor slipped year-on-year. The group said it carried 6.9 million passengers in May, a 5.7% increase on the 6.5 million it carried in the same month a year earlier. Load factor, however, slipped by 0.1 percentage point to 91.5% from 91.6%. easyJet noted that there were 173 cancellations during the month as a result of air traffic control strikes in France and bad weather conditions. British Airways parent International Consolidated Airlines Group was down 1.4%. On Friday, IAG had said its group traffic measured by revenue passenger kilometres rose 14% in May. Group capacity measured in available seat kilometres also rose 14%. On a pro-forma basis, taking into account the acquisition of Aer Lingus, traffic rose 4.4%, whilst capacity rose 4.5%.

Wolseley, down 1.3%. The stock was downgraded to Neutral from Overweight by JPMorgan following the plumbing and heating products supplier's trading update last week.
----------
FTSE 250 - LOSERS
----------
Indivior, down 9.7%. The specialty pharmaceutical company's shares were giving back some of the strong gains made late Friday. The stock had jumped 36% on Friday as it welcomed a favourable ruling from the District Court of Delaware on patent litigation for its key Suboxone Film for the treatment of opioid addiction.
----------
MAIN MARKET AND AIM - WINNERS
----------
Swallowfield, up 29% at 210.00 pence. The personal care and beauty products company said it is buying its peer The Brand Architekts for GBP11 million in cash. Swallowfield raised GBP8.6 million through a placing of shares at 155p each in order to fund the acquisition. The remaining balance will be funded by a new debt facility with HSBC Bank. Swallowfield will make an initial payment of GBP9.2 million, with the remaining GBP1.9 million to be paid on the first anniversary of completion. In financial 2016, Brand Architekts made revenue of GBP10.7 million and pretax profit of GBP2.0 million. Swallowfield expects the acquisition to be immediately earnings accretive.

Wishbone Gold, up 13% at 0.610p. The gold miner said it has secured a USD3.0 million two-year loan facility with Sanderson Capital Partners. The facility can be drawn down in USD100,000 instalments over the course of the maturity, Wishbone said. It carries a 2.0% interest rate per year, with 0.5% payable on each trade of precious metals where the facility is used either to support a letter of credit or in direct lending. The loan will expire on June 6, 2018. A 10% commitment fee for the loan will be payable in Wishbone shares, to which end the company will issue 3.8 million shares at 0.54p per share
----------
MAIN MARKET AND AIM - LOSERS
----------
Hardide, off 15%. The surface coating technology provider reported a significantly wider loss for the year to the end of March as the downturn in the oil and gas industry halved its revenue. Hardide said it made a pretax loss of GBP624,000 for the year to March 31, compared to a GBP68,000 loss a year earlier. Revenue declined to GBP949,000 from GBP1.8 million. The group had warned on its annual results in March, saying the weakness in oil and gas markets had hit demand for its products. The company said it is cutting costs in order to mitigate the effect of the oil and gas downturn and said it has made progress in its advanced engineering and aerospace sales.

Sportech, down 4.7%. The gaming company said the HM Revenue & Customs has applied directly to the Supreme Court for permission to appeal the UK Court of Appeal's ruling in favour of Sportech over a GBP97 million VAT repayment claim. Back in 2009, Sportech asked HMRC to repay more than GBP40 million in VAT that the company claimed it had overpaid on its Spot the Ball game between 1979 and 1996. It later took the case to a tribunal which initially found in its favour and said it was owed GBP95 million including simple interest. However, HMRC, which had paid the company GBP93 million, then successfully appealed with an upper tribunal in September 2014, and Sportech was required to repay the money to the taxman.
----------
By Arvind Bhunjun; arvindbhunjun@alliancenews.com; @ArvindBhunjun

Copyright 2016 Alliance News Limited. All Rights Reserved.