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(An article published at 11:57 GMT incorrectly stated the day. The correct version follows.)
LONDON (Alliance News) - The following stocks are the leading risers and fallers within the main London indices midday Thursday.
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FTSE 100 - WINNERS
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Aviva, up 2.5%. The insurance company has reported a rise in pretax operating profit from continuing operations as increases in its life business and from fund management more than offset a drop in general insurance and health. The company said it made a GBP1.05 billion pretax operating profit in the six months ended June 30, compared with GBP1.01 billion in the corresponding period last year. Operating expenses from continuing operations fell to GBP1.40 billion, while integration and restructuring costs fell by just shy of three-quarters to GBP1.44 billion
Rio Tinto, up 1.4%. The mining company is one of the biggest winners in the blue-chip index after reporting that its pretax profit almost doubled in its first-half. It said its pretax profit increased to USD6.09 billion for the six months to end-June, from USD3.21 billion the previous year. Furthermore, its interim dividend jumped 15% to 96 US cents per share as the company passed its operating cash cost reduction target of USD3 billion six months ahead of schedule and benefited from foreign exchange gains.
British Land Company, up 0.5%. The company said that its recently opened Old Market shopping centre in Hereford is now fully let as River Island and Joules joined the existing retailers at the GBP90 million centre on 10-year leases. The Old Market shopping centre opened May 1, 2014. British Land said that with the last three remaining units at the site now under offer, the scheme is now fully let and under offer.
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FTSE 100 - LOSERS
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Coca-Cola HBC, down 3.6%. The bottling group said its pretax profit rose in the second quarter despite a continued fall in net sales revenue, and said that the strong second quarter drove profit growth in the first half as whole. The bottling group reported a pretax profit of EUR178.7 million for the three months to June 27, up from EUR120.0 million a year earlier, driven by cost cutting, lower input costs, higher pricing and lower financing costs. Its profit for the first half of the year was EUR129.2 million, up from EUR89.0 million in the first half of 2013, but lower than its profit in the second quarter alone as it suffered a loss in the first quarter. However, the group said that due to difficult economic and trading conditions, and a sudden deterioration of trading in Russia and a small number of other markets, it now expects the volume decline trend seen in the first half to persist in the remainder of the year.
Old Mutual, down 3.2%. The investment, savings, insurance and banking company reported a drop in first half profit, as the group was hit by the strength of sterling. It said it made a GBP564.0 million pretax profit in the six months ended June 30, compared with GBP805.0 million in the corresponding period last year, while revenue fell by GBP1.68 billion to GBP7.96 billion. Old Mutual's adjusted operating profit, which is meant to reflect the group's underlying long-term performance and strips out items such as goodwill impairment, fell by 5% to GBP761.0 million. At constant currency, adjusted operating profit rose by 17%.
Randgold Resources, down 1.8%. The mining company said that its pretax profit jumped in its second quarter as higher gold production and lower cost of sales offset a fall in the price of gold. It said its pretax profit increased 52% to USD92.1 million for the three months to end-June from USD60.7 million in the previous year, as revenue rose 28% to USD292.8 million. Gold production rose 41% on the year to 277,283 ounces in the second quarter. In its first half as a whole, the company's revenue rose 12% to USD577.2 million and pretax profit increased 37% to USD200.1 million. However, second-quarter production fell 2%, cash costs rose by 2%, and profit from mining fell 5% compared with the first quarter.
InterContinental Hotels, down 1.4%. The company said it has received a binding offer from Constellation Hotels Holding Ltd to acquire IHG's InterContinental Paris Le Grand hotel for EUR330 million. It said within the binding offer to acquire the 470-room Paris hotel, Constellation Hotels has made a further commitment to invest over time an estimated EUR60 million in renovations of the hotel. IHG said that as at June 30, the hotel had a book value of EUR342 million. Under the deal, IHG will retain a 30-year management contract for the hotel, with three 10-year extension rights, resulting in an expected contract length of 60 years. IHG said the management fees are expected to be around EUR4 million per year.
Mondi, down 1.2%. The international packaging and paper company is among the biggest fallers in the blue-chip index, even though it said that pretax profit rose in its first-half, supported by a strong performance in packaging paper, fibre packaging and its South Africa division, and lower restructuring charges. It increased its dividend by 39%. It said first-half underlying operating profit rose 3% to EUR377 million, from EUR366 million in the comparable period last year. Pretax profit rose to EUR312 million, compared with EUR229 million for the first-half in 2013 and EUR270 million in the second-half. Revenue for the half-year was marginally lower at EUER3.15 billion, down from EUR3.34 billion in the first-half of last year but up from EUR3.13 billion in the second-half. Mondi increased its interim dividend for the period by 39% to 13.23 euro cents per share, up on the 9.55 euro cents paid last year.
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FTSE 250 - WINNERS
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Cobham, up 4%. The company has seen its shares jump after it said it remained confident in its full-year expectations because it expects an improvement in trading margins thanks to higher volumes and better sales of higher-margin products. Its pretax profit and revenue declined in the first-half after the large orders that boosted the prior year result weren't repeated. Pretax profit fell to GBP118 million in the six months to end-June, from GBP137 million a year earlier, while revenue declined 3% to GBP834 million, from GBP864 million, and order intake fell 25% to GBP728 million, from GBP976 million. Cobham is also expecting good commercial growth, increased shorter cycle revenue and significant aerial refuelling engineering milestones in its second-half. "We believe the course of Cobham's evolution has not run entirely to plan, but substantial progress has been made towards returning to mid-single digit organic revenue growth in 2015," said Sandy Morris, an analyst at Jefferies.
Savills, up 3.6%. The real estate advisor posted a rise in pretax profit in the first half and hiked its interim dividend, as strong performance in its UK and European businesses offset continued weak volumes for its Hong Kong, mainland China and Singapore arms. Pretax profit in the six months to June 30 was up 15% to GBP24.7 million, against GBP21.4 million a year earlier, prompting the firm to hike its interim dividend 7.1% to 3.75 pence from 3.50 pence last year.
Spirax-Sarco Engineering, up 3%. The industrial engineering company reported a drop in profit for the first half of its financial year, hit by a fall in revenue and a stronger sterling, but the company raised its interim dividend by 8%. It said its pretax profit in the six months to end-June was GBP63.5 million, down 3% when compared with the GBP65.5 million profit in reported in the first half of 2013. Revenue in the period fell by 4% to GBP319.2 million, down from GBP331.6 million. The group said currency moves wiped 7.6% off sales and 12% off its profit in the first half. It increased its interim dividend by 8% to 19.5 pence per share, and said it saw good profit growth during the first-half in the Americas and also at Watson-Marlow, its peristaltic pumps business.
Enterprise Inns, up 1.4%. The UK pubs operator reported its fourth straight quarter of like-for-like net income growth, and said it remains "comfortable" with meeting its full-year expectations, after its third quarter trading period was boosted by the FIFA World Cup. It said the fourth quarter of its financial year faces tougher comparatives, but said it will continue to use its strong cash generation to reduce its debt, and is on track to get GBP70 million net proceeds from pub disposals during the year. Enterprise Inns said it will reduce its total net debt to GBP2.4 billion by the end of its financial year to end-September.
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FTSE 250 - LOSERS
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Drax Group, down 10%. The energy provider said the UK Court of Appeal has backed the Department of Energy and Climate Change in its decision not to allow the conversion of the second unit at Drax's power station to be eligible for new subsidies. The company started legal proceedings earlier this year against the UK government, after it said the second unit at the power station, which is due to be converted to burning biomass rather than coal, will not be eligible for investment contracts under a new contracts-for-difference scheme, a subsidy for low-carbon electricity generation. The UK High Court recently ruled against the UK government's decision to deem the conversion of the second Drax power plant as ineligible for subsidies under a new government support programme, but that has now been overturned by the Court of Appeal ruling. The Court of Appeal also dismissed Drax's application for a judicial review. The company said that after taking legal advice, it will not appeal against the decision.
Henderson Group, down 6.6%. The investment management company reported a decline in assets under management over the course of the second quarter, as the creation of a 40%-owned real estate joint venture with IAA-CREF and the additional stake it took in 90 West came into effect. It said assets under management fell to GBP74.71 billion at the end of June, from GBP79.20 billion at the end of March. This was due to a GBP6.68 billion reduction due to those deals coming into effect, more than offsetting GBP1.86 billion of net inflows from retail clients and GBP179.0 million of institutional net inflows. Still, Henderson said its first half pretax profit almost trebled, to GBP209.7 million over the six months to end-June from GBP72.0 million in the corresponding period last year. The group reported that net income increased by GBP25.6 million to GBP261.9 million, more than offsetting a GBP23.4 million increase in expenses to GBP171.2 million.
Ferrexpo, down 1.8%. The iron-ore producer, which operates solely in Ukraine, has seen its shares continue to fall, having fallen sharply on Wednesday. Thursday's decline come on the back of a series of negative price target revisions from Numis Securities, JPMorgan Cazanove, and CitiGroup. Numis has cut its price target on the company to 140 pence from 170p, JPMorgan has lowered its target to 120p from 135p, and CitiGroup has decreased its target to 170p from 190p. Deutsche Bank, however, has raised its price target to 312 pence from 307p.
AMEC, down 0.9%. The consultancy, engineering and project management services supplier said its pretax profit slumped in its first half as revenue was hit by the strength of the sterling and the continued slow down of operations in conventional oil and gas. It reported that pretax profit fell 29% to GBP83 million for the six months to end-June, from GBP118 million in the same period the previous year. Revenue fell 7% to GBP1.86 billion, from GBP1.99 billion, including a GBP160 million hit due to the strength of sterling. AMEC said its Americas business unit, generating 56% of group revenue during the period, saw an 8% fall in revenue to GBP1.06 billion due to a slow down in conventional oil and gas operations and continued weakness in oil sands. It also warned that its full-year figures are expected to be hit by the strong pound, with a GBP250 million impact against its full-year revenues.
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AIM ALL-SHARE - WINNERS
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Metminco, up 16%. The company said a Chilean Constitutional Tribunal has dismissed the defences of the land holder at its Mollacas copper project and declared Metminco's lawsuit to be admissible in court. The news comes after the company said in July that the Supreme Court in Chile had rejected the company's application to appeal a recent decision which found that a granted First Easement Extension, allowing the company to engage in further mining at the Mollacas project, was invalid. At the time, the copper mine developer, with operations in Peru and Chile, said the Supreme Court made the decision on the basis that the Court of Appeal was right to say that the extension cannot be granted without the land holder's permission. On Thursday, Metminco said that should the tribunal rule in its favour, then the Chilean courts would not be able to rely on the Court of Appeal's interpretation of the situation.
Graphene NanoChem, up 9.5%. The performance nanochemicals and advanced materials company has filed two new patents for graphene nanomaterials production as its expands its nanomaterials products portfolio. It has filed patents for the "Method of Production of Graphite Nanofiber" and the "Method of Making Graphene by Multiphase Fluid Dynamic Exfoliation," which relate to two different types of graphene nanomaterials developed for specific sets of applications areas. Graphene NanoChem said that it will be seeking to extend the patent protection for its latest inventions in selected jurisdictions worldwide.
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AIM ALL-SHARE - LOSERS
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Mwana Africa, off 9.3%. The mining and development company said it achieved mixed production rates in its first quarter, posting a significant fall in nickel production but growth in its gold and diamond operations. It said nickel production in concentrate from its Trojan mine in Zimbabwe fell 14% to 1,902 tonnes for the three months to end-June compared with the immediately previous quarter, as underground mobile equipment was taken out of commission for refurbishment and due to the mining of lower-grade areas.
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By Neil Thakrar; neilthakrar@alliancenews.com
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