Millennium & Copthorne Hotels Share News (MLC)

LONDON (Alliance News) - The following stocks are the leading risers and fallers within the main London indices on Thursday.
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FTSE 100 - WINNERS
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Gold miners - Fresnillo, up 6.0% and Randgold Resources, up 5.6%. The stocks were supported by a rise in the gold price, trading at USD1,264.20 an ounce, compared to USD1,228.57 at the London equities close Wednesday.

Housebuilders - Barratt Developments, up 1.8%, Berkeley Group Holdings, up 1.8% and Persimmon, up 1.1%. The stocks were initiated at Buy by HSBC.
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FTSE 100 - LOSERS
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British American Tobacco, down 3.0% and Hammerson, down 2.0%. The stocks went ex-dividend, meaning new buyers no longer qualify for dividend payouts.

InterContinental Hotels Group, down 2.3%. Morgan Stanley downgraded the hotel operator to Equalweight from Overweight.
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FTSE 250 - WINNERS
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OneSavings Bank, up 12%. The specialist lender said pretax profit shot higher in 2015 as lending grew and its cost-income ratio improved further. OneSavings said pretax profit for the year to the end of December grew to GBP105.3 million from GBP63.7 million a year earlier. This was helped by costs associated with its listing in London in June 2014 not repeating. The company will pay a final dividend of 6.7 pence per share, taking its total payout for the year to 8.7p, in line with its target dividend policy.

Spire Healthcare Group, up 3.6%. The private hospitals operator swung to a pretax profit in 2015 due to a significant fall in one-off costs, as revenue ticked higher. Spire said it made a pretax profit of GBP73.6 million in the year to the end of December, compared to a GBP7.0 million loss a year earlier when it booked exceptional costs related to restructuring, hospital closures and regulatory and governance costs. It also booked significant finance costs a year earlier due to its listing in London in July 2014. It will pay a final dividend of 2.4 pence per share, up from 1.8p a year earlier. As it paid an interim dividend in 2015, which it did not in 2014 due to its listing, its total dividend more than doubled to 3.7p from 1.8p.

Rentokil Initial, up 3.1%. The pest control company were upgraded to Outperform from Neutral by Credit Suisse.
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FTSE 250 - LOSERS
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AG Barr, down 4.1%. The soft drinks company continued to trade lower after UK Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne, in his eighth budget report Wednesday, announced a surprise sugar levy on soft drinks in two years' time, which will follow a two-tier tax band. AG Barr closed, on Wednesday, as one of the worst mid-cap performers, down 2.4%.

Millennium & Copthorne Hotels, down 3.8%. The hotel operator went ex-dividend.
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MAIN MARKET AND AIM - WINNERS
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Sopheon, up 37%. The software provider swung to profit in 2015 and is confident on its outlook for 2016. Sopheon said it made a pretax profit of USD1.2 million in the year to the end of December, compared to a USD1.5 million loss a year earlier. Revenue increased to USD20.9 million from USD18.3 million, and Sopheon said it has started 2016 with a revenue pipeline of USD12.0 million compared to USD10.2 million the previous year. The company said it has been boosted by the release of new software platforms and investments made in enhancing its ability to deliver its software services in previous years.

88 Energy, up 26%. The oil and gas explorer said it has completed the first phase of the Icewine project in Alaska, and said it has initiated the second phase of work by starting to draw up plans and designs for the second exploration well to be drilled on the project. 88 Energy has been working on the project to try to derisk the HRZ shale formation by drilling the first well on the project, Icewine-1, which mitigated the "three Achilles heels" of the project, the company said.

Aureus Mining, up 16%. The miner said it managed to produce 4,500 ounces over a two-week period from the New Liberty gold mine in Liberia, which has subsequently been shipped to for smelting and refining at the MKS PAMP refinery in Switzerland. The 14-day period ended Tuesday was the first period of production since commercial operations were launched at the beginning of March. Taking into account the gold produced before commercial production commenced, Aureus has yielded 19,200 ounces of gold from the mine since the start of 2016.
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MAIN MARKET AND AIM - LOSERS
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Sirius Minerals, down 20%. The fertilizer development company outlined the results from the eagerly-awaited definitive feasibility study for its huge potash project in York, stating the project can generate between USD1.00 to USD3.00 billion in earnings each year. Sirius is proposing to initially build a project capable of producing 10.0 million tonnes of potash per year for an initial capital cost of USD1.63 billion, before ramping up production to 20.0 million tonnes a year by spending a further USD1.93 billion. Initial production is expected to start in 2021, but the project is not expected to reach that initial 10.0 million tonnes a year until 2023.

Sirius Petroleum, down 12% at 0.332p. The oil and gas company said it has issued a substantial amount of new shares in the company to new and existing shareholders at a discounted price, and said it may have to return to the market again in order to raise funds in the near future. The company said it has issued 166.7 million new shares at a price of 0.3p each to raise a total of GBP500,000, which will drop to GBP464,150 after expenses are taken into account.

Premier Farnell, down 8.4%. The electronic components company said its pretax profit sank in its recently-ended financial year due to a margin squeeze caused by a strong dollar, pricing pressure and a less-favourable sales mix. The company said its pretax profit for the year to the end of January was GBP29.2 million, compared to GBP54.1 million a year earlier, even though revenue increased to GBP982.7 million from GBP960.1 million.
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By Arvind Bhunjun; arvindbhunjun@alliancenews.com; @ArvindBhunjun

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